Living Silver

I went home in a daze. I wasn’t sure if Trey was just fooling around and trying to get into my head, or if he actually thought I had feelings for his brother. Frankly, I didn’t even know if I had feelings for Pax. But the fact was, I doubted it and the minute that happened, it immediately meant that things weren’t as innocent as we agreed they would be.

And that meant one thing; I had to end it.

I didn’t know how I was going to do it, so that was why I was going right back to my house. I needed to practice in front of a mirror first, mentally prepare myself, and then go over to talk to him. But things really didn’t seem to be working in my favour today, because when I opened my bedroom door, there he was lying on my bed, reading one of my magazines.

“What are you doing here?” I blurted.

He looked at me oddly. “I didn’t know it was that big of a deal.” He looked down at the pages in front of him for a minute. “According to this magazine of yours, my recommended nail polish colour that reflects my personality is ‘sultry orange’. Can you take me over to the drug store so I can pick some of this stuff up?”

“I really hope you’re kidding,” I said, putting my backpack beside my dresser.

“I am. What’s up?” he asked, tossing the magazine to the floor and keeping himself propped up with his hands behind him. “You look a little upset. Is everything okay?” He scowled deeply. “Is Dalton bothering you again? Do I have to kick his ass?”

“No, it’s nothing like that,” I said. “I just . . . we need to talk about something.”

“Okay.” He moved for me to sit down beside him but I shook my head.

“I think I should stand for this.” I took a deep breath and crossed my arms over my chest. “Today, Liam asked me on a date for Friday and I told him no. But my excuse was that I was involved with someone already.”

Pax sat up, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “Oh,” he said, a little surprised. “So then . . . what does this mean? Are you saying you want to end it?”

“I don’t want to but I think it’s best that we do,” I replied, biting my lip. “Trey’s under the impression that by saying what I did, my feelings got in the way and that would mean I have feelings . . . well, for you. And we agreed the minute that happened, we had to just move on from this.”

Pax stood up. “Why? You know it’s not that simple. There was obviously something here from the start.”

“Maybe, but we can’t keep on with it. It’ll get too complicated,” I said, shaking my head.

He sighed. “I don’t want it to end. This was the longest, most stable semi-relationship I’ve ever been in and I had a lot of fun.”

“Same with me,” I agreed, putting my hands in my pockets and shrugging. “And I had a lot of fun.”

“But you still think it’s better if we stop?” I nodded. Pax sighed and pushed his hair back. “All right, I guess we have to. Man, it’s going to be hard to get back into the normal system of just being your friend when that line was crossed like, a month ago.”

I smiled. “Yeah, well we have to act like nothing has changed. That’ll probably be the hardest thing I’ve had to do all year.”

Pax snickered. “It’s so easy to make that into a sex joke.”

I laughed and put my hand on his shoulder. “It’s good to know you’re back to normal,” I said, leading him to the door. We left my bedroom and walked down the stairs to the front, where Pax put on his running shoes and put his arms out for a hug. When I was hesitant, he gave me a look. “Oh, come on. We have to start now.”

I walked into his arms and was greeted with a warm, tight embrace. I sighed and wrapped my arms back around him. I was going to miss this. I had lost track of how long I had been with Gage compared to the time with Pax, but this—regardless of it not being a full relationship—was definitely more productive. I had gotten so used to looking at him as the guy I could disappear around the corner with and kiss silly until I couldn’t even think straight, but now I was going to have to look at him as that guy I did have a thing with, but now am just friends with. I could admit it to myself that I had feelings for Pax, but deep down, I knew I would have preferred if we could have continued what we did even if we did like each other. I wanted to be with him, but he didn’t want to be with me. And that was just the way things were going to be.

“Wow, this really sucks,” he said, pulling back and rubbing his hands on the back of his pants. “I didn’t think it would end so soon.”

“Me neither. But we had a good run. Two months is longer than some people get in a lifetime and it’s not like it didn’t go anywhere,” I pointed out.

“True. Well, I have homework that I need to get working on so I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asked.

“Yeah. Talk to you later,” I said, grabbing the door handle and pulling it opened but my eyes went wide with shock when I saw who was standing in front of me. Pax was obviously surprised too.

Molly.

“I—uhm . . .” she stuttered nervously. She had her fist raised to knock but I had opened the door before she had a chance to make contact. She quickly lowered her arm to her side and swallowed the lump in her throat. “Andy? I was wondering if I could talk to you about something.”

Pax looked at me, also curious about what my answer would be.

This was not something I was expecting.



I had never been alone with Molly before, and frankly it wasn’t any less awkward as it was when I was with her and Gage at the same time. Except this time, I wasn’t angry at her for what had happened. It had been months, and I had moved on a long time ago, so I really didn’t know why she had showed up at my house after such a lengthy time gap. She drove us down to the beach and we got some ice cream while we walked around the lakeshore. Then finally, we found a bench and sat down.

Molly sighed. “I hope it’s not too late to apologize,” she said.

I looked over at her. “For what?”

“For being the reason you and Gage broke up,” she replied. “I don’t know what I was thinking. It wasn’t my place to get in the middle of a relationship like that, and seeing as I know what it feels like to be cheated on, I had no right to do what I did. I wouldn’t have had any right even if I didn’t know what it felt like but you know what I mean.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I understand.”

“It’s just . . . I love him, you know? And I didn’t want to blow another chance at being with him. When Hailey emailed me that day—” I scowled at the thought of that hellion and Molly laughed. “I fully agree. But when I got her email saying that Gage wanted to talk to me, I thought maybe getting back together with him was a possibility. I had no idea he already had a girlfriend.”

“Well Hailey is tricky like that,” I said. “But don’t worry about it. I’m over him.”

“You are?”

“Completely. If I wasn’t, I probably would have slammed the door in your face,” I smiled. “I haven’t thought about him for months. I think he may have called me a few times and left a message but if he did, either my brother erased them or I forgot about them too soon to remember to get back to him. But I understand true love. If you guys are meant together, then not even a girlfriend could get in the way of that.”

Molly blushed. “I expected you to be a lot meaner than this.”

“How come?”

“Well . . . I mean, my source was Hailey.”

“Ah.” I laughed and shook my head. “Never go to her. She’s nuts.”

“I haven’t talked to her for weeks. She disappeared off the map, but I can’t say I’m complaining.” She shrugged and ran her teeth over her bottom lip twice before speaking again. “That guy Pax, the one she was dating during the summer . . . Gage told me they met through you.”

“Yeah, that was my mistake,” I said, shaking my head. “Just one of those things I regret not saying no to and it ended up going way too far.”

She tilted her head to the side as she stared at me. “Do you like him?”

I let out a deep breath and managed a tiny, awkward smile. “It’s complicated.”

“How so?”

“We were . . . together for a while. Sort of.” She raised her eyebrows, intrigued. “I mean, it wasn’t anything serious but it was a good relief. It was literally right after things ended with Gage, and then the day after it happened, he broke up with Hailey.”

“And you two aren’t dating because . . ?”

“It would just be too hard,” I said, lifting a shoulder. Then I looked over at her, realizing what I was doing and laughed. I put my hands over my face. “Oh gosh. I’ve never nearly spilled my guts out to a complete stranger before. What’s wrong with me lately?”

Molly giggled. “I won’t say anything to anyone. I have no one to tell anyway. You don’t have to tell me any more information about your personal life; I was just wondering what that was all about. That one day when I ran into you guys at the beach, he couldn’t take his eyes off of you.”

This made my smile grow. “Really?”

“Yeah! It was actually adorable,” she responded. “Anyway, I’ve just had this need to apologize to you for the longest time. I didn’t want it to be another bad mark on my conscience, even though what I did was pretty unacceptable.”

I shook my head. “It’s okay. I forgive you.”

“It may be a bit much to ask,” she began, and I noticed her hands shaking a little, “but you do think it would be at all possible for us to be friends some day?”

“You want to be friends?”

She nodded.

I couldn’t bring myself to think anything bad about this girl. I probably should have been able to, after she kissed my boyfriend but the problem was, I liked her. She was nice, and I understood why Gage had been so attracted to her. It wasn’t too much of her to ask, as long as she was giving me some time. Because just shaking her hand and saying “let’s be friends” wasn’t going to work for me right now.

“Some day,” I agreed. “I’m sure if we hang out more, I can get there.”

She grinned. “You have no idea how much that means to me.”

I smiled back at her because really, I did know.



October 13th, 4:12 pm.

“Okay, so if we make reservations for seven-thirty, that gives us time to get her ready and she’ll still be home before her dad freaks out at her for being late,” Trey said as he, Pax and I left the student council room and headed for our lockers. The halls were pretty much dead, except for the others leaving the meeting. I had signed up for SC this year because I preferred putting in ideas about the school and being a student leader instead of just being forced to do what they decided. Pax had also joined, but Trey only went because we had to organize for Karlee’s surprise party.

“Sounds good. Who’s making the reservations?” I asked.

“I will. You guys have more homework than I do and I can make them tonight anyway, since I have the list of people going,” Trey replied.

Pax snorted. “You just want the credit,” he said with a smirk.

Trey frowned. “No.”

I put my hands up. “Whatever you say,” I laughed. “We’ll let you do it.”

“Dalton’s invited, I take it?” Pax questioned for me. I tried to keep a straight face, but it was a struggle.

“Obviously,” Trey mumbled, unhappy about it. “He asked to plan with us but I said we had it covered.”

“Good,” I said immediately. Pax, Trey and I had spent the past week and a half organizing for the party and if Dalton did plan with us, I would have had to see him for that long as well.

Trey looked at me curiously, then shook his head. “All right, well I’ve got to go now. Coach wants to see me before I go home. Talk to you later.” He waggled his eyebrows at Pax and I like he expected us to pounce on each other the minute he disappeared, and then walked off.

I rolled my eyes and turned to Pax. He cleared his throat and shoved his hands in his pockets. “So,” he began hesitantly, but then when he realized he had nothing else to say, he puffed up his cheeks and slowly began to blow the air out of them.

I shook my head. “We can talk like normal when we’re around with other people but when it comes to us being alone, we’re stumbling over simple words,” I laughed. “Come on. We’ve got to get back in the game.”

He smiled. “How? It’ll take a lot of work.”

“We’ll get a hang of it,” I said, ruffling his hair. “Go home. I have to get my bag from my locker.”

“Do you want me to wait up for you?”

“Nah, it’s okay. I’ll catch you later,” I said, beginning to walk backward for the staircase and giving him a wave. He stuck his tongue out at me and left in the opposite direction. I got into the staircase and as I was heading up, Dalton was coming down. The minute I saw him, I kept my eyes firmly planted to my feet and made sure not to look at him. But the stairs were doubled, so they met on a platform before they continued again. I was just stepping onto the platform and turning to get back on the second stairway when Dalton spoke to me.

“Andy,” he said, lightly touching the side of my arm. I wanted to hit him. “Are you coming to my party next Friday?”

“Absolutely not,” I said plainly, and began to walk past him but suddenly, his hand hit the wall, right in front of my face so I stopped. I sighed and looked over at him, unimpressed and glaring. “What do you want from me?” I asked.

He leaned closer. “I know about you and Pax.”

My eyes widened momentarily. How would he have possibly known? We had been secretive, and even Trey finding out was just pure luck. I quickly returned to a look that showed nothing, and tried to appear bored. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

“Yeah you do,” he said, putting his other hand beside my head. He leaned in even closer. “I was thinking, maybe we could . . .” He stopped and looked me up and down, smirking. If I thought the first time had been bad, I really had no idea. This was ten times worse. “Come on, Andy. We went to school together.”

“So?”

“Would it be so terrible? No one has to know,” he said, running his hand down my arm, but I immediately slapped it away.

“You’re a pig,” I snapped. “Count yourself lucky that I won’t be telling Karlee about this. I probably should but I wouldn’t want her to know how big of a mistake she is making by actually liking you.”

“So you’ll hook up with Pax but you won’t hook up with me,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Stay away from me,” I seethed, shoved by him violently and rushed to my locker. If I was going to get out of this, I either had to forever keep it a secret, tell Karlee the truth, or commit murder. And right now, all of those sounded next to impossible.