Living Silver

March 5th, 7:49 am.

“I hate my stupid bus driver,” Aimee groaned, throwing her bag into the locker with malice, causing Pax and I to jump. When she looked at us, we were frozen with shock because neither of us had seen her express such hatred and anger before. She had been stressed of course, but she’d never forcefully thrown something somewhere, and her bag looked to have taken a pretty bad beating. She saw me looking at it as a lump in the bottom of the locker with a slit through the side now that it had scraped the sharp edge and dug deeply into the material. She ran a hand through her hair. “Lovely.”

“Not your day, is it?” Pax asked, crossing his arms.

“That obvious?” Her voice dripped with sarcasm and she chuckled dryly. “I wake up and my mom’s hounding me about how I need to get my life in order. Apparently I’m an ‘untrustworthy daughter who doesn’t know right from wrong’.” She scoffed. “What does that even mean?”

“Did you do something to tick her off lately?”

“I went out with my boyfriend,” she replied, peeling off her jacket and hanging it up on one of the hooks. “What, is that a sin now or something? I get that she doesn’t like me dating but isn’t that going a little overboard?” She shook her head. “Whatever. I don’t even care anymore. Hey, did you find any more pearls lately?”

“Yep.” I held up the one that had been resting at the bottom of the locker and after getting another on Valentine’s Day, it was clear I wasn’t going to need the note that Pax left anymore so I got rid of it. “I’m turning them into a bracelet.” I lifted my wrist to reveal the stretchy string wrapped around it with all four beads pressed together. “It’s a little bare right now but I’m sure it’ll catch up eventually.”

Aimee let out her first laugh of the day, although it was a little dull. “You’re funny,” she said. With her tone, it was hard to believe. “I guess we know who he’s interested in now. Are you going to try and find out who he is?”

“Eventually,” I shrugged. “I’m too busy with studying and working at the shelter to bother right now.”

“That’s not you,” Pax said, narrowing his eyes. “That’s your mom talking.”

“Well at least we know I’m hers.”

“I should go,” Aimee said, grabbing her binder and closing the locker. “I’ve got to catch up with Dylan before class. I have to tell him something important.” And before I had a chance to ask what it was, she ran off down the hall and left me alone with Pax.

“All right then,” he said slowly, watching her with confusion written across his face. Then he turned to me. “So what’s going on with Gage? Have you talked to him at all or have you just kind of left it alone?”

“I’ve left it alone,” I nodded. “I don’t really want to deal with it right now, you know?”

“It’s been like . . . a month.” Pax put his arm up against the wall, leaning in. “Has nothing romantic happened between the two of you since then? Or has he at least tried to talk about it at the kennel?” he asked, to which I shook my head. “You know, since it’s lasted this long I think instead of asking him about it, you should just ignore him.”

“Ignore him?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “Why would I do that?”

“Well if kissing you means anything to him and he actually wants it to happen, then by ignoring him you’re making it clear that you wanted it too. And unless he’s a complete idiot, he’ll take action and talk to you before you have to approach him.”

“Actually, by ignoring him I’m just proving that I can go longer without talking to him than he can for me.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “How would this possibly benefit me?”

“Just try it,” Pax said, and cleared his throat when footsteps approached me from behind. I turned around and came face to face with Gage. He shot me a small smile, but looked uncomfortable. It was most likely Pax’s presence and the fact that he was sending him a killer glare that was setting him off. I elbowed Pax in the stomach and he grunted, before giving me a light tap on the arm for encouragement and walking off.

“Hey,” Gage said and cleared his throat. “Do you have time to talk?”

I looked at my wrist, and luckily I actually had a watch on this time around when I needed it. “Thirty seconds,” I said, and began counting them down in my head.

“Okay, so about Valentine’s Day . . . I really do like you, Andy. And I would love to take you out again on another date but I just wasn’t sure if you wanted me to kiss you or not. I’ve had relationship issues before and—” I raised an eyebrow and he lifted a hand, shaking his head “Never mind. That’s not important right now. I just know not to make passes at someone if I’m not one hundred percent sure that they’re interested in me the way I’m interested in them, you know? And I know it’s not a good excuse but I had a lot on my mind that night that was distracting me and . . .” Gage sighed. “Well, basically I’m really sorry. So what do you say? Can you give me another shot?”

I felt idiotic after that for even considering taking Pax’s advice. But I felt even more idiotic when I lifted my chin and said a simple “I have to get to class”. And I left him there in the hallway.

A week passed and the only communication with Gage was at the kennel when he was asking me to help him out with the dogs, or discussing anything that had to do with work. Besides that, we didn’t talk. But it was obviously frustrating him because one day after my shirt was over and I was going to grab my coat off the hook and head for the door, he seized my wrist over the counter and pulled me back.

“Okay,” he spoke with a frown. “You can’t ignore me forever. Tell me what I have to do to make it up to you. Because I’m not going to give up until I get that second date.”

“You’re very confident aren’t you?”

“I am, yes.”

I smiled. “Loosen your grip,” I said, thankful that Pax’s advice had actually worked. Now I knew that it wasn’t anything to do with me for the reason Gage didn’t kiss me, and he definitely hadn’t lost interest. “How’s Friday?”

Gage looked surprised that I had given in so easily, and let his arm fall back to his side. “I had a whole big speech prepared.”

“Didn’t you just use it?” I laughed.

“Well, no. I readied myself in case you insisted on not going out with me. I had like . . . a list.”

“You don’t need it,” I said, and worked up enough courage to press my hands down on the counter, lift myself up onto my toes and press my lips lightly against his. “Everyone’s got their baggage,” I alleged. “I don’t care if you have relationship history. Don’t let it affect who you’re dating now.”

“Wait, whoa.” He held up his hands. “We’re dating?”

“I’m afraid so.” When Gage smiled, I gave him a wink and headed for the door, but quickly threw one last thing over my shoulder. “And you so could have done that on Valentine’s Day.”



December 25th, 1:31 am.

“What are you thinking about?” Pax asked, putting his chin in his hand. We had been left in silence for over twenty minutes, waiting for the other one to say something at the same time as dreading the words to come.

“If you’re so keen on dating me and claim to have wanted to for a long time, then why did you date Hailey while I was with Gage?” I finally said, pushing my hair back and rubbing my sweaty, nervous hands on my thighs. Pax’s gaze was making me uncomfortable. It didn’t make me want to get up and leave, but it wasn’t like I planned on staying with him all night when he had that look in his eyes like he was about to blow a fuse.

Pax shrugged. “I don’t know. She was a distraction.”

I scoffed. “Yeah, right. What were you, ‘confused’?” I muttered, adding air quotes to make him regret what he had said. It worked, and his face dropped. “Come on, Pax. If you honestly wanted to date me for months now, don’t you think that it was stupid to go out with Hailey? She was an absolute stress-case that caused hell everywhere she walked.”

“That is true. She was like Satan’s minion at work again,” he said, and pushed himself off of the chair. He walked into the kitchen and I followed him, relieved to get out of the room for the first time in a good hour. Sleep wasn’t even on my mind anymore, because I knew I wasn’t going to the leave house until we had settled everything. And if that meant staying awake until six in the morning, then that would have to be it. My mom had called during the time of silence and asked where I was, but she had spent so much time with Karlee’s and the twins’ parents that they had gone through three bottles of wine between the six of them, so they were basically fully out of it. And when I told them I was at Pax’s house, they just told me to get home before we opened presents. That was probably the coolest thing about my parents; when they drank even a little bit, they suddenly became very reasonable.

I probably could have told them I was at the airport about to go to Russia and all they would say was “okay, well get back before dinner.”

“Was she a hassle to date?” I asked Pax, putting my elbows down on the counter. He closed the fridge with two cans of pop in his hands, and slid one over to me. I caught it before it fell off the counter.

“She was . . . vicarious,” he replied, rubbing his eyes. “I would have preferred dating someone else. I think Hailey was really carefree and it didn’t matter to her who she dated, as long as she got her brother’s attention.”

“She was practically in love with him,” I muttered, rolling my eyes. “It was kind of disgusting.”

“Kind of?” Pax scoffed. “It’s more than just kind of disgusting. She was glued to his side whenever you weren’t around. It was like she was his girlfriend.”

I shook my head. “She might as well have been,” I said. “That was one hell of a summer.”

“Yeah, it was,” he nodded. “I’m actually really surprised that Karlee and Trey didn’t get together then.

“Well he was with Ruby. If she was interested in him at all during that time, you know she would never dream of making a move on him. But I knew she was jealous when she found out Ruby asked him out,” I said. “They were really close during the summer. Now that I think about it . . .”



April 10th, 7:23 pm.

“Trey told me there’s this girl who keeps asking him out. Ruby, I think her name was,” Karlee said, splitting her chopsticks apart. On that Friday night, we had decided to go out for sushi, just the two of us for some separation from the twins. Plus, Trey had swimming and Pax was having some down time in his room where he was actually reading for English. If I had found him with a book just to pass the time, I would automatically assume he was upset about something. Any of us would have.

“How did he reply to her?” I asked, trying to concentrate on Karlee instead of the crazy Asian techno-rap playing through the music system in the restaurant. I rubbed my wrist and fixed my bracelet, which now had seven beads on it from the time that had passed.

“He said no, but I think he’s a little interested.”

I looked up when I heard the uncomfortable tone in Karlee’s voice.

“Do you like him?” I asked, putting a piece of sushi in my mouth.

Karlee stopped with her chopsticks halfway to her mouth, then put them down and shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it. It’s just, it’s nothing.” I cocked a brow, doubtful, and unfortunately let a snort escape me. “What?! If he does like her, I don’t really care.”

“Sure you don’t,” I smirked, looking down at my plate. She kicked me in the ankle under the table and we both laughed. “Come on, Karlee. Don’t act like it doesn’t bug you even a little bit. You grew up with the guy. If you didn’t feel something for him or get upset that he may be interested in a girl that’s not you, you wouldn’t be human!”

She waved a hand in the air, dismissing the topic. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’m sure Ruby is a perfectly nice person.”

I scoffed. “Yeah. Right.”