Weighted Silence (Complete)

Chapter 21: Dion

21Dion

I could barely look at Saylor as I drove toward Mrs. May's thirty minutes later. Shame was not a strong enough word for the feeling coursing through me. I didn't know what I'd been thinking. Well, I did, only I was using the wrong head to think it. She liked me. I'd known that already, and I'd more or less admitted to liking her, so while part of my brain was thinking that we were both adults who were attracted to each other and yada-yada, the other part understood her hesitance.

Though she definitely showed interest whenever we touched, she seemed to have a different idea about what it meant to be intimate than what I did. For me, intimacy in any form— not necessarily sex— was powerful. It brought two people together in a way that was stronger than what they shared with anyone else, forming a connection that was unbreakable. But to Saylor, I wondered if it was the unbreakable part that left her unsure, seeing as how we would have to break, just as soon as she went home, and thus she'd rather avoid the entire thing rather than wind up hurt in the end.

Took me back to that day in the blanket fort, when she'd cried after kissing me in the hot tub. Her first thought afterward was that I might hit her or call her a whore, because we weren't together and she knew we couldn't be.

That told me that, at some point in her life, someone else had said and done those things to her, making intimacy very obviously difficult for her. Somewhere deep down, I'd known that. Ever since the hot tub, seeing her tears after, I had known that someone had hurt her. It'd been one of the things I wanted to ask if I'd won Mario Kart. But I hadn't won, and now that I'd violated her, I wondered if she'd ever tell me. I wondered if she'd ever open up to me again.

I would be kicking myself all night, and probably all the next day too.

But for now, I tried to put it out of my mind as I pulled into Mrs. May's little neighborhood. Only seven people lived on this side of town, Mrs. Truman being one of them. The houses were all stone and log architecture to create quaint little cottages that looked like Thomas Kinkaid paintings. Smoke was billowing from the chimneys of all seven houses as we drove down the one and only road, then pulled left into Mrs. May's driveway.

Through the broad front window, I could see her inside with her husband, Burt, standing in the kitchen. She was stirring something on the stove while he dipped his finger into a bowl on the counter. She whacked him with a spoon, making me smile as I finally turned a glance to Saylor.

She met me with a tired smile. "You ready?"

I nodded and climbed out into the snow, then rounded to help her out, doing my best to touch her as little as possible until she was on her feet, then releasing her altogether. Her lips turned down as I did so, but I couldn't decipher the expression on her face as I fell into step beside her and moved toward the front door to knock.

Mrs. May greeted us with broad smiles, her arms reaching out to collectively hug us both before she ushered us inside. Immediately, she began tugging me out of my damp coat, which she hung on the hall tree beside the door before turning a frown to Saylor.

"Saylor, honey, I've seen you in nothing but that thin denim jacket since the day you arrived. Do you not have anything better to stand against this cold?"

Glancing down at herself, Saylor shook her head. "Where I live, there isn't much need for heavy coats, so..." She fanned one side of her pitiful jacket with one hand while Mrs. May tisked.

"Well that just won't do at all. Dion, why don't you go on into the kitchen with Burt. Whack him with a spoon if you catch him tasting." She pointed a finger at me, then draped a gentle arm over Saylor's shoulders. "You come with me. We're gonna find you something more suitable."