Chapter 104 – Shadows in the Night – Silver Brooks

My Thanksgiving break was going terribly so far! When I heard we’d be having a full week off from school for the holiday I thought this meant I could take it easy. I thought it meant that I’d finally have some time to hang out with my friends outside of school! No. Instead, my parents were determined to push me into even more tutoring, even more college preparation, and even more chores just because I was at home!

I was beyond fed up at this point and was seriously considering hopping out my bedroom window and running off into the night. The only reason I wasn’t doing so was because the last time I did that my mother had such a fit that she grounded me for weeks and took away my allowance. The allowance my parents gave me was meant to encourage me to make better grades, so they eventually gave it back when they wanted me to study more. My grades went up, but my parents still didn’t trust me. My father was mostly ambivalent towards me. My mother, unfortunately, was a possessive monster that turned into a complete tyrant when I got kicked out of my old school.

These days she wasn’t even letting me go out without a full rundown of where I was going, why I was going there, and who I was going there with. It was too much. My younger sister, an annoying brat a couple of grades beneath me, had a totally different experience with our parents. They loved her unconditionally and doted on her every whim. She knew how well she had it and wasn’t afraid to rub it in whenever she got the chance. It was only when our parents were in plain sight that she reverted to her goody-girl act. It made living at home that much more painful.

After being stuck with them since the start of Thanksgiving break I had been eager to get out of the house. At this point I was desperate enough to go up to them individually to ask them. I decided to start with my dad since he’d be the easier of the two to convince. On top of that, the fact that he was in his office meant that he was busy. He’d probably be in a rush to dismiss me and just give me the go-ahead as a result. Knowing that, I slipped into the office and plopped myself into his lap like a massive nuisance.

“Hey dad, what are you up to?” I asked energetically.

“Can’t you see I’m busy?” He said predictably, “Go bother someone else.”

“Aw, is that anyway to talk to your precious little girl?” I asked with an expression of mock sorrow.

He didn’t even look away from his computer screen to see me. He was so used to this routine by now that he probably had some idea of what I was trying to do.

“What is it that you want from me, Sylvie? I don’t have time for-…”

“I wanted permission to go out tonight!” I said quickly.

“I don’t care.” He responded just as quickly.

“Can I tell mom that you said yes, then?”

He finally stopped what he was doing on his computer to look down at me.

“Wait, you haven’t asked your mother yet?” He asked.

“Well, I was hoping that I’d ask you first and…”

“Oh, no you don’t,” He said, pushing me off of him, “I’m not going to take the fall for you again. You get your mother’s permission first. Only then can you do whatever it is you’re trying to do.”

I kissed him on the cheek.

“Thanks dad!” I said as I rushed off.

“If your mother asks, I had nothing to do with this!” He called as I ran out of his office.

My mother wasn’t in the bedroom or in the living room, which probably meant she was down in the basement. My mother was a painter, just like me. In fact, she was the one that originally inspired me to get into art. Yet we never saw eye-to-eye on the topic. The fact was made even more worthless considering that she hated everything that I made with a passion. She was a very strict, very traditional type of painter that focused heavily on still life images. My modern graffiti art and digital art disgusted her on a visceral level.

“Don’t come down here, I’m busy.” I heard her call out as I opened the basement door.

“Geez, I just barely came into the basement.” I said as I made my way down the steps. “At least give me a second before you toss me out.”

She turned away from the canvas she was painting on to give me a disappointed look and a long, drawn out sigh.

“Sylvie, what do you want? Tell me you’re done with all of your vacation homework?”

“Of course I am! I’ve been done for days!”

She turned back to her painting and continued working. It was just a regular fruit bowl on the table in front of her that she was painting. Her painting regime was rough because she had painted this same thing dozens of times before. She was either trying to improve somewhere that I couldn’t tell, or she was stuck in a loop. Either way I wished she just paint anything else.

“I talked to one of your teachers recently. She told me about an essay that you have to write concerning what you did during the break.”

“Well I can’t write an essay about what I did if I haven’t done anything.”

“Are you coming to a point? This soon…?” She asked me perceptively while dabbing her paintbrush into more paint.

“I was going to ask if I can go to my friend’s house tonight.”

“No,” She said without even considering it.

“But mom…!”

“No,” She repeated.

“Dad said…”

“Of course he did. Your dad immediately rolls over whenever you girls ask him for anything.” She said while painting, “I don’t want you going out tonight. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. You should be here to at least receive your relatives.”

“I can be back here before everyone starts showing up!”

“No,” She repeated.

“Why not…?”

“I’m still not impressed with your most recent report card. If you want to go out and have fun then you have to deserve it.”

“My grades have been steadily improving! I’ve been sitting through every single tutoring lesson you put me through this week! I took notes and everything!”

“Good, because those tutors weren’t cheap,” She said without looking back, “It’s about time that you get into the habit of note taking.”

Feeling frustrated, I walked between my mom and her subject, blocking her view. She lowered her paint brush to put a hand on her hip and give me an impatient look.

“Now you’re just being childish.” She said.

“I’ve done all my chores and anything else that you asked for!”

“You should be doing those things regardless.” She said. “Your sister Addie does the same thing without complaining about it and she’s younger than you. Aren’t you embarrassed to let her set the example?”

“She also gets to go out and have fun with her friends!” I said, trying to hold back a shout.

I knew if I started shouting then this was immediately over with and she’d never let me go out. She glared at me anyways.

“She gets to go out because I know that I can trust her. Her friends are all decent people from decent families. Your friends on the other hand…”

“They’re not as bad as you imagine!”

“No, they’re probably worse. I’ve heard some nasty rumors about your school, recently. It’s a shame that you ever had to enroll there.”

“Can’t you just let me have this one time to hang out with my friends over Thanksgiving break? That’s all I’m asking for. After this I won’t bother you about it again for the rest of the week.”

She brought an annoyed hand to her face, getting paint all over her forehead.

“Sylvie… It’s late and tomorrow is…” She said in irritation.

“You’ve kept me locked up like a prisoner this entire time! I’m being punished constantly for something that happened forever ago. When will I finally get just a small amount of the freedom that Addison gets?”

“Fine, go out!” She snapped, “Don’t bother showing your face here in front of your cousins after you get wasted with your stupid friends!”

Although I felt hurt by that, I didn’t argue it any further. I got the permission that I was looking for and promptly left. Addison must’ve heard our mother shouting because she was waiting just outside the basement door when I walked out. She jumped away from the door as I came out. She was probably listening in before I caught her. She gave me a dirty smirk, the same she always gave me, before I stormed off. I wasn’t going to put up with her tonight. This was the only night I’d be able to get out of the house so I wasn’t going to let anyone ruin it for me.

It didn’t even take me two full minutes to gather my things and get out of the house. I wanted to be far away before my mom had the chance to change her mind, which she did often with things like this. My friends were already waiting for me at our planned meeting place and I’d be the last one to show up. Even with my skateboard it took me a while to get to the location. The meeting place was an out-of-the-way brick bridge. This brick bridge had a railway underpass beneath it.

Perri, Jin, and Brianna were leaning against the brick wall near the bottom of the bridge. They all had their skateboards with them also. The way they were positioned against the brick wall and away from the tracks would obscure them from any train coming through the underpass from the other side. This wasn’t far from a busy loading station so the train would be moving at a fairly low speed. Our plan was to wait beside this underpass then hop on a train as it came by. Jin claimed to have done this before but it would be a first for the rest of us.

“Well, well,” Jin said as I walked through the tall, uncut grass to reach them, “It looks like the dragon finally let the princess out of the castle!”

“Oh shut up,” I said with a roll of my eyes.

Jin was always teasing me about my situation with my family. She lived in a group home with virtually no real oversight. Jin was longstanding friends with Perri, even before we got involved with Naomi, so there was no avoiding her mocking. Perri and I had become close, closer than most of the girls in our group knew. It was a bit of a taboo in our group to have an exclusive lover. Yet…

Perri came over to wrap me into a hug. She picked me up and spun me around the moment I reached her. She was stronger than she looked, considering she was able to pick me up so easily. We were roughly the same height, although I was scrawnier than she was. Perri and Jin worked out together from time to time, which meant they had more muscles on their bones. I was practically a twig by comparison. She put me back down and kissed me on the cheek, subtly pecking at the corner of my lips.

“I haven’t seen you all Thanksgiving break.” She whispered and tightened her hold around me.

“Break it up, break it up!” Brianna said as she playfully pushed her way into our embrace, “Give someone else a turn to get some loving!”

“I missed you too, Bri.” I said.

Perri pulled her into the hug as well.

“Don’t leave me out!” Jin said, joining the hug.

I was in the center of this mass of people and being squished to death.

“Mercy! Mercy!” I shouted.

“Mercedes wasn’t interested in coming.” Brianna said. “She’s staying over at Sam’s place with Naomi for Thanksgiving break.”

“That’s not what I meant!” I said.

Everyone backed off.

“We’ve been waiting for you for a while.” Jin said.

Perri slapped Jin’s shoulder.

“What? It’s true.” Jin complained.

“Please tell me we can still make it.” I said.

“We should have one more chance.” Perri said, “It looked like one train was getting ready to leave the station. I rode my skateboard down the street to check. There were a few open flatcar sections we can ride on safely. The most important part is that no one sees us before we hop on. We’ll need to hide over here in the brush before we make the run for it.”

I grimaced. Jin grinned at me.

“What’s with that face?” Jin asked in a snarky tone. “You scared? Don’t tell me you want to go back after we missed several other trains while we were waiting for you.”

“No, that’s not it. I was just thinking… My mom would probably tell me how right she was if she found out what I was doing.”

Brianna laughed.

“Mine would grab a belt and whoop my ass.” She said.

“If all goes well then no one will find out that we did this.” Perri said. “Look sharp! Here comes the train!”

We lowered ourselves into the grass surrounding us and waited for the train to roll by. The train was mostly carrying commercial cargo inside of boxcars, but it had a few open-top cars hauling some mineral goods also. More importantly, we saw the flatcars that Perri mentioned. Some of them had tethers holding down crates stored on top. Those tethers would make an easy target to latch onto and pull ourselves aboard. We all got up from our hiding spots and prepared to make a run towards one of them. The train was still moving slow, not being far from the station, but the size of it was making me nervous.

“Now!” Perri shouted and sprinted forward.

Jin and Brianna followed close behind. I was caught up vividly imagining of what might happen if I tripped and was lacerated by those wheels.

“Hurry up!” Jin shouted as I lagged behind.

Perri was the first one aboard, pulling herself up in one smooth motion. Jin and Brianna followed after. Unfortunately I was too far behind to make it onto the same car that they jumped onto. I targeted the car directly behind it, but the anxiety was killing me. I was running alongside the train now and was being left behind as it gained momentum.

“Silver!” Perri shouted.

Perri ran back for me. She leapt from train car to train car until she reached the train car closest to where I was running. I already felt so worn out that I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to make the climb up. Luckily I wouldn’t have to. She reached her hand out for me and I grabbed onto her tightly. She hoisted me up with all her might, letting herself fall backwards for increased leverage as she pulled me up. Thanks to this, I was able to jump up in a single motion, almost like she did earlier. However, this technique also caused me to crash right into her when I made it aboard.

I ended up landing right on top of her as she fell back against the flat surface of the train car. She laughed in excitement and I wanted to laugh with her but I was so out of breath that my laugh sounded like a broken horn. I started to get off of her but she stopped me. She put her arms around me and pulled me into her even tighter. When I realized what she was doing I put my face up against hers so that the tip of my nose was touching hers. She smirked.

“You’re cutting it close, as always.” She said.

She was speaking so softly that it was hard to hear her over the wind despite being so close. The train was picking up speed rapidly now.

“I knew you’d come back for me.” I said.

“Did you?” She teased.

“You’d probably be bored at the concert without me. You don’t even care about any of the bands that are going to be playing, do you?” I asked. “If you didn’t come back for me then I was sure you would jump off. Jin and Bri would probably be pissed, but I can still see you doing that. They’d probably jump off after you did.”

Perri grinned.

“You know me too well by now.” She said. “I guess that’s for the best. Maybe that means I should stop beating around the bush and come straight out with what I planned to ask you tonight.”

I blinked at her sudden change in tone.

“What’s that?”

“Let’s make things between us official.” She said. “Forget about all that open relationship stuff. Let’s be just you and me.”

“The others won’t like that.” I noted.

She leaned forward enough to give me a light kiss on the lips before pulling away.

“This will stay between us then. Jin and Brianna won’t tell anyone, I’m positive.” Perri said.