The Mole on His Cheek

Two in the morning. My ex called to say he wanted me back, with a room full of his friends listening in. My eyes burned. I said yes.

Then the other end of the line exploded into laughter. "Told you," he said. "Wren Halloway. I crook one finger and she comes crawling." I didn't yell at him.

I only asked if he meant what he'd just said. "Silas. Just come back. You can do whatever you want to me…" The line went dead quiet. "Wren! This is Roman, damn it.

Tell me right now. Who the hell is Silas?" Chapter 1 The phone rang at two in the morning while I was burning up. I came up out of the fog and answered it.

Noise first, a room full of people yelling over music. Then his voice came through, low and warm against my ear. "Wren. I miss you." That voice. My eyes stung.

For three months I'd needed pills to fall asleep.

Now he was in my ear again, and my throat closed up so fast I couldn't get a clean breath. "I miss you too." The music dipped on his end. "Come on. Enough fighting.

Let's fix this." His voice went through me like wine. The fever had broken while I slept, and my shirt was soaked through, sticking to my back.

My nails dug into the edge of the phone. I nodded in the dark like he could see me. Yes. Yes. Then the laughter hit. "That's our boy Vance!

Two sentences and the ex is on her knees." "People still fall for the two a.m. reunion bit? Where'd you even find her, Vance? She waited on you like you were her daddy.

Three months broken up and she's still out here begging." "That's what happens when you're Vance. He says get lost, she gets lost.

Good girl." "One time he was out with somebody else and made one call.

Wren drove over and dropped off condoms at the door." "No way somebody's that much of a doormat." "That's Vance for you.

Fine, I'll drink to it." Chapter 2 They laughed until somebody choked. Then his voice came back over the top of them. "I keep telling you. Wren's got no shame.

I crook one finger and she's climbing all over me." Same low voice. A little pleased with itself now. Then, to me: "We're playing truth or dare, babe.

Thanks for taking a shot for me." Bored. Already done with the call. I couldn't let it end. "Did you mean it? What you just said." The other end stalled.

Even the music dropped. "Are you sick in the head?

You didn't actually think I called you at two in the morning to get back together." "You said it," I told him. "I said yes." My voice broke halfway through.

It came out low and begging, and I let it, because I had nothing left worth protecting. "Silas. Just come back. You can do whatever you want to me…" Nothing came back.

The silence went on so long I could hear my own hiccuping breath in it. Then he roared. "Wren! Tell me right now. Who the hell is Silas?" Silas.

That name took up my entire adolescence. For a second I was sixteen again, in the summer I met him. That was the worst stretch of my life.

Grandma had raised me and then Grandma was gone, and I came off the leash like a rabid dog and let myself rot in the mud. I got caught fighting again.

My homeroom teacher gave me one last chance. If nobody showed up as my guardian, she was taking it to the office and having me expelled.

I leaned back against the wall and shrugged. "My dad's in Canada. My mom's in Thailand. Can't reach either of them.

Want me to go dig up my grandma for you?" "Wren Halloway!" She grabbed my arm and started walking me toward the office to sign the paperwork. That's when Silas showed up.

He came in fast, stepped between us, and led with an apology. "I'm sorry I'm late. I'm her halfbrother." Brother? Neither of us moved.

She was looking at a man who was clean and sharp and serious, and then at me, a choppedup dye job under an inch of makeup. Two different worlds.

I froze because I'd just found out my parents had a secret kid this old. So I fought him on principle. "Bull.

I don't have a brother." I got in his face, swearing, shoving at his chest to move him out of the doorway. He looked thin. Bookish, even.

He caught both my wrists with one hand anyway and kept apologizing to my teacher over my head without breaking stride. He promised her he'd keep me in line from now on.

She gave me one more chance. Then he walked me home with a hand clamped on my shoulder. On the way he steered me into a salon and had them fix the hair and scrub off the makeup.

The mirror handed me back a face I barely knew. Chapter 3 He looked at me for a second, then laughed and scrubbed a hand through my hair. "Better.

You look like a student." I didn't pull away. I leaned in and bit down on the web of his hand as hard as I could. Missed. He caught my chin instead. "Wow.

Mean little thing, aren't you." "Get off me. I'm calling the cops. You're a kidnapper." The words came out mangled around his fingers. He was goodlooking.

That didn't help him one bit with me, especially when he smiled, because the smile was so bright it hurt to look at. I swore at him. Kicked him. Hit him. He let me wear myself out.

When I finally stopped, he explained it in the same easy voice. "I'm not a kidnapper. Your parents asked me to look after you." "Bull. They don't care about me.

Grandma died and they didn't even come home." I meant to say it like it was nothing. My voice cracked in the middle anyway, and I glared at him with my eyes burning.

My cheeks itched. They were wet. He went quiet. Let go of my chin.

It took him a while to answer. "When you get into college, they'll come back." I thought about that. "They wish." My opinion didn't matter. He moved in.

I called the police on him once. He produced notarized guardianship papers signed by both my parents, and I never found out where he got them. That shut me up.

So I gave up and treated him like furniture. Our twobedroom apartment used to be mine and Grandma's, one room each. Now he had Grandma's room.

He cooked three meals a day like it was a job, and he cleaned. Free livein help. Only an idiot turns that down. Once I framed it that way, I stopped feeling weird about it.

One thing drove me insane, though. He wanted me home after school, every day. It didn't matter which dive pool hall I picked. He'd walk in and find me. Then came homework.

I said I didn't understand it, and instead of giving up he sat down next to me and taught it. Everything I didn't understand, he could teach. "Silas.

Be honest with me." He'd dragged me home again. I couldn't help asking. "Are you in some kind of program?

Like, I go to college and you get points, or money, or your terminal illness gets cured?" He flicked my forehead. "College is for you." "What do I need it for?" I rubbed the spot. "It's not like I want them back…" "Don't you?" He cut me off.

He looked right at me, and his voice lost all its ease. "Don't you want to prove it to them?

That even with nobody in your corner, you can turn out extraordinary." My fingers curled in. Something in my chest started moving.

He had a small teardrop mole at the corner of his eye. I looked into his eyes. There was too much light in them to look at straight. Midterms came.

I went from second from the bottom to top fifty in my class. Nobody believed the printout. I was too happy to care. All day I planned how I'd break it to him that night.

The plan was to lie. Tell him I was still second from the bottom. First I'd lie. Then I'd make him cook the ribs. Chapter 4 His ribs were unbelievable.

I was still sitting there thinking about them when my homeroom teacher called me into her office, before the last bell. She thought I'd cheated. She wanted the scores thrown out.

That night I went to a club. Silas picked me up from the police station. The officer on duty walked him through it. There'd been a sweep.

They'd pulled a batch of minors out of the place, and I was the easiest to spot, drunk in my school uniform, grinding on the dance floor with a crowd of people I couldn't name.

Silas's face had gone to stone. He said something low to the officer, signed a form, and only then came over and walked me out. I hadn't drunk that much.

An hour in that drafty hallway had burned most of it off anyway. He didn't say a word the whole way home. His jaw stayed locked, so mine did too.

I headed for my room without looking at him, and he stopped me. "Stand there. You've got nothing to say?" My back came off the wall before I decided to move. "I don't need you.

You're not my dad. You're not my mom. You think one piece of paper makes you anything?" He crossed the room toward me. He was thin. When his face went hard, that stopped mattering.

He stood over me, a head taller, and his voice came down colder than I'd ever heard it. "Do you have any idea how much you'd be disappointing your parents right now?" I swung my backpack at him and screamed until my throat tore. "How disappointed could they get?

The weeds on their graves are taller than you are. You don't know anything." His face was ice. I watched it crack, hairline by hairline.

The room stayed frozen for a long time before his voice came back into it, low. "How long have you known?" My fists closed.

The alcohol swam back up behind my eyes, and my whole body ran hot