Free Silence by Michelle Sagara Page B

pretty damn ridiculous. “I’m probably driving you home, where you’l sit in the dark until al this has passed. But yes, I intend to go to Amy’s.” He stood.
    She stood as wel. He waved the waitress over, and they had a smal argument about who was paying, which Eric won by saying, “You can get the next one.”
    As they were heading to his car, he asked, “Wil you try?”
    She didn’t pretend to misunderstand him. “Yes.”
    He nodded, as if that were the most he could expect.
    Alison caught up with Emma in the lunch line-up, looking slightly anxious. “You missed English. Is anything wrong?”
    Emma grimaced. “My mother has given up pretending she didn’t see my father in the hospital, if that’s any indication.”
    Alison winced. “Is she okay?”
    “She’s the Hal version of okay, which is to say, she’s fine.”
    “What’s she going to do?”
    “If I’m lucky it won’t involve joint trips to the nearest psychiatrist.” Emma paused and pointed at the macaroni and cheese, which was one of the hot meal choices. “You know what my luck is like.”
    “And English?”
    “I was talking to Eric,” Emma replied. She hesitated and then added, “And I’l tel you al about it tonight. If I’m not curled up in the dark someplace whimpering.” She reached out and caught Alison’s hand; it was a gesture she’d learned to use with Michael over the years, and it meant, more or less, I’m serious, Michael over the years, and it meant, more or less, I’m serious, pay attention. Alison, who had also learned the same gesture, understood. “I’l tel you everything, but you have to promise that you wil do your absolute best not to worry at me.”
    Alison nodded. “I’l try.”
    “I’m going to try to go to Amy’s tonight because I like having a social life, and I already told her I’d be there.”
    “Michael’s going to go.”
    Even the horrendous background noise that was the cafeteria didn’t disguise the utter silence that folowed this statement.
    Michael was always invited to the larger gatherings, he just never went. Ever.
    “Oliver’s going,” Alison told Emma, nudging her to get her moving. “And I think Connel might go as wel.”
    “How’s Michael getting there?”
    “I’m not sure. We can figure it out when we get back to the table.”
    Eric seemed to have decided that their table—that being whichever table Michael sat at—was also his table. Even given his concerns, most of which she stil didn’t understand and most of which she was now certain she didn’t want to understand, he was pleasant and low-key company. He listened to Michael without eye roling, which was pretty much the only requirement in a lunch companion at this table.
    Not, Emma thought, if she was being fair, that she didn’t sometimes engage in eye roling, but she felt she’d earned that, and Michael understood what it meant when she did it. Michael didn’t ask her about her father, for which she was grateful. It was a normal day, and Emma wanted to hold on to the normal for as long as she could.
    But as they were filing out of the cafeteria, Emma noticed that Alison was hanging back, and she was doing it in front of Eric.
    She started to say something and thought better of it, folowing Michael out of the cafeteria instead.
    Alison was clearly nervous. Determined, but nervous.
    Eric, leaning on the warped wood of the stair railing on portable D, watched her, waiting. He didn’t look bored, and he didn’t look angry; he didn’t seem confused. He just…waited.
    When it became clear that waiting was going to be rewarded with a lot of awkward silence, he cleared his throat. “You wanted to talk to me?”
    She nodded. And then said “Yes,” just in case.
    He waited for a bit longer. “Alison—”
    “I’m sorry,” she said, and looked at her feet. “It’s about Emma.” She looked up in time to see the way his expression changed. It closed up, like a trap.
    “Ah. I’m not interested in Emma in