Free Truest by Jackie Lea Sommers

asshole. Some days are worse than others. Today is worse.” He smiled weakly.
    It was the very last thing I would have expected him to say. Even now, as I sat blinking on the porch swing, I wondered if I had heard him right. “So . . . wait— what? She just woke up one day and decided reality wasn’t real, or . . . how did that happen? Is this okay that I’m asking?”
    â€œYeah, it’s fine. I don’t know. I honestly don’t. It’s been like this for a few years. But Laurel has always been this way—where she gets hold of an idea and then throttles it. Or it throttles her. She and whatever idea put the screws to one another. I think it started with philosophy books and some cracked movies.”
    My mind clung insistently to the word “philosophy.” I tried to remember something I’d heard on August Arms about René Descartes, but I came up blank.
    â€œAnd the polar twilight,” he added. “That even messed with my head a little.”
    â€œSo is that why you guys moved?”
    Silas nodded again. “We had to get her out of Alaska.”
    â€œBut—I mean, we’re seventeen. Doesn’t everyone have these weird thoughts at our age? I know I have—well, maybe not that one, but . . . other things.”
    He was quiet for a little bit and seemed to be formulating an answer. “It’s—it’s not the same,” he said. “Yeah, I think everyone thinks up some crazy shit from time to time, but—Idon’t know to explain it—it’s not like that with Laurel. It consumes her. She lets it drive her crazy. It’s like these ideas have eaten away part of—part of who she is. They dominate her.”
    Silas looked so sad that I thought he might cry, and I had no idea what I’d do if he did.
    And then just as quickly, he shrugged and pulled himself together. “Now you know. Life with the Harts. We should have a reality show. Or non reality, I guess,” he said. Silas looked at me out of the corner of his eye, then cracked a tiny grin, permission to laugh.
    But I saw right through it. It was such a contrast from the normal beaming smile I was becoming accustomed to, and I wondered how such joy and heartbreak could live inside the same person.
    â€œYou realize what this means, don’t you?” he asked.
    â€œ What? ” I asked—or rather, leveled at him, suddenly alarmed.
    â€œWe have to be friends now, Westlin Beck.”
    â€œOh, do we?” I asked, but my voice was feeble. Silas looked so broken.
    â€œYup,” he said. “Afraid so. You know my secret . . . well, one of them.”
    â€œOne of them?” I raised an eyebrow. “You don’t have any other siblings, do you?”
    â€œI’m for real, West.” He shoved my shoulder with his own. “Let’s be good to each other.”
    â€œFriendship doesn’t work like that, Silas. You don’t just decide to be friends.”
    â€œI just did.”
    â€œWell, I didn’t.”
    He looked me in the eye. “My girlfriend is in Alaska, and my sister is messed up. Your boyfriend lives on a tractor, and your best friend ditched you for summer camp.”
    â€œHey!” His choice of words stung. “She—”
    â€œLet’s be good to each other,” he repeated, and his eyes were so sad and serious and intense.
    â€œStarting when?” I said, trying to mask the panic in my voice.
    â€œStarting now.”

nine
    What I really wanted was to talk to Dad about Laurel’s condition. In the days following Silas’s revelation, I even wandered over to my dad’s office in the church to chat, but I looked through his office window and saw he had people inside. So I went up to the bell tower for a while to read—but when I came back downstairs an hour later, there was a different set of people in his office. And another person waiting outside his door.
    Forget it, I