“Yeah,” I say, even though I don’t really. I know as much as anyone who reads the news or watches documentaries, but there’s no one in my life who’s struggled.
It’s a long, dark drive, and June and I lapse into silence. We go from a main road to a smaller road and then, finally, a steep narrow road right up the side of a mountain, gouged with cracks and potholes. At the top there’s a gravel parking area with a few other cars in it and a wooden Park Services sign that says CAMP WILDWOOD.
June turns the truck off and it’s suddenly very, very quiet, the only sound is the keys still jangling from the ignition.
“Kat,” she says, the word loud in the dark. “Listen. I know Silas is… a lot, sometimes.”
“Is this an ‘if you hurt my brother I’ll kill you’ speech?” I ask, because I’ve run through my capacity for thinking much before I speak, but June snorts.
“God, no,” she says. “I’m way too late for that shit. If I was gonna kill something I’d kill, I dunno. The military industrial complex?”
I take a deep breath and push my hands through my hair, and I think we’re both sort of laughing and sort of tired and sort of frazzled and confused and worried and scared.
“Yeah, he’s kinda fucked up, huh?” I say, and it’s the kind of thing I could only say to his sister here, in the dark, after that drive. Lucky for me, June breathes out a laugh.
“He really is,” she says, and then turns to look at me. “You’re here anyway.”
I don’t know what to say. I never do, but especially not now, because I’m in love with your brother seems awkward and of course is trite.
“Yeah,” I finally say. “I am.”