As I sit here and ponder over my past mistakes, I hear an unfamiliar voice enter my line of hearing. "You apart of Silas' crew?" I look up and I see woman wearing a waitress outfit. She looks like she's in her mid-twenties at least. Her hair is a dark brown and tied back into a sleek ponytail. Her skin is medium to olive and clear as can be. Overall, she's very beautiful.

I give her a modest smile. "Not sure if crew is the right word."

She shrugs. "Sorry, I saw you out back with him and his friends so I just assumed." She turns her back for a brief moment and then grabs an empty coffee cup from off the counter, placing it gently into a sink.

I clear my throat. "So, you know Silas?"

"Comes in here almost every day, along with his usual group of friends," she explains and then turns back around to face me again. She leans against the counter with her hands gripping the side. "I'm Claire, by the way."

Claire extends her arm for a handshake and I gladly take it. "Rowen."

"That's pretty. It suits you." She turns her back and grabs a pile of menus from the other counter. The colors of each one seem to match perfectly with the rest of the diner. "Specials are on the front. But, if you wanna go simple, coffee, lattes, and other drinks are on the back," she explains in a silvery voice.

"Oh, um, may I just get an ice water? I'm not very hungry right now."

"Sure. I'll be back in a minute." Claire turns away and heads into a back room, leaving me sitting alone in an almost-barren diner.

I look at the menu intensively, trying to decide if I actually want to order anything. Everything one here sounds delicious. My stomach is already grumbling just as I read the list of specials. For a second, I forget that these things cost money, and realization munches me in the face: I don't have any money.

"Shit," I mumble to myself so that no one can hear me. I'm about to call Claire back and tell her to cancel my order when the golden bell above the front door of the diner goes off. Of course, I pay no attention to it at first, but then I feel a familiar presence sit next to me at the booth. Looking to my right, I see Silas sitting next to me. "If you're here to convince me to go through with your little plan, you're wasting you time," I tell him without making eye contact.

"I know. Which is why I just came in here for a drink," he says.

Claire soon walks into the open with a tall glass of ice water in her grip, placing in front of me. "I'm sorry, I don't have any cash on me and I completely spaced. Is there a chance you could cancel my order?"

She hesitantly pulls the glass away, only to be stopped by Silas. "Claire, don't worry about it. I've got it."

"Alright then. And what can I get for you?" Claire asks Silas, smiling.

"My usual."

She nods. "Coming right up." The she heads back around the booth and into another room.

When she's gone, I have the urge to thank him for paying for my drink. For some reason, I just can't get the words to come out. I'm still somewhat teetery from the scare with the emails. Although, I'm guessing my name wasn't brought up during Olivia's and Darian's conversation. If I were mentioned, Silas would not be this calm. So to drown my worries, I take a long sip of my water, the ice merely kissing my lips.

After taking one more embracing sip, I set the glass on the table and gaze at Silas. "What's your usual?"

He rotates his head so our sights are aligned, "Decaf latte with vanilla syrup and a small amount of whipped cream."

"Sounds pretty specific." I take another sip of my water.

"When you're ordering a latte, it's important to be as specific as possible so no one screws it up. One mistake and the whole thing is trash." Claire soon comes out with Silas' order perched on a silver tray. Other drinks and lattes stand next to it, each one different in size or color. "Which is why I only trust Claire to make it," he continues.

Claire sets the latte in front of him with the three other drinks in hand. "Let me know if you two need anything else," she exclaims before strutting away.

As she leaves, I find myself staring up at the clock, watching as the hands tick away and brush across each line and number. I don't focus on anything else besides the ticking sounds, trying to calm my panicking nerves.

Calm down, he doesn't know. You're safe.

I don't even believe myself.

"Wanna talk about it?" he questions me, pushing away his latte for a brief minute or two.

"There's nothing to talk about."

"I beg to differ. You got pretty shaken up out there." He turns his body so he is directly facing me. "And I think that you want to tell me why."

I chuckle as I too push away my water and face him, "So suddenly you know me so well?"

"I know you enough to know that something's bothering you, Rowen." Suddenly, I feel my walls go up and the anxe returns to plague me with its fanatical version of torment. I sense myself beginning to drift off into another place, away from Silas. My lack of trust in people is starting to take control more than ever now that one of my most darkest secrets is about to be exposed. Silas claims to know me well enough to know when these walls go up, and he's right. "So, what's going on?"

Drawing in a heavy breath and letting it back out, I look to him, ready with my answer. "I just... don't feel comfortable with blackmailing people, even if it is Darian."

"Than don't think of it as blackmailing. Think of it as justice," he suggests.

How can this be justice? It's barely even humane. Being the subject of blackmail in the past, I know what it feels like. It makes one feel powerless in their own lives, as if someone else were holding your strings, making you do things that go against your own beliefs and even yourself.

Even though my case of blackmail wasn't exactly life-threatening, the results of the situation would have been way different if I didn't do what I was told. Silas held my strings for a little while, but I still exactly have a say in what I did. However, now that I've actually put some effort into getting to know him, I look at the past in a different way. Sure, it was technically blackmail, but some part of me liked the rush of adrenaline when I broke into the school. A part of me even enjoyed the tint of rebelliousness in me. Even so, I'm still against the thought of blackmail.

"Silas, regardless of what he's done, I really don't think we should do this," I say after my deep moment of thought. "Besides, the school year is pretty much done anyway. There's no point."

His lips part and I can tell that he has fallen into deep thought. His eyes focus on some spot on the counter, and after a few moments, his gaze again clutches mine. "Okay, how about this: we wait until this information comes to the most use for us. This way you can have some time to actually think about it and we still have something against him to use in the future. You know, when we really need it."

Again, I don't like that plan either. Whichever path this leads, all lead to the same destination; to the same consequence. If we all went after Darian, he could be compelled to release the truth and ruin everything for me. Everyone would know that I'm the slut that slept with the school's biggest jock, who was dating the school most biggest bitch. But if I want this to stay hidden, I have to go with the Silas' second option. "Alright, I'm down with that."

"Than it's settled." He picks up his latte and takes a few sips. I can't help but stare at him from the corner of my eye as he does this. For a second, I'm almost prompted to smile, but I lower my face to keep things civilized.

Silas puts down his latte and clears his throat, and I almost forget about me water. "So, moving on from that, things seemed pretty tense between you and Max today."

A faint chortle skips off of my bottom row of teeth as I roll my eyes. "You don't know the half of it."

"Why? Did something happen between you two?"

I can't help but grab for my glass of water before replying. Of course something happened between us. In fact, I'd rather not think about her, but it seems I have no choice. The moment I decided that Maxi may not be such a bad person was the moment I let her walk all over me again. She told me that Silas left town when he clearly didn't and every time I even speak, she shoots me a smart-ass comment or expression.

"You could say that," I finally answer. I let another swig of cold water gush down my throat and drown my thoughts.

Silas too rolls his eyes and leans on to the table in front of us. "Alright, what did she do now?" It actually sounds like he wants to listen to what I have to say.

I'm about to speak but I pause myself. "Wait, should I tell you? I don't really want to say anything bad about your friend."

"Trust me, I've heard it all. And if you want, it can be our little secret." 

At first, I want to label her as every curse word in the dictionary because I'm so angry with her for what she did, but after taking another much needed second to deliberate, I realize that there are far worse people in the world than Maxi. I certainly hate Olivia and Darian more than I hate her. That being true, I decide to only release the main issues. "Okay, well for starters, she told me earlier that you left town and you were not coming back."

Confusion dawns on his face, and then surprize. "Jesus Christ, are you serious?"

I tilt my head and nod. "Yeah, I may be a pretty gullible person, but she is scary good at lying."

"But you are occasionally good at reading people."

"Which is even scarier," I add. 

Silas shakes his head and almost laughs. "I honestly have no idea why she would even say that. I haven't left town in years," he explains. Suddenly, he expression changes and he looks at me curiously. "Wait, you asked her where I was?"

"Yup, and that's when the lie came out." For a moment, he looks as though he's about to tell me why we wasn't at school and what he was doing for the past week, but he doesn't. He's holding something back and I feel like I'm obliged to ask him about it. After all, I did tell him what was on my mind. It's his move now, and the clock has already began ticking. "If you don't mind by me asking, if you didn't leave town, where did you go?"

He looks down for a moment and then looks back up. "Remember when I told you about my mom and sister?" I nod as I begin to recoil the memory of that night. Silas explained how he lost his mother to a form of cancer and how his older sister committed suicide a few years later. He looked so broken that night as he told his heart-wrenching tale, and I felt his sadness as my own. I know what it feels like to lose someone I care about. But to lose two people at such a young age is a type of pain I can't even imagine. "Well after they passed, my dad decided to have them cremated and he kept their ashes. After a few years, I finally decided to spread them, both my mom's and my sister's. It hit me hard, like I was losing them all over again. I just needed a few days off."

My throat constricts from the guilt. "I - I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have pried."

"Don't worry about it."

I don't believe a word. He can't shield away his pain with a crooked smile, not from someone who knows.

I close the gap between my lips and stare helplessly into his grey irises. "I know how you feel. When I lost my mom, it was like I lost a part of me. I haven't exactly been myself since." This isn't information that I would give out by choice, but I want Silas to know that I understand this part of him, even if it's only a small portion.

"Yeah, about that," he begins a moment later, "I'm sorry for ever disrespecting your parents. I was way out of line."

"No worries."

We stay like this for a few seconds, gripping each other's sights. There's a strange intensity between us and the rest of the world grows silent. I stare into the treasure in his eyes, buried deep beneath those silver waves. He looks into mine as well, the forest that dwells inside a frame of white, until he breaks our line of sight and reaches for his glass.

"What was your mom's name?"

"Jenny." I smile as I say her name after all these years. Her formal name was Jennifer but everyone called her Jenny.

Silas holds his glass up even higher so it's the only thing separating the two of us. "To Jenny Hewitt."

I follow in his toast my picking up my glass as well. "To Mom." Together, we clink our glasses together and take large sips of our beverages, now that his has settled in his cup. Though just as he sets his glass down, my phone chimes from within my back pocket and I pull it out, shocked to see the name that appears on the screen.

NOAH : Hey, Nyc. Can we meet up?

I stare down at the message with a blank appearance. Silas seems to notice as he looks at me with interest. "Something up?"

Breaking my staring match with my phone, I push the power button and shut my phone down, shoving it into my back pocket. "Nope. Nothing at all."

A / N :

Who was Silas' mom and sister?
How big of an impact do you think Noah will have on Rowen's life?
Comment your theories down below!

Hello, loves! So this officially marks the half-way point of this story, and I'm so happy for those who are interested in how this story will end!

You know the drill! Be sure to vote if you enjoyed this chapter, as well as leave feedback!

XOXO