I stare out the windows at the cloudless blue sky, a rarity here in Oregon. I’m trying to avoid Dr. Chase’s eyes, searching for mine, inquisitive and demanding. I wish I were out there, floating in the deep blue, or perhaps drifting through Silas’ purple bubbles in his strange world, instead of cooped up in this bloodless office with a woman who probably thinks I’m mad.
“I’m sorry, Noomi, but there’s no record of a person named Silas in your wilderness therapy group, or any registered groups here in Oregon.” She sounds as though she pities me. I watch the second hand tick-tick-tick at a snail’s pace around the wall clock.
“You think I’m inventing him.”
“I think we ought to consider the possibility that you’re seeing things and hearing things that don’t exist in reality.”
I want to argue with her. I want to tell her she’s wrong, that Silas is real, that he’s a human being, that he’s taught me how to face the shadows that have haunted me my whole life and how to defeat them. I remember this morning, across the table from Ada, when they started to crowd at my vision and I fought them off. Because of Silas. Because of what he told me, because I listened to his advice and obeyed. I want to tell Dr. Chase that Silas is the only thing in this world that gives me hope for my future.
But I can’t, because I no longer believe myself.
“He’s not a student here?” I ask, my voice so quiet I almost can’t hear myself. “At my school? I saw him yesterday. At the end of the day. I saw him there.”
Dr. Chase turns to her laptop and in the silence I listen to the tapping of the keys, the weight of her breath on the air. I can feel the space between us, poisoned with uncertainty and disbelief.
“It’s Voladores,” I say.
“What is?” Dr. Chase asks.
“Silas’ last name. Silas Voladores.”
“It’s a beautiful name, Noomi. But there’s no one who goes by that name at your school.”
I am quiet.
Dr. Chase lets out a breath of air and it seems to push some of the tension out of the room. She sets her laptop aside and leans forward, looking at me intently.
“Noomi, I want Silas to be real. Is there any other name he could be going by?”
I shrug helplessly.
“I don’t know. I only know him by that name.”
“How do you know his last name?”
How do I know his last name? The question forces me to think. Now I can’t remember when I heard his last name. I try to recall all of our interactions, but I’ve only actually spoken to him twice. Once on the mountain, where he introduced himself to me as Silas, and then at school. But then it occurs to me: the shadows. In their world. They called him by his full name. Silas Voladores, they said.
Oh, god, I think. I am making it all up.
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
“Your father’s name was Valeres,” she says. It’s not a question.
“Yes.”
“Does Silas remind you at all of him?”
I shake my head.
“They’re nothing alike. Otousan was very warm, so welcoming, so gentle. Silas isn’t like that.” I pause, wishing I knew him better. “If he even exists.”
YOU ARE READING
Porous
Novela Juvenil*Trigger Warning* Depression, suicide, and mental illness are subjects dealt with in this story. I have a history with suicide. When I was three, I attempted the first time. A year later, my second, and not five months after that I tried again. Th...
