The Oath We Give (The Hollow Boys Book 5)
The Oath We Give: Chapter 29

coraline

The last place I ever expected to be in my life was standing at Rosemary Donahue’s grave.

I didn’t know her.

We never once spoke, barely had classes together. I didn’t come to her funeral, even though the entire school did. I didn’t know her.

“Hope you like carnations,” I mumble to the weathered rock in the ground, setting the flowers I bought on her tombstone. “Google said the pink ones are supposed to represent gratitude or something.”

I refrain from face-palming my forehead. What is she gonna do? Return them if she doesn’t like the fucking flowers?

This already feels stupid on my part, like I’m screwing this whole thing up. After last night with Silas, hearing his story, his truth, and then staying up talking until the sun was high in the sky, there had only been one thing I wanted to do today.

I wanted to talk to Rosemary.

“I know this is probably really weird, me showing up like this. We don’t know each other, but you don’t feel like a total stranger to me. I’m falling in love with someone who you once loved, and it feels like that connects us somehow. I mean, we gotta be sorta similar, right? We have the same type.”

I’m tempted to laugh at my own joke to settle my nerves, but when silence replies to me, I just end up feeling more anxious. Maybe it’s because the first time I’m outwardly admitting my feelings for Silas, it’s to his dead girlfriend.

I feel like the poster child for emotional incompetence.

“Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to say, and if you’re listening, I hope you take this and know that I mean it.” I loose a breath. “Thank you. Thank you for loving him. I’ve never met someone so deserving of love every second of every day like Silas.”

I’m not even sure if the love I have to give is enough for a man like him. My heart feels like this dirty, blackened, rotten organ that I’m presenting to a person with clean hands. It’s being held together with old Band-Aids and bubble gum. It’s not intact; it’s fractured and wretched, and I know he deserves more.

He might not even accept it. If it were me, I wouldn’t.

“Thank you for loving him, for showing him how to love others. His heart has helped me in more ways than I’m capable of understanding. I think the kindness everyone always speaks about you having rubbed off on him, probably without him even noticing.”

The silence of the cemetery surrounds me, and I’m a little grateful for it in this moment. I can say whatever I want here, and it won’t change anything, but it feels good to thank her. To express my gratitude.

“I think I fight him so hard because I knew from that first phone call, ya know?” I pause, shaking my head. “You can’t answer that, I realize. Sorry. Anyway, it just felt like even before he knew me, on that roof, I was broken, and that was okay. He makes me feel like just being Coraline is enough, cursed and all.”

His voice alone had given me more comfort that night than people’s entire bodies had shown me in years. There is a safety in him I’ve never known before.

A trust.

“I’m sorry for rambling. I just wanted to thank you for everything you did for Silas, and I guess for me too. I promise I’ll try my best to protect the heart you nurtured. Thank you, Rosie.”

As I speak her name, the warm summer breeze caresses my face, making me shiver involuntarily. I’ve never really believed in an afterlife, but for right now, I want to believe it’s real and she heard me.

“Great minds, huh?”

A voice pierces my graveyard peace, and I turn around from the tombstone I’m facing, replaceing a copy of the girl six feet under, holding her own set of flowers.

“Sage,” I breathe, face flaming red. “I didn’t—I wasn’t—I—”

“I didn’t hear anything.” She waves me off with a smile, walking closer and setting the daisies in her arms next to mine. “Your secrets are safe with my sister.”

Relief floods through my body. Not that I’m ashamed of how I feel about him. I just don’t love the idea of everyone knowing what’s happening inside my head all the time, especially this.

Sage mirrors my stance, standing by my side to stare down at her sister’s grave, and I think it’s telling.

That we sorta feel like different versions of the same mirror.

We grew up in similar households, the same Ponderosa Springs reputation pressed into us from a young age, constantly thinking about what others think.

“You mind if I give you some unwarranted advice? Rook says I should start asking first, even though I’m going to say it anyway.”

I laugh, motioning for her to continue.

“Let him in.”

I furrow my brows. “What?”

“They will get there either way. When a Hollow Boy wants something, they get it. It’s just in their nature. I know what it’s like to wear a mask, and I know you’re afraid to take it off, but there is more to life than pretending. Let him in. It’ll be much easier on your heart than if he breaks those walls down with force.”

Sage and I, we feel like two sides of the same coin.

Two girls who hid who they were for so long because we knew if we showed this place the truth, they’d tear it to shreds. So we kept it close, too close. She’d just learned a little quicker than me how to let others in.

“What do I do if he’s already in?” I mumble.

God, how long had it been since I talked to someone about boy problems? How long had it been since I just had someone to talk to?

“Then you tell him, or he’s not going to stop.”

It’s complicated, I want to say. It’s complicated ’cause I know it’s better for me to keep my distance emotionally. Physically, we’ve already been closer than any two people should be. That man was in my fucking guts last night.

It’s better if I just keep this secret to me and Rosemary. Because if I tell Silas I love him, he won’t stop. He won’t stop until it kills him, and I don’t want to lose him.

I don’t want to rob Zoe and Scott Hawthorne of their son. I don’t want to steal him from the boys. Selfishly, I don’t want them to hate me for taking him away.

It’s easy to say the curse is in my head until you’ve lived through what I have. Until you’ve seen it hurt people.

“You’re not gonna break him, ya know?” She arches an eyebrow like she can see through me, “I don’t know Silas the way the Rook or the other guys do, but I know him well enough. Enough to know that he doesn’t just go around touching people. He’s known Rook since they were kids, and I’ve seen them hug maybe twice? Yet, he can’t seem to keep his hands off you.”

Maybe it’s because I’d gotten comfortable with how often Silas touches me that I hadn’t noticed him doing it. The casual hand on my hip as he passed behind me, the arm slung around my shoulder, randomly tucking my hair behind my ear.

It feels like something we do often. It’s not something we struggle to do for the public eye because it’s just kinda…us?

“Isn’t this awkward for you?” I say, trying to get the attention off me, motioning around us. “Talking about this with me, here.”

“No,” she says softly, brushing her fingers across the top of her sister’s grave. “I made a promise. A few years ago, after my dad was killed—”

“I thought the fire he got caught in was an accident?”

Sage drags her tongue across the front of her teeth. “You met my boyfriend?”

Good point.

Rook Van Doren and fire? Never an accident.

It’s nice to know I’m not the only one with buried secrets. Comforting. I don’t need to know the details because they don’t matter. It’s just nice not being so alone.

“It was to Rose. She’d already died, and when our father was buried, I swore that no matter what, I wouldn’t let Silas die a sad man. I swore I’d make sure he was happy. So no, it’s not awkward because I can see what you could be for him, what he could be for you.”

I swallow the knot in my throat.

Could I tell her? That the reason I’m scared is that I’m actually fucking cursed and it’s not just a nickname, no matter how badly I wish it was?

“I hope you don’t think I’m trying to replace Rosemary by being in this arrangement with him. I’d never do that to him or any of you. I know how important she was. I respect the love he has for her. The love you all have for her.”

Which is all true.

I don’t want anyone to think I’m disrespecting her memory. I know how important she is to all of them, especially Silas.

“You’re not replacing her, Coraline. We don’t see you that way. Neither does Silas. You can’t replace what they had because what you share is completely different,” she says, looking over at me. “I like you, Coraline. I get you. I was you. And I can’t think of a better way for Silas to honor my sister’s memory than by falling in love again. It’s all she’d ever want for him.”