The Silent Truce

CHASE

The dining room table felt like a fucking courtroom.

Every night at seven we sat down. Me, Sloane, Richard, Mom. Four place settings. Four chairs. And an invisible, electric fence running right down the middle, separating my side from hers.

I couldn’t look at her.

Not directly. It was like trying to stare at the sun. The attempt alone sent a sharp, piercing pain through my skull. So I focused on the things around her: the way her fork scraped against the ceramic plate, the slight rhythmic bounce of her knee under the table when she thought no one was watching, the dark glossy fall of her hair as she bent her head over her food.

I memorized the periphery. Because the center was a fucking minefield.

Last night had been lemon herb chicken. Tonight was spaghetti and meatballs. The irony was so thick you could spread it on garlic bread. I’d spent the entire meal staring at a single perfectly spherical meatball on my plate, moving it around with my fork, my appetite completely gone. All I could think about was the way she’d tasted when I’d stolen that one from the container. The way she’d looked at me. The way she’d tasted when I’d kissed her.

*“Can we just forget it?”*

The words echoed in my head, a hollow pathetic refrain. I’d said them because I was a coward. Because the alternative—acknowledging it, talking about it, *feeling* it—was too big. Too terrifying. So I’d suggested we erase it, and she’d agreed, and now we were trapped in this silent screaming purgatory of our own making.

“Chase?”

I blinked. Victoria was looking at me, her expression gentle, concerned. I’d missed a question.

“Sorry,” I said, clearing my throat. “Zoned out. What were you saying?”

“I was asking about the power play,” she repeated, tone patient. “Richard was saying you guys are still struggling with zone entry. I was just wondering what your take was.”

I risked a glance at Sloane.

Her head was down, but I could see the tight set of her jaw. The slight tensing of her shoulders. She was listening. Of course she was listening.

“We’re working on it,” I said, voice flat, robotic. “Coach wants more motion. Quick passes. Fake shots to draw the D out.”

“Sounds smart,” Victoria said, beaming like I’d just solved world hunger.

Richard nodded, chewing thoughtfully. “It’s the modern game. The old days, you could just dump and chase. Now if you’re not entering with speed and possession, you’re already behind.”

Sloane’s fork clattered against her plate. She’d dropped it. She muttered a quiet “Sorry” and picked it up, but the sound had been sharp enough to cut through the conversation.

Victoria’s smile faltered slightly. She looked from Sloane to me and back again, her brow furrowed with the first hint of confusion.

I could feel Sloane’s gaze on me now, hot and heavy, but I kept my eyes fixed on my plate. I speared a meatball. Put it in my mouth. Chewed. Tasted nothing.

“You two are quiet tonight,” Victoria said, her voice soft, careful. Like she was approaching a wounded animal.

“Just tired,” Sloane said immediately, her voice tight. “Long day.”

“Long week,” I added, staring at my spaghetti. “I have a week-long hockey camp next week."

Richard said, “Ah, the grind. I remember those days. Two-a-days in August. Skating until your lungs felt like they were full of glass. You’ll be better for it, though. The hard work is what separates the good from the great.”

I nodded mechanically. Sloane was silent.

I could feel Mom’s eyes moving between us, her analytical mind trying to piece together the puzzle. She saw the tension. She saw the way we were carefully, deliberately not looking at each other. But she was looking at it through the lens of the last three weeks. Through the memory of our bickering, our arguments, our open hostility.

She saw the same tension. She just had the wrong cause.

“You know,” she said, her tone bright, a little forced. “It’s actually kind of nice.”

Sloane and I both looked up at her, startled.

“It’s… quiet,” Victoria continued, a small hopeful smile playing on her lips. “Peaceful. I was getting a little worried there for a bit, with all the… bickering.” She waved her hand in a vague dismissive gesture. “It’s good to see you two finally finding a way to coexist. Even if it’s a silent truce.”

A silent truce.

The words landed like a punch to the gut. Sloane’s fork froze halfway to her mouth. I felt my own face go hot, a flush of shame and something else—something that felt dangerously close to panic—creeping up my neck.

We weren’t coexisting. We were imploding. We were two stars caught in each other’s orbit, tearing each other apart molecule by molecule, and our parents thought we’d finally learned to play nice.

“Yeah,” Sloane said, her voice barely a whisper. She cleared her throat. “A truce.”

I couldn’t speak. I just nodded, looking down at my plate, at the tangled mess of noodles and sauce that looked exactly like my fucking life.

Victoria seemed satisfied. She launched into a story about a difficult client at work, and Richard jumped in with a comment about his own office drama. The conversation moved on, flowing around us like a river around a stone.

I finished my spaghetti. I excused myself. I went upstairs to my room and closed the door, leaning back against it like I could physically hold the weight of it all in.

Downstairs, I could hear the low murmur of their voices. The clink of dishes. The normal, everyday sounds of a family that wasn’t mine.

And I knew that tomorrow night, we’d do it all again.

We’d sit down at the table. We’d avoid each other’s gaze. We’d choke down our food.

And we’d let them believe we were at peace.