Before Violet and Luke head inside, Violet nudges Ryler in the back then whispers something in his ear. His posture slightly stiffens as she vanishes into the apartment with Luke, leaving the two of us alone. Quietness swirls around us and stretches into awkward silence.

Ryler starts patting his pockets, searching for something, and then pulls out a pack of cigarettes. He seems to relax once he takes a drag, exhaling a cloud of smoke with a quiet sigh.

“So about yesterday and the other day,” the cigarette dangles from his lips, the smoke from the cigarette drifting into the air, “I’m sorry I didn’t try to communicate with you when you were asking me about those papers. It’s just that there’s usually no point in trying since hardly anyone knows how to sign. My silence probably weirded you out.”

“No, I wasn’t weirded out.” I wipe my sweaty palms on the sides of my legs. “I just… I never meant to throw those papers out the window. Okay, well, technically I did, but I didn’t think anyone was out there.” I chew on my nails. “They were my journal pages, and I never meant for anyone to see them.”

“I still have them.” He inhales from the cigarette, leaving it in his lips while he signs. “I never read them.”

“Can I have them back?” I ask, hopeful.

He nods without hesitation. “Of course. Just let me finish this cigarette, and we’ll go inside to get them.”

The weight on my chest crumbles and another dose of freedom rushes through me. “Thank you. You just made my night.”

“And you just made mine.” As he ashes the cigarette, he checks me out again, this time way less discreetly. “You said you just moved in, right?”

“I’m actually just starting college.” I fidget under his gaze. I’m wearing shorts and a shirt, no shoes or jacket, and I feel extremely exposed.

“You go to the university?” he asks, perking up.

I nod. “My parents wanted me to wait until fall semester, but I needed to get out of my hometown, so I’m taking a couple of summer classes.” I shrug, despite the fact that I just told him more about me than I’ve ever told anyone, at least with honesty. If my mother knew what I was doing right now, she’d probably drug me and drag me back home to lock me up then throw away the key.

“So, you’re a freshman?”

“I am. What about you? I mean, do you go to school?”

He tensely scratches the back of his neck before signing, “My first class ever starts tomorrow. But I’m almost twenty-one. I just started the whole college life late.”

“That’s okay. I wish I could have.”

“Skipped out on college?”

“For a little while, maybe.” I’m still not off the stairway, but standing on the final step before the floor flattens out to a small porch in front of his door. I’m hesitant if I should step down or not, if I want to cross that line and enter his world, get closer to him. Eventually, I arrive at the conclusion that I do, and it’s easier than I expected to lift my foot and move down to the same level with him. Even with my above average height, I still have to angle my chin up to look at him. “I thought about just taking off and traveling to see the world or something. The first time I came here was actually the first time I’ve stepped foot out of my hometown.”

He gapes at me. “Really?”

“My parents are really strict and kind of made me live a really sheltered life.” I’m digging a deeper hole for myself. I should be afraid, but for some reason, I’m not. For some reason, I feel calm.

“Yeah, you really have.” His hands state the blunt truth as he studies me. “So why didn’t you travel, then? See the world. Or hell, just see the state.”

I apprehensively glance around, listening to the soundlessness and the guy who offers as much silence as my paper and pen. “I was afraid, I guess,” I admit truthfully.

His brows dip, and I see something unrecognizable in his eyes. Rage maybe? Or worry? I don’t know him well enough to know for certain.

“Afraid of what?” he wonders.

“My parents and the unknown, I guess.”

He leans against the doorframe of his apartment with the cigarette resting between his lips. “Your parents sound a lot like my father. He was pissed when I announced I was leaving Vegas to come here. He even slit one of my car’s tires. I had to put on the spare and drive to a tire shop before I could hit the road.”

His story should shock me—a crazy father slitting tires.

It doesn’t even faze me.

I gape at him. “You’re from Vegas? Seriously? How’d you end up in Laramie, Wyoming of all places? It seems so random.”

He tenses, but swiftly shakes it off and nods his head at the door as he signs, “Luke’s my cousin. He told me once that if I ever wanted to leave Vegas, I could come here. And one day I decided I needed out because… And anyway, yeah, so I left and ended up here.”

Why do I have the strangest feeling both of us are lying?

Silences stretches between us again as I attempt to read him. My staring seems to have the same effect over him as his staring does to me. He grows uneasy, fiddling with the array of leather bands on his wrist as he stares at the ground. Then he abruptly clears his throat.

I’m startled by the unexpected sound. I want to ask him how he lost his voice. Was he born like that? Or did something happen to him? But to ask a personal question would be like giving him an open invitation to ask me something personal. Besides, who knows if he’d lie.