“I want to see your favorite spot here.”
I announce that over breakfast, which is oatmeal with dried fruit mixed in. Tynan apologized for it as he made it, saying he hasn’t replaced the chickens yet. Implying that he is going to get more chickens and stay here… I don’t know how long. A while. Chickens are a commitment.
The oatmeal is fine. Surprisingly good actually, better than the stuff that comes in the little pouches you pour boiling water into. The idea that he really is staying is less fine.
I thought he might have changed his mind sometime last night. His expression at times… I have to swallow hard as I remember. He looked like he loved me. I wanted so badly to tell him…
But then this morning he was distant. Polite, almost warm, but he made it clear I was still leaving. So I swallow down my hurt and my love right along with my oatmeal.
Tynan raises his eyebrows, recognizing that it’s a stalling tactic. “Sure. I can take you there.” He’s subdued, almost like he’s regretting this. If he wants me to stay longer, he only has to ask, but I know he won’t. “We’ll have to be careful.” He looks a touch embarrassed. “Dad set up booby traps. I’ve taken down some and the security detail has found others, so there might be more. But that area should be safe.”
In a weird way, I’m glad he’s embarrassed. It means he doesn’t think that setting booby traps is actually a great idea and maybe he should set some more. The Tynan that appeared out of nowhere in my living room a few weeks ago probably would have been putting up castle walls complete with trebuchets to keep people out. Only a more high-tech version.
“What happens when you’re alone?” I ask quietly. “If you’re hurt taking these things down, who’ll help you?”
“Don’t worry about it.” He says it shortly, but his eyes are imploring.
I can’t help it though. I can’t stop thinking about it or about the first time he escaped death. “What happened that night? Can you finally tell me?”
He stares into his coffee mug. It looks older than I am, chipped and scratched. Yet it’s still here. “It’s not a pretty story.”
I snort. “What of any of this was pretty? I don’t want pretty—I just want to know.”
He can give me at least that little bit before he disappears completely again. If he’d give me himself, I wouldn’t care so much. Having him… Well, I won’t have him, so I’m asking for this.
He pushes the mug away. His jaw sets like he’s furious. But when he speaks, he’s calm. Unnaturally so. “It happened very fast. The car going off the road. Hitting the water.” His voice drops. “Then it went very slow.”
A shiver works over me, stitches into my bones. I swear I hear water moving, cold and swift.
“He was hurt, really badly.” Tynan goes on in that too-neutral tone. “There was so much blood. And he was bone white. Going in and out of consciousness.”
Severe internal injuries. That’s what the autopsy said. The coroner told us that it would have been quick. We always assumed that meant he never felt anything.
I don’t think that’s the story Tynan’s about to tell.
“He talked to you.” I barely get above a whisper. “What did he say?”
Tynan lifts his head. His gaze burns, makes my heart a charred hole. “He said to take the computer. That someone sabotaged it and it would have the answers. He wanted me to take the computer, save myself…” He swallows hard. “And leave him.”
I can’t even imagine how horrifying that must have been. My mind is only skirting around the edges of it, as close as I’ll let myself get, and I’m sick to my stomach.
“I argued with him. But he said there wasn’t time. He knew.”
Meaning Dad knew he was dying. That there wasn’t time to argue with him. Or save him.
“Oh, Tynan.” I wrap my hand around my mouth, rather than wrap my arms around him. There’s a kind of force field surrounding him, telling me to keep away until he’s done.
He acts like he hasn’t even heard me. “Finally I did what he told me to. I pried out the computer.” He holds up his hands. “With my fingertips.”
My own fingertips tingle, and I remember how the scar on his chest felt under my hands. He was doing all that while injured, while the car was sinking, while Dad was dying.
A tear slips down my cheek. I’m so focused on him I didn’t even know I’m crying. He’s not looking at me, so I don’t think he notices. He’s entirely lost in these memories. These awful, awful memories.
“You got it out.” My voice trembles, wavers like it’s underwater. “I can’t believe it.”
He looks up again. “That’s not the part you need to know.”
I go to stone. But inside, my every nerve buzzes like I’ve been shocked. “What?”
“I got the computer out, set it on the rocks.” His emotionless affect has transformed into something so intense I almost look away. “Then I went back.”
Went back. It takes me a moment to process that, and when I do… “For Dad?”
“The car was so far down by then.” Tynan’s back to staring at nothing. “I felt like it took forever to reach him. There was no air. It took forever to open the door. My lungs were burning. I got him out, swam for the rocks… but it was too late.”
So that’s why they found Dad but not the car. Or Tynan. Because Tynan pulled him free.
I’m amazed I haven’t entirely broken down. “Thank you,” I get out. If he hadn’t done that, we never would have known what happened. We never would have been able to have anything to bury, to have that opportunity to say goodbye. Dad would have simply disappeared the way Tynan did, and that would have been unbearable.
“What the hell are you saying?”
I blink at him. “We found Dad thanks to what you did. So thank you.”
“You should be furious.” His voice drops to a register so harsh it hurts to hear. “I listened to him and didn’t save him. I brought out that stupid fucking machine and not him. You should hate me.”
I don’t. But it’s clear he hates himself.
“I saw the autopsy.” I slowly lean toward him as if he might start away. “There was nothing anyone could have done. Even if there was a doctor right there, even if he’d been whisked into an operating room that moment. He was—” My voice cracks, everything I’ve been holding back spilling out. “He was going to die no matter what.”
He’s not hearing me. “I should have gone for him first. I could have saved him. You should hate me.”
I reach over and take his face in my hands, not letting him get away. His stubble is rough against my palms, but beneath the skin is so smooth. Almost tender.
“You brought him back to us.” I wish he’d have come back too, but it’s too late for that. “I would have been in agony, wondering what had happened. You saved us from that. And even if you hadn’t, I could never hate you.”
I love you. I can’t deny it any longer, not after hearing that he went back for Dad and knowing that he’s hated himself for so long over it.
“If I’d gone for him first, it would have all been different.” The regret in him is so deep I could fall into it.
If Dad had survived, it would have been different. Tynan would have stayed with us, stayed the kinder, gentler person I knew. I imagine that someday we would have acted on the attraction between us. We would have had a common, everyday kind of love.
But that was never in the cards.
“It wouldn’t have been,” I say. “The moment Oscar decided to do that, there was nothing anyone could do.”
“Oscar.” Tynan turns into my touch even as his voice hardens. “He took so much from us.”
The weight of that drives the breath from my lungs. It’s true. I will miss my dad every day for the rest of my life. But I don’t have to miss Tynan, not if he’s still alive. He could be with me if he just tried a little harder.
“Not everything.” I wait for him to take that invitation, to say that he’s changed his mind. He has to after that confession. He has to feel what’s between us. My God, just the contact of our skin—his cheek, my hand—is like a sun flare.
For a moment he considers it. I can see worlds opening up behind his eyes, worlds where we’re together, happy.
And then those worlds collapse. Simply wink out as if they never were.
He pulls back. His expression is kind, resigned. I sort of hate it, but I don’t let it show. I never let it show when I’ve lost, not even when it’s something as important as this.
“Let’s go see this spot you want,” he says. “Then we’ll call for the helicopter.”
We hike in silence, Tynan occasionally helping me over a fallen log or a rock. Sparks fly between us at every touch, but I pretend I don’t feel it. If he feels it, he’s pretending too.
The silence here is all encompassing. I know the security team is out there somewhere, but it feels as if we’re the only humans left on earth. Just us, alone forever. I can see why Tynan likes it, why it calls to him. If I’m being entirely honest, it calls to me some too.
But I can’t leave my life behind. I can only steal this sliver of time.
After three hours, he says, “It’s just over this rise.”
“You’d walk this far on your own?” I can’t imagine it, being this far away from everyone. If something happens, no one will hear. I can see a little Tynan, a determined look on his face, marching out here, so small, so isolated. No one watching out for him.
It breaks my heart.
“It’s not so far.” He gives me a quick smile that says he knows what I’m thinking. An almost boyish smile.
When we arrive, I see why it’s his favorite. It’s a gorgeous spot, the trees behind us, sheltering us, and a sheer, rocky drop-off before us. Because of the drop-off, you can see for miles. The sky is a remarkable blue, the trees so green against it, the birds calling endlessly.
“It’s beautiful,” I say, taking it all in. “Isolated, but in a good way.”
“This whole place is isolated.” Tynan takes a seat against a boulder, comfortable in a way that suggests that’s his usual spot. His limbs loosen like a man in his favorite chair. “But I always liked being able to look over everything. To see how wide the world really was.” His mouth quirks. “And then I left and realized how sheltered we really were.”
The world does feel wide here though. As if I could fly if I only wished hard enough.
I take a full, bracing breath. It clears my head, energizes me. “Did you ever build a tree house or fort here?” I turn to smile at him—
I’m punched by what feels like a fist of wind, so hard it picks me up, passes through me. I’m falling, falling, I can’t catch my breath, my hands scrabble uselessly on nothing.
Beneath me, the drop-off opens up into nothing. I fall into complete darkness.