A lump rose in my throat as I struggled for the right answer. Different how, I wondered? Different from the Tyler he thought I remembered—the one from five years ago? Or different from the Tyler I’d fallen in love with, the one I’d seen just a few short weeks ago? The one I’d been desperately-hopelessly-achingly searching for?
“No,” I whispered, my eyes locking on his. I could’ve stayed like that forever, even if he had absolutely zero memory of me. “You look the same as I remember,” I finally said, because I couldn’t lie.
I could never, ever lie to him.
His fingers closed over mine and he squeezed once, an apology squeeze, before he let go. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me. I think I’m just homesick, is all. I . . .” He didn’t finish.
“It’s okay.” I didn’t want him to stop or to be sorry or . . . to stop. Ever. “I totally get it. I miss everyone and everything. It’s nice to know someone. From home.” I took his hand again, wishing I could convey all my true feelings. “It’s nice,” I ended lamely because it was all I could say.
Tyler accepted my “nice” speech. Our fingers intertwined, and even though it wasn’t like before, when sparks flew and fireworks exploded, it was comforting. And right now comforting was a million times better than nothing at all.
Maybe comforting was better than fireworks anyway. Comforting fit like a sweater, and kept you warm, and made you feel protected.
Comforting could kick fireworks’ ass any day of the week.
He gave me a sidelong glance before talking again. “I don’t know if it’s weird for me to bring this up, but I miss Austin.”
“It’s not weird, Tyler. You’re allowed to miss your brother. It would be weird if you didn’t.” I let out a sigh and leaned my head against his shoulder.
“I just wasn’t sure . . . if . . .” He did this shrug thing, and it was completely filled with all the words he didn’t want to say, and I knew exactly how he felt because I had just as many words I was holding inside.
I let him off the hook. “I know about them too—Austin and Cat.”
“I didn’t realize.”
I know, I wanted to tell him, and then I wanted to bury my fingers in his hair and drag him down and kiss him, full on the lips. If only I could taste him, just one time. And press myself to him.
Instead I smiled a small, sad little smile.
“They didn’t do it to hurt you,” he said, exactly the way he’d said it a month ago, when he’d explained it to me the first time, and my eyes burned because he was so the same Tyler I remembered that I wanted him to remember too.
I nodded again, and then one more time, my eyes still stinging, to let him know I’d heard enough. Enough about Austin and Cat, and enough about our old lives with our old families. This was our new life, and even if he never remembered, if this was where we were starting from, we’d get through it, and everything would be okay, I told myself, because here we were, Tyler and me, together again.
We stayed like that for hours, huddled side by side. Sometimes he’d talk and sometimes I would, and sometimes we’d just stay silent. But for the first time in weeks I anticipated the morning, because this time, when the sun rose, there wouldn’t be the familiar stab. Tyler was back at long, long, long last.
Except, the moment the first streaks of dawn finally appeared, gilding the desert with its warm blush, I knew I’d been wrong.
Tyler wasn’t the cure.
I nearly doubled over as the sun ascended, crippling me as it claimed its place in the sky.
“Are you okay?” Tyler worried. “Should I get you back?”
But I shook him off, biting my lip until the pain had passed. “It’s nothing,” I lied. “I’m just so glad we have each other.”
He reached over then and squeezed my hand in that sweater-hug safe and comforting way that blew the fireworks and sparks out of the water, and I leaned my head against his shoulder to tell him a silent thank-you while I finally let the tears fall.
Natty pounced on me the second Tyler had delivered me back to our tent, just the way he’d promised Griffin. “Ohmygosh, Thom told me all about it. How you found Tyler . . . right here, in Blackwater,” she gushed as if it had been accidental that we hadn’t run into each other sooner. Like Griffin hadn’t had a hand in keeping us apart.
It would take a while to break Tyler of whatever hero worship thing he had for Griffin, but I had every intention of dethroning her and reclaiming my place in his heart.
I knew it sounded like I wanted to control Tyler, like this was some sort of catfight where Griffin and I were fighting over a boy. But it wasn’t like that. I wasn’t about to fight Griffin, and I certainly wasn’t fighting for Tyler. I knew you couldn’t control a person and you couldn’t force someone to love you—you should never have to. What I was fighting for was a chance. Our chance.
I just wanted him to remember who I was. Who we were . . . together.
And if, in the end, he remembered all that, and he still chose Griffin, then so be it.
The thing was, I didn’t think that would happen. I believed, to the very core of me, that if his memories returned, he’d still want me.
And if they didn’t . . . well, if he didn’t, then he’d fall in love with me all over again, because it wasn’t circumstance that had made us the couple we’d been, it was us. It was ingrained in us. It was who we were.