I let out a shaky breath and smiled. But it wasn’t until Aaron smiled back in a relieved sort of way that I realized, suddenly, how naive I’d been. Being a Lifer wasn’t about Tristan. This wasn’t even about me. This was about Aaron. It was about helping him let go of all this awfulness and move on. It was about leading him through the biggest transition he’d ever make.
This was a true purpose.
Something tugged gently at my hair, and when I looked down, the fog had already engulfed Aaron’s feet. It rolled in over the deck floor, colliding with the glass door and surrounding the planters. But this time, something was different. I could see a clear path through the fog, leading away from the chairs and toward the beach. There was a creak on the stairs, and I turned around. Tristan climbed up to meet us.
“Hey, man,” he said.
“Hey,” Aaron replied.
Tristan stepped toward me. I stared at the Tevas on his feet. “You ready?”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I think we are.”
Aaron’s expression was confused, but not scared. I, however, was terrified. I was about to say good-bye to him, forever. I was about to send him into the beyond.
Tristan held a hand out to me, then quickly thought better of it and shoved it into his back pocket. “It’s time.”
Surprises
As we stood at the end of the bridge with the fog swirling around our ankles, Aaron looked from me to Tristan with innocent bemusement, kind of like a little kid standing outside on the playground on his first day of school, wondering if his parents really were going to leave him there alone.
“What are we doing here?” he asked.
Tristan looked down at my hand. I felt the cold weight of the coin cupped inside my palm. I cleared my throat, and my eyes welled up.
“We’re here to say good-bye,” I said.
Tristan dipped his head and took a step back on the sandy, rocky road, giving us space.
Aaron looked at me quizzically. “Are you going somewhere?”
“No,” I said sadly. “You are.”
I handed him the coin, and he held it up between his thumb and forefinger, studying it. “Where am I going?”
“Someplace amazing,” I told him, my heart aching like crazy. “Someplace where you’ll be happy and…at peace.”
That was how I imagined the Light would be. The way I hoped it would be.
Aaron smiled. “That sounds fairly awesome.”
I grinned, struggling to hold back the tears, and put my hand on his back, turning him toward the bridge. “All you have to do is hold on to that and walk across the bridge,” I told him. “You’ll be there before you know it.”
Aaron took one step, then looked back at me. “I wish you could come.”
“Me, too.” I reached out and hugged him as tightly as I could, trying to solidify the feeling of him, his clean scent, in my memory. “It’s been so nice knowing you,” I whispered.
“You, too,” he told me. “Thanks for everything. I mean it, Rory. You’ve been a really good friend.”
I looked over at Tristan. It was almost as if Aaron knew where he was going. Maybe some small part of him did.
“Good-bye,” Aaron said to Tristan rather formally.
Tristan lifted a hand in a wave, and Aaron strode into the fog surrounding the bridge. The second he was gone, I dropped my face into my hands and cried, feeling guilty and selfish for it. Aaron was going to be fine. He was going to the Light. It was me I was crying for.
Suddenly I felt Tristan’s warm hand slide up my back and clasp my shoulder. “Rory,” he said, his voice full of anguish and grief and comfort and hope.
I turned toward him, knowing my face was covered in tears, knowing my nose was swollen and my eyes were red and my lips were dry and puffy. Knowing and not caring.
Tristan reached up and ran his thumb over my cheek, tilting my face so I had to look him in the eye.
“Rory,” he said again.
“I’m sorry,” I blubbered. “I just…I didn’t want…I didn’t want him to go.”
“I know,” he said, drying one cheek with the pad of his thumb. “I know.”
He took in a sharp breath, and then before I could realize what was happening, he kissed me. He kissed me so hard that I staggered backward until he tightened his grip on me to hold me up. I slid my hands up his broad back and tangled my fingers up in the soft, thick hair at the nape of his neck. Tristan kissed me like a guy who’d never kissed anyone before. Like a person who was so starved to be kissed he’d never stop. Not that I ever wanted him to. It didn’t even matter that my skin was smeared with tears. I’d never experienced a kiss so perfect. I’d never experienced anything so perfect.
When he finally pulled away, his hands gripped the back of my T-shirt and we were standing so close I couldn’t tell whose legs were whose. We both gasped for breath, our exhalations mingling between us.
“I thought you said—”
“Forget what I said,” he interjected. “I’m just sick of it.”
“Sick of what?” I asked, my brow creasing.
“Sick of trying to keep away from you,” Tristan said with a sigh. He held the back of my neck with one hand. “I’ve only been doing it for ten days, and it feels like an eternity.”
He kissed me again, and I smiled beneath his lips. He’d been counting the days, struggling all along to keep from wanting me, and now he was breaking the rules for me—breaking his own rules. Everything felt lighter suddenly. It was as if some chokehold on my heart had loosened and now it could really breathe.
Tristan broke off the kiss and wrapped his arms around me. For a long time we just stood there, folded against each other. My eyelashes were still wet, my heart brimming.
I leaned back to look him in the eye again, but then Tristan’s expression suddenly darkened. I glanced over my shoulder to see what had caught his attention. Along the side of the road, a swath of the green reeds had dried out and turned brown, bending toward the road. Some of them were broken, sticking out at violent angles, like bony fingers reaching up from a grave.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said, forcing a smile. “It’s nothing.” He entwined his fingers with mine. “Let’s walk back.”
“What about your car?” I asked, glancing over at his Range Rover, parked near the foot of the bridge.
“I’ll get it later,” he told me. “Right now, I’m in the mood for a nice, long stroll. With you.”
I grinned. “I like that plan.”
Our hands swinging between us, we walked down the hill toward town. Tristan pointed out various landmarks to me—a tree he used to climb when he first arrived on the island, trying to see across the ocean; a steep hill he and Joaquin had once raced down on bikes before crashing into each other at the bottom; the spot in the park where he and Krista had picnicked when she’d first learned the truth about Juniper Landing and her role here. I sensed how much Tristan loved this place—not just his mission, but this island.
Downtown Juniper Landing was bustling, full of people headed to the docks for dinner or strolling through the park with ice-cream cones. The trilling music of a flute wafted out through an open window somewhere as screen doors squeaked and people laughed. Everything seemed so peaceful, and the grass beneath our feet glimmered from the moisture left behind by the fog.
“And this is where I was standing the first time I saw you,” Tristan said, pausing in front of the general store.
“You remember that?” I asked with a blush.
“I’ll never forget it,” he said, sounding nostalgic.
I laughed suddenly.
“What?” he asked, squeezing my hand.
“I still can’t believe you kissed me,” I said.