On the ground was a bag—the same smooth brown paper his comic book had been bagged in from the bookstore.
Like a seasoned veteran, I was out the window and back in my room in a blink. I peeled back the paper and peeked inside.
Immediately, I texted him back. A book?
After only a slight pause he answered: One of the best in my collection.
I looked again, to see what it was: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I’d heard of it but never read it. It was old, like the other one, and he had it in plastic even though this one was a regular paperback.
I don’t want to ruin it, I responded.
I trust you. And that simple, three-word statement made me grin so wide my cheeks ached. A second text said, I thought it might help you sleep.
My mischievous side kicked in. So you’re saying it’s boring?
This time the wait was a little longer, and just when I thought maybe my teasing hadn’t translated over text message and he wasn’t going to answer, my phone buzzed again. I’m saying I want to share one of my very favorite things in the world with you, Kyra.
CHAPTER SIX
Day Three
I FINISHED THE BOOK AT 4:25 IN THE MORNING, exactly four hours and thirteen minutes after I’d started it. Since it was 238 pages, that was just under a page a minute, so I knew I wouldn’t be winning any speed-reading contests or anything.
I knew now why it was one of Tyler’s favorite things. I loved it. Not in the sense that I felt all warm and fuzzy after reading it or anything, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. About Montag, the main character who’d spent his life burning books, and his technology-addicted wife, and the free-thinking girl next door who was “different” from everyone else, never fitting into her strange, emotionless society.
I was different, I couldn’t help thinking. Like Clarisse had been.
I continued to be haunted by the book long after I’d slipped it back into its synthetic sleeve and placed it on my nightstand. I was downright giddy at the prospect of seeing Tyler again, and maybe I’d talk about the book with him if it meant drawing out our time together, because I was so not above going there.
I glanced up when my bedroom door started to open, but then it stopped and there was a brisk knock.
“Yeah,” I called, keeping my voice down since it was only . . . I checked: 7:47.
It opened the rest of the way, and The Husband was there, filling the doorway and studying me. We hadn’t spent much, or any, really, time together. I’d avoided him as much as possible, staying in parts of the house where he wasn’t—my room namely—and venturing out only when necessary. Just seeing him now made my stomach do nervous flips.
I couldn’t help it; I still had that bitter taste in my mouth over our first encounter. Deep down, I knew none of this was his fault, but it didn’t change the fact that I blamed him, at least in some part, for the way things were. For my parents’ divorce, for that new kid in the nursery down the hall, for the guest room I was living in.
He made an attempt to smile. “Hey, kiddo,” he offered, and inside I grimaced. My dad called me “kiddo,” not him. “Your dad’s here. He’s waiting for you in the kitchen.”
I didn’t say anything, just stared woodenly at him until he finally got the point and retreated with a shrug.
Since I hadn’t really slept, I’d never bothered putting on pajamas, so I quickly stripped out of what I’d worn yesterday and snagged the first pair of jeans and a vintage-style T-shirt I could find in the bags my mom had delivered—glad she’d gotten my sizes right. She’d even bought me a pair of simple black-and-white Chuck Taylors, which, as far as I was concerned, went with everything. They were a little stiff for my liking, but I figured they’d be broken in soon enough.
My dad was alone and sitting at his same spot at the kitchen table when I came in. He looked up at me earnestly.
Without meaning to, I caught myself giving him the once-over. Evaluating his clothes, his state of cleanliness, his posture, right down to trying to decide how red his eyes were.
He’d showered and changed clothes since yesterday, and if I wasn’t mistaken, I thought he might have gotten a haircut. He hadn’t shaved, but his beard looked . . . trimmed . . . less scruffy. Even his eyes were clearer as they caught mine.
“Sorry I didn’t make it back here last night; I got tied up.” He shook his head and glanced away from me.
I sat down at the table across from him like always, so we were facing each other. I was nervous—he was making me nervous. He looked like he had something to say, and I was worried it wasn’t something I wanted to hear. He probably would have tried to reach for my hands if I hadn’t had them buried in my lap and balled tightly. “Anyway, I just wanted to tell you I shouldn’t have said all that stuff yesterday. . . .”
He didn’t finish, but I knew he was done talking when he winced and waited for me. I guess I was supposed to say something then.
I wanted to; I just wasn’t sure what that something was. It was so weird to be tongue-tied around my own parents, so I shrugged because I couldn’t think of anything else. I checked the microwave, thinking that only three minutes had passed even though it felt like forever.
More than anything, though, I wished he’d fill this awkward silence with one of his stupid expressions. I wished he’d say something like “An apology is a good way to have the last word.” Or “It’s easier to apologize than to ask for permission”—not that that one would have made sense in this situation, but I would have welcomed anything to break the tension right now.
And then he snorted. “Man, that kid across the street sure likes you, doesn’t he?”
My eyes flew open, and I stared at him. “Who? Tyler? What’s that supposed to mean?”
He wiggled his eyebrows at me, something that was so my old dad that I almost laughed at him. “The new art out front. He’s got it pretty bad, is all I’m saying.”
“Dad!” I jumped up, not wanting to admit that what he told me meant a million times more than it should. That it was killing me not to bolt to the front door so I could see if Tyler really had drawn something new for me. “You have no idea what you’re even talking about.” I tried to sound like it was nothing when really, at that very moment, it was everything. “He’s Austin’s brother,” I tried again, and this time I could hear it, the fact that I was so not convincing. There was no way my dad hadn’t heard it too. But I was already making my way out of the kitchen toward the front of the house.
I heard my dad laughing at me from the table. “See for yourself, and then tell me it’s nothing,” he called after me.
When I stepped outside and saw what he meant, I knew. . . .
He wasn’t wrong.
The old drawing—the path—and the writing—“I’ll remember you always”—were gone. Erased. And in their place was a new “masterpiece,” and it was infinitely more beautiful and more meaningful.
It was the birdcage in the center of the road that caught my attention first: chalk drawn and intricate, with its delicate bowed, golden bars. Its door was hanging open wide, and a small blue bird was just taking flight, with small chalk wisps depicting it gathering momentum as it broke free from its confines.
And below the bird, tracing the path of its trajectory, were the words Tyler had chosen . . . just for me.
The script was so different from the morning before, yet just as elegant and lovingly crafted, each letter carefully placed and delicately drawn. But it was the meaning of them, those words, all together that made me pause as I stepped closer, taking them all in at once: