When we were in his car, he raised an eyebrow at me, and I realized I’d never told him where we were going. I loved that he was willing to go along with whatever I had in mind, no questions asked.
“Oh, uh . . . to Cedar Lake High School.” I paused when an expression I didn’t recognize passed over his face. “Do you know where that is?”
“Uh, yeah. In Bellingham. It’s the school you were playing the night you vanished.” He frowned. “Are you sure you want to go back there?”
I nodded, more sure than I’d ever been. “I need to retrace my steps. I want to see if I can remember anything.”
“Why? What good’ll it do? The past is the past. You’re here now. Shouldn’t you be moving forward now? Forget about what happened all those years ago?”
I hesitated, wondering how much I should tell him about my dad and his crackpot theories, and about Agent Truman, and the way they’d both asked me about fireflies.
“I wish I could,” I started as I smoothed my hand nervously over my jeans. “But there’s more to it than just that. There are things . . . people who are making it hard to let the past stay buried in the past.”
He winced, and I wondered if the pained expression meant he thought I was talking about his brother again. I reached across to where his fingers gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white. But I stopped myself because I felt self-conscious all of a sudden.
“Tyler, I’m not talking about Austin,” I explained, keeping my eyes trained on him. “When I came back, I thought . . . well, you know . . . I thought you were your brother. And I thought we would . . . be together still.” It was so much easier saying it out loud than I thought it would be. “But things are over between him and me, I get that now.” I took a breath and shrugged. “I know I don’t remember where I was all that time, but now that I’m back I feel so different. I’m not sure what it is about you. You were just a kid. . . .” My voice trailed away as I frowned, trying to find a way to explain. “It’s kind of like when Montag from Fahrenheit 451 asks Clarisse why it feels like he’s known her for so many years, and she says, ‘Because I like you, and I don’t want anything from you. And because we know each other.’ It’s the same way with you.”
His fingers relaxed on the steering wheel. His green eyes—ones that had once reminded me of Austin’s but were now so obviously not like Austin’s that I couldn’t imagine having mistaken the two of them—glanced my way. I knew when I looked at him there was no going back. Whatever I’d felt for Austin really was in the past.
Somehow, in less than a week, Tyler had managed to make me believe I belonged here, in this weird, unfamiliar world I’d been dropped into. He was the only person I could count on.
He was my here and now.
His voice was decisive when he spoke. “I’m glad Austin acted like an ass. I’m not saying he’s a dick or anything, because he’s still my brother. But it was a dick move.” He leaned nearer, removing his hand from the wheel and slipping it behind my neck, drawing me so close I could smell the toothpaste on his breath. “You deserve better than that, Kyra.” And just when I thought he was going to do it, finally kiss me, his lips parted and he said, “And you might not want anything from me, but don’t for a single second think I don’t want something from you.”
He was wrong, though; I wanted everything from him. Probably more than I should.
When his mouth fell on my forehead, my eyes closed while I waited for the explosion of butterflies in my stomach to settle down, but it never happened. They kept thrashing, for as long as he stayed there, which was forever, his lips pressed against my skin, burning me, scorching me. When he finally drew back, I was convinced there would be a mark there, a brand in the shape of his mouth.
He grinned, and then winked at me, before starting his engine. “Are we done messing around here? Because I think it’s time for you to start telling me everything. Like who the hell’s been dredging up all this past crap, and why it’s so important that you remember what happened.”
I wanted to tell him no, that I’d way rather stay here and “mess around,” but he was right. It was time to confide in someone. In him.
I waited a few minutes, until my breathing had returned to normal, or as normal as it was going to be while the feel of his lips still blistered my forehead. But I knew he was waiting, even though he didn’t press me.
We took the highway. We’d drive the other way, the way my dad and I had gone—on Chuckanut Drive—on our way back. I wanted to retrace our steps to the T, and my dad had taken the long way home that night because of road construction on the southbound lanes of the interstate.
Tyler’s car slid evenly, smoothly over the pavement, and I leaned back in my seat, studying him surreptitiously. “Remember the day I came back, when you said I didn’t look any older?”
The corners of his mouth ticked up, but he kept his eyes on the road. “Yeah.”
Now that I’d started, I wasn’t sure exactly where I was going with this. I shifted and fidgeted with my seat belt, readjusting it over my chest. After a moment I tried again. “Didn’t you think it was weird that I’m supposed to be twenty-one, but I still look the same?”
This time he turned his head to look at me. “What do you mean ‘supposed to be’? If you’re worried that I think you’re too old for me or something, I’m not.” He directed his gaze back to the road, but he was scowling now. “It’s not a big deal, Kyra. Really.” His lazy smile made a fleeting appearance. “I kinda like the whole cougar thing you’ve got goin’ on.”
Oh my god, even when I was trying to be serious, he was ridiculous. “Uh, no. That’s not it at all. And I’m not.” I was tired of dancing around it, and tired of pretending to be something I wasn’t. This, all of it, would either be better or a thousand times worse if I just spit it out already. “I’m not twenty-one, Tyler. I’m still sixteen.”
There, I thought, and even if I wanted to—which I totally and completely did—I couldn’t take it back now.
Tyler sounded far more reasonable when he responded than I had when I’d blurted out my admission. “What are you talking about, Kyra? You’re the same age as Austin.”
My throat felt scratchy, and I tried to clear it. “I don’t think so,” I admitted. “At first I didn’t believe it either. It was the dentist who saw it first, when I went in to get my tooth fixed. He looked at my X-rays and compared them to the ones I’d had done right before I disappeared—five years ago. He told my parents they were the same. Exactly the same.”
“Kyr—”
But I kept going before he could stop me. I was either going to do this or completely chicken out. Either way I was in too deep, and I’d come out looking like a lunatic. I planned to at least have my say before Tyler walked away and never looked back. “But it wasn’t just that. There were other things too. Things no one else would have noticed but me. Things like the bruise I’d gotten on my leg . . .” I leaned over and pulled the hem of my jeans up, showing him the fading purple splotch on my shin. “I got this when Cat and I were messing around the night before our big game. We broke my dad’s favorite coffee mug and never told him.” Just mentioning my dad and the world’s best dad mug I’d gotten him for Father’s Day when I was eleven made me sick to my stomach.
I wondered what kinds of mugs I’d get him now. WORLD’S BEST ALIEN HUNTER. MY DAD’S CRAZIER THAN YOUR DAD. If only I could have the World’s Best Dad back again.
Tyler looked my way, his eyes alternating between the bruise and the road and me. “You could’ve gotten that anywhere,” he told me, his voice so much softer and less teasing than it had been just a minute ago.