I glanced at my watch. “I’m on duty tonight.” I unlocked the door but didn’t open it. “But if you want to sit in here and?—”
“Yeah.” He was sitting in a flash, and I rolled out my desk chair and sat opposite him. “Thank you.”
“It’s okay, lay it on me.”
I was nervous—not because I thought he’d say something awful, but because this meant something. Tyler didn’t ask for help lightly; he trusted me, and I didn’t want to mess it up. I needed to be there for him and love him at the same time.
Love. The kind that crept up slowly and settled deep, stubborn and steady. The type I hadn’t been looking for but found anyway—in the way he held my gaze when he was scared, in the quiet steadiness of his presence when he thought he had nothing left to give. I loved him in a way that made breathing feel easier and harder at the same time. I loved him in silence, in the spaces between his words, in thecurve of his smile when he finally believed he wasn’t alone.
I loved him.
“Marcus?” he asked, and I snapped back to him.
“Sorry?”
“You went somewhere,” he said, and I reached over and patted his knee.
“Bandages,” I said lamely.
He glanced at the box on my desk, “Okay. Yeah, so…”
“I’m listening.”
He pulled a small notebook from his pocket, and I recognized his handwriting on each page as he flicked through it. “It’s a letter to my sister.”
“Okay.”
“I’m just gonna read it, okay, don’t look at me, don’t say anything.”
“Go for it.”
“Dear Sis. I wanted to write to you to tell you I understand why you don’t want to visit. Truly. I’m not writing to change your mind or convince you of anything. I’m writing because I need you to know something. The last thing Paxton and I talked about was you. Honest. He wanted all these embarrassing stories, like the one where you got bubblegum stuckin your hair, and I tried to cut it out and gave you those horribly crooked bangs, but I refused to tell him. Not even that one. I told him he’d have to wait for you to share them. He punched my arm, laughed, and said he’d wait forever if he had to.”
As Tyler read, I watched him. His voice didn’t waver, but everything else about him betrayed the emotion he was holding back. His left hand trembled, and he white-knuckled the notebook. He shifted in his seat, cleared his throat more than once, and blinked hard as if he could stop the sting building behind his eyes. I saw the tension in his jaw, the way he bit down gently, as if to anchor himself in the words.
“So, anyway, I was so happy about my best friend falling for the other half of me. I never told you that properly. But I was happy for both of you because you were meant to be together. Jess and Paxton. Paxton and Jess.” He paused, his left hand clenched and unclenched in his lap. “In therapy, I’ve been dealing with the survivor’s guilt. With the nightmares, the what-ifs, the constant ache. And I need you to know that, even with all that understanding, I’m trying to handle… I still wish it had been me instead of him.”
He glanced at me then, and fuck, I wanted toshake him and tell him no, to wrap my arms around him and shield him from the weight of everything. But I didn’t. I stayed still because I knew he needed to say this. He stared back at the letter, eyes glassy.
“Because you deserve everything good, Jess. You deserved him and the future you were building together. And I hope you find those things again, even if it takes time. Even if it never looks the same as it might have with Pax. I’m always thinking about you. I love you. Always. Your big brother, Tyler.” He closed the notebook and kept his gaze fixed on his lap.
I didn’t speak right away. I couldn’t. I’d seen grief from a lot of angles—emergency rooms, in support groups, group therapy—but nothing had ever hit me like hearing Tyler’s voice tremble on the wordlove. On the wish to trade places.
Professionally, I recognized his survivor’s guilt, was proud of his self-awareness, and understood loving someone through grief. But this wasn’t a clinical situation.
This was Tyler.
My Tyler.
I reached forward, resting a hand over his. “You don’t need to change a word,” I said. “It’s honest and beautiful.”
He glanced up at me, and the devastation in his expression twisted something in my chest.
“But what if it makes her hurt more?” he asked. “She could be over grieving for Paxton, and I’m here picking at the scab.”
I shook my head. “Ty, grief is always part of us. I think this letter will remind her she’s not alone in it.” His shoulders slumped, and I slid my chair closer until our knees bumped. “You’re not alone in it either,” I added.
He blinked, and I watched his expression shift from sadness and despair to something quieter: acceptance, maybe even relief.
