“Saylor,” she whispers, and my world tilts.
I freeze, feeling as though I’ve been plunged into icy water.
Saylor.
My heart feels like it stops, and the room falls into a stifling silence.
“You, he… what?” My voice is barely a whisper.
“I want to talk to all of you about it, but yes, Saylor. All of this, if we do this, it has to include him.” Sloan’s voice is firm, her determination clear.
How?The word reverberates in my mind, a drumbeat of confusion and disbelief.
“Sloan, Saylor is—” I begin, but she cuts me off.
“I know, okay? I know, but he’sreal to me. For me, he is just as alive as you are. He’s just on the other side. But he’s just as important. He was the one who was always there, always had my back, and never hurt me. I love him, Hunter. He’s mine.” Her confession hits me like a physical blow.
How?The word is still echoing in my mind.
“You can see Saylor, and he is here with you?” I ask, struggling to keep my voice steady.
It can’t be.
“Well, not all the time. It’s complicated. He’s not right now. But I will tell you guys all about it when we talk,” she says, her voice softer now. “I know that’s a lot. I’m sorry to just spring this on you, but I tried to tell you…”
True, I remember when she told us, the disbelief that had clouded my judgment. I wanted to believe her, to trust her. I was ready to listen, to give her the benefit of the doubt. But then she said the only thing that could have made me choose a side that wasn’t hers. The only thing that was bad enough to make me abandon her even though I promised her forever.
She mentioned Saylor, and I felt betrayed.
That day, when I turned my back on her, it felt like denying a part of myself. I remember the sight of her, broken and crying, and how it tore me apart. But her words, her claims about Saylor—they felt like manipulation, a cruel twist using my grief and love against me.
But now, hearing her speak with such conviction, such unwavering belief, I’m forced to confront a possibility I had refused to consider then, a possibility that snuck in over the course of the last few weeks.
What if Saylor is here in some form?
What if Sloan, in her unique way, had been in touch with a part of him that I believed was lost forever?
“Yeah, maybe you have to explain that part to me because he’s the reason why I didn’t believe you initially,” I share, my voice barely more than a whisper.
“What do you mean?” Sloan looks confused, stepping back and crossing her arms defensively.
“You said you can see and talk toghosts,” I point out slowly, searching her face.
“Yes, and I think I proved that,” she retorts, her voice tinged with defensiveness.
“But—” I start, trying to find the right words to tell her what she needs to hear, what she doesn’t seem to know.
“But what?” she asks, her tone cold.
“Sloan, Saylor isn’tdead.”
THIRTY-ONE
We standside by side in front of Saylor’s bed, the steady beep of the heart monitor filling the room with a rhythm that seems too mechanical and impersonal for the gravity of the moment.
Gazing down at Saylor, it’s hard to reconcile the man in the hospital bed with the twenty-three-year-old I love. Time has touched him in ways I hadn’t imagined. He looks older now, closer to his thirty Earth-bound years, his face bearing the quiet marks of the years that have passed. His skin is pale, a stark contrast to the sterile blue of the hospital gown, and his body has become thinner, yet nothing diminishes his handsome features, the same ones I know as well as mine by now.
There are tubes lined up with his nostrils, a lifeline of oxygen keeping him tethered to this world. I watch, almost holding my breath, as his eyelids flutter like butterflies resting momentarily before taking flight. It’s a small yet heart-wrenching sign of the life still fighting within.
