“Don’t come in. I’m—”
“Katie, please.”
“Don’t. I don’t want you to—”
Tyler cracked open the door.
“Not today, okay?” I said. “I can’t today. I can’t pretend. I can’t...”
He slid into bed next to me and handed me a giant cup of coffee. His palms were shaking, and he wouldn’t quite look at me, which was fine because I wouldn’t quite look at him. I put the mug on my nightstand and turned away, studying the soft lines and warm angles of morning while my body shuddered and my eyes welled. I swallowed a gasp—a big, fat, ugly one—and then burrowed my face into a pillow.
Tyler slipped a hand onto my back. Light, tentative, but it was there. He patted it twice.
I snickered through a silenced wail. “Thanks, Grandpa.”
He kicked me in the calf and then wrapped his arms around me, pressing his nose into the nape of my neck. “I’m trying,” he said.
I sniffled, rolled over to face him, and said, “I know.” My face, I was sure, red and swollen and covered in snot. My breath, sour. My hair, a mess. He wiped the tears from my eyes and kissed me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t ask you how you were doing this past week. I’ve been distracted, and that’s on me. If you were struggling and I missed it, I’m sorry. And I’m here now.”
I exhaled and then kissed him again.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay,” he said, and then, for a little while longer, I fell asleep.
When I awoke, Tyler was sitting up in bed, reading one of Meredith’s books.Tell Me You’ll Wait for Me.An early title, one she’d likely written herself.
“Am I hallucinating?” I said.
He grinned, then put the book down, its pages smooshed against the comforter. “She is so outrageously good. Do people even realize that? That her character work is so, so good?”
I propped myself up on a pillow. “Yes, Tyler. I think the people realize it.”
He laughed and then pulled me into his arms. His face, now, neutral. Serious. “So, today.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Today.”
“You’re welcome to do your own thing. Whatever you need. I know it’s a Thursday. That we should probably write, if you’re up for it. But I kind of have a tradition of my own, if you want to do something together. If you don’t want to be alone.”
“I don’t want to be alone.”
He held out his hand. “Then come on. We’d better get moving.”
“Where are we going?”
“Home,” he said. And I knew, from the way he’d said it, that he didn’t mean New York City.
Brother’s Best Friend
Henry’s friendship with Willa’s brother had been effortless. A no-brainer. A given. They were neighbors, they were the same age, they both played lacrosse. And so, despite their differences, they had grown up inseparable. They had been thick as thieves. That was just the way these things worked. That was just the way these things had to be.
54
Katie
It took nearly two hours to get home, and we didn’t talk much the way there. After all, what was there to say? It wasn’t until the train was fast approaching our station—as the sugar maples and drooping power lines and run-of-the-mill, just-like-mine homes with blue-gray siding were rushing by—that Tyler finally spoke.
