Dark sunglasses, black dress.
Trembling hands—and blond hair.
84
Tyler
I kicked down the door to the carriage house. My fists were on fire, and I could not breathe. Meredith, somehow, was already standing in the entryway, entirely still. Pinot cowered at her feet.
“Who the fuck,” I said, “are you!?”
“Tyler, please. Let me explain. Let me—”
“How do you know my mom? Why were you at Mikey’s funeral? Why the fuck am I here!?”
She did not answer. Instead, she backstepped down the hall until she’d run out of room at the base of the stairwell. The house was littered with empty bottles, and there were books everywhere.
“Why were you there, Meredith? Why do I work for you? How did you pick those tropes that day? Why were you standing at the door just now, waiting for me?”
“Tyler,” she said.
“No!” I stole another two steps forward, forcing her up the first stair. The handrail was rotting, and the floorboards creaked. “Tell me who you are! Tell me how you know my mother! Tell me why the fuck I’m here!”
She was halfway to the landing, flattened against the wall. Pinot leaped into her arms.
“What’s upstairs?” I said. “What am I going to find, Meredith, when I get upstairs?”
She kept her lips pressed into a thin line. I barged past her, andthe last few steps gave way to a long, windowless hallway. A door creaked open at its end, and a slice of sunlight spilled onto the hardwood.
I pushed open the door.
My heart stopped.
It was the biggest plot wall I’d ever seen. My entire life—my entire story—was right there, crystallized into broad strokes and sticky notes. There were maps of my hometown. There were pinch points, plot twists, and a meet-cute at Georgina’s Café early in the afternoon on the final Friday in May. There were timelines and transcripts and train tickets, and, at the center of it all, in big cursive letters and careful navy ink, two thumbtacked tropes.
Bad boy gone good.
The one who got away.
I turned around. Meredith stood at the door, breathing in and breathing out.
“Who the fuck,” I said, “are you?”
“Tyler, let me explain. Let me—”
“How do you have all this? Have you been following us? Are there cameras here? Am I hallucinating? Is this a dream? It must be, right? I...”
I started touching things. The walls, the windows, my own face. It all felt so vivid—so real. But it couldn’t have been. I was sleeping. I was sleeping in the cottage, and Katie was in my arms. Or maybe the whole summer had been make-believe. A manifestation of my post-traumatic stress disorder. Some combination of my worst nightmare and a wet dream.
Yes, that was it. I was dreaming. I was dreaming, and Katie was still mine. Or I was dreaming, and it was still spring in New York, and I was never here at all.
But that was when my fingers found a photo on the wall. Faded and tattered but clear as day. Meredith, maybe a few years older than Katie. A man—tall, bearded, midthirties, a watch on his wrist. A boy, no older than two, building sandcastles. A cat, tail up, peering on.
“No,” I said.
“Tyler.”
“No!”
