Page 122 of All the way home

Zach’s heart plummets.

Oh fuck.

He’d suspected that this is what Kieran’s been getting at, but it’s different to hear it outright.

“I’m so sorry.”

Kieran shakes his head. “And it’s like . . . I get it, right? I understand why she’s taken it so hard. It’d be hard enough even under normal circumstances. But I’m pretty sure she thinks I wanted to leave her.”

Scrambling for words, Zach comes up helplessly empty.

“Sometimes I really believe I did want to,” Kieran admits colorlessly. “Last year was bad. Like, bad.”

Swallowing, Zach nods.

“But it was especially bad because there wasn’t a reason. When I was younger, I’d have low periods like that, but they were always during or after hard things, like when my granddad died, or when I busted my knee, so it felt like it made sense.”

“Yeah.”

“But this was just . . . I didn’t want to be awake anymore. It was just exhausting, and I thought—and I thought maybe I deserved it.”

Zach watches him carefully.

“And it wasn’t even true. None of it was. But it felt true, at the time. It felt urgent.”

Every word Kieran says makes sense, and still Zach feels like he’s just fallen from a great height and now that he’s landed, he’s not sure which way is up.

Kieran stays quiet.

What is there to say to that? What could Zach possibly say that would make this better?”

“I know it’s a lot,” Kieran says, a low murmur. “If it’s too much, I get that.”

“It’s not,” Zach says, immediately.

Eyebrows lifted, Kieran puts his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels.

“Not even a little,” Zach adds. Then he steels himself, tugging the ribbing of his sweatshirt down over his knuckles. “If this all comes out weird, just . . . bear with me. My mom says I’ve always had trouble with, like . . . I don’t know. Connecting with people and making them feel like I understand them. But I’m trying.”

Kieran says nothing.

Zach clears his throat. “I’m not going to judge you for stuff that’s in the past. I wouldn’t be . . . I wouldn’t act differently with you because of what you just told me.”

As though he’s making a decision, Kieran just watches him for a long time.

Desperately, Zach wants to be able to open his brain and see inside it. What’s going on up there?

Maybe he said the wrong thing, actually. Kieran’s difficult to read even when the significance of the moment doesn’t make him feel so unmoored.

Slowly, still analyzing him, Kieran says, “I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

Zach takes those words and rolls them around in his head. It’s a promise like he’s never made himself before when he swears that tomorrow or the next day or next week or next year, whenever the rest of this truly insane day starts to fade, he’ll remember this moment.

“I didn’t know people like you existed,” Zach tells him. He sucks in a deep breath. “You’re a . . .”

“A what?” Kieran asks, with a tiny smile.

Nine of cups, Zach thinks, but doesn’t say it, because it won’t make sense to him, and he wants Kieran to understand.