Page 146 of All the way home

Kieran takes a deep breath and stops pacing. “I was stupid. I got caught up in this fantasy world when I didn’t even know him. And then right before we left, I found out how he really felt about people like . . . me.”

As what he means registers, Zach squirms on the ground. His rib cage feels awkwardly made, the wrong shape. Too small.

Kieran covers his eyes with his hands. His voice is thick when he says, “And I just—I don’t know what I would have done if he turned all that on me. So I just blocked him. Was it the right choice? No, probably not. But I just—I wasn’t sure what I’d do. And it just reinforced this idea that the way my brain works makes me, like, fundamentally unknowable, you know? So I told myself I’d never tell anyone about it unless it was really important they knew.”

If he had the time, Zach would take the implication of it and unfold it and stare at it for eleven more hours, but Kieran’s already moving on.

“So, Rena thought that we got to the end of the summer and then I just dipped out on Josiah for fun. I guess it wasn’t that much of a stretch, considering I’d already been careless once with Oscar, and she just . . . wouldn’t let it go.”

“Why didn’t you tell her the truth?”

With a snort, Kieran shakes his head. “I didn’t think that conversation would go particularly well. Like, ‘Hey, this guy we all thought was great actually thinks people like me are psychos, do you also think I’m essentially inhuman?’ No.” He shakes his head. Then, after a brief pause, he says, “I did get to talk with her about it, though. Tonight.”

“Oh.”

“I said a lot of things I should have said a while ago.”

“I’m . . . glad you did.”

At last, Kieran turns and meets his eyes.

Strangely weightless, hope simmering, Zach says, “You decided it was important I knew.”

“I did.”

His heartbeat thuds in his wrist as he decides to risk it. “Why?”

“I like you,” Kieran says, with an edge of resolve in his tone. “I mean, when we started talking I had no idea what was going to happen. I thought it would just be some fun. Which it was, but . . . then there you were.”

That sums up the whole day pretty well.

Then there you were.

“So,” Kieran says, and even he can’t disguise the desperate edge bleeding into his tone.

This, Zach realizes, is the version of Kieran he was so obviously afraid Zach wouldn’t like. The Kieran that’s full of possibility and pondering, and all of that despair too.

“I don’t know how to be normal around new people.” Zach’s already talking before he knows where he’s going with it, letting his hands fall and blinking away the bright spots left behind. “I’m not usually . . . like this.”

“Okay,” Kieran says cautiously.

“I’m afraid of heights,” Zach tells him. “And strangers—usually. And, like, every natural disaster, and sometimes the dark.”

“Bad things happen in the dark,” Kieran says with a nod.

For an instant, Zach flashes back to the wing of the airport under construction. “I’m just warning you. I’m not usually the way I have been tonight. I get freaked out easy, and I can be difficult to deal with.”

Kieran watches him intently.

“I don’t want to be a fantasy world,” Zach whispers.

Slowly, Kieran walks forward, until he stands right over Zach. Then he holds out a hand.

Helpless to do anything else, Zach takes it, lets Kieran haul him to his feet, stops breathing when Kieran doesn’t let go.

“You’re not a fantasy world, Zach Loren.” Kieran shakes his head, and then reaches up with his free hand and tucks some of Zach’s hair behind his ear and out of the way. “I see you.”

His breath catches.