The Replaced(62)

I nodded, either a Yes, we’re friends or Yes, you can trust me, I wasn’t sure which or whether it made a difference.

“Did she say why?”

Tyler’s mouth turned down when he shrugged. “Nah. She just says I shouldn’t let it get around. Not yet, anyway.”

“No. That’s probably a good idea.” I thought of the way Simon had kept the way I could move things from the others. I wondered if they hadn’t already known I could heal faster, if he’d have kept that from them too.

“So, I guess if you haven’t been back that long, you probably don’t know, then,” he said, his voice growing apologetic and kinda drifty. “About your parents . . .”

I shrugged, since I was still in that gray area—not sure how much I should admit—but I didn’t want to lie either. “No. I do. I . . . know,” I finally admitted.

He nodded. “I couldn’t go back to see mine.” This time his expression was downright pathetic, and I was reminded that at least I’d known I was saying good-bye to my parents. The last time Tyler’s parents saw him, Agent Truman had told them I was contagious and if he stayed with me, I would contaminate him. I wondered where they thought he was now. Tyler didn’t remember any of that. “Griffin says since we’re not safe to be around, it’s better for them to just think I . . . ran away.”

“What do you think?”

He cocked his head to the side, his eyes overbright. “She’s probably right. It just sucks, is all. I miss ’em.” Then he bumped into me again, this time not so much a nudge as it was a brush, like he wanted to connect with someone. He glanced down at me.

“I know what you mean. I miss my dad.”

“Who’d’a thought he was right all this time.” His eyes sparkled just a little. “I mean, after everything that happened, and everything everyone thought of him, turns out he was the sane one in all this.”

I lifted my eyes to his. “Well, I don’t know about sane, but yeah.”


There was a prolonged silence as I tried to decide if this whole thing was awkward or not, when Tyler reached over and picked up my hand. My heart tripped over itself as I watched him study it, almost like he was seeing something new . . . something he’d never seen before. Curiously he flipped it over and uncurled my fingers, flattening them until my fingers were splayed, and then he pressed his own against mine so our palms were aligned. His fingers dwarfed my own like I was only a child by comparison. “Do I look different?” he asked, his voice rough and low.

A lump rose in my throat as I struggled for the right answer. Different how, I wondered? Different from the Tyler he thought I remembered—the one from five years ago? Or different from the Tyler I’d fallen in love with, the one I’d seen just a few short weeks ago? The one I’d been desperately-hopelessly-achingly searching for?

“No,” I whispered, my eyes locking on his. I could’ve stayed like that forever, even if he had absolutely zero memory of me. “You look the same as I remember,” I finally said, because I couldn’t lie.

I could never, ever lie to him.

His fingers closed over mine and he squeezed once, an apology squeeze, before he let go. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me. I think I’m just homesick, is all. I . . .” He didn’t finish.

“It’s okay.” I didn’t want him to stop or to be sorry or . . . to stop. Ever. “I totally get it. I miss everyone and everything. It’s nice to know someone. From home.” I took his hand again, wishing I could convey all my true feelings. “It’s nice,” I ended lamely because it was all I could say.

Tyler accepted my “nice” speech. Our fingers intertwined, and even though it wasn’t like before, when sparks flew and fireworks exploded, it was comforting. And right now comforting was a million times better than nothing at all.

Maybe comforting was better than fireworks anyway. Comforting fit like a sweater, and kept you warm, and made you feel protected.

Comforting could kick fireworks’ ass any day of the week.

He gave me a sidelong glance before talking again. “I don’t know if it’s weird for me to bring this up, but I miss Austin.”

“It’s not weird, Tyler. You’re allowed to miss your brother. It would be weird if you didn’t.” I let out a sigh and leaned my head against his shoulder.

“I just wasn’t sure . . . if . . .” He did this shrug thing, and it was completely filled with all the words he didn’t want to say, and I knew exactly how he felt because I had just as many words I was holding inside.

I let him off the hook. “I know about them too—Austin and Cat.”

“I didn’t realize.”

I know, I wanted to tell him, and then I wanted to bury my fingers in his hair and drag him down and kiss him, full on the lips. If only I could taste him, just one time. And press myself to him.

Instead I smiled a small, sad little smile.

“They didn’t do it to hurt you,” he said, exactly the way he’d said it a month ago, when he’d explained it to me the first time, and my eyes burned because he was so the same Tyler I remembered that I wanted him to remember too.

I nodded again, and then one more time, my eyes still stinging, to let him know I’d heard enough. Enough about Austin and Cat, and enough about our old lives with our old families. This was our new life, and even if he never remembered, if this was where we were starting from, we’d get through it, and everything would be okay, I told myself, because here we were, Tyler and me, together again.