The Replaced(64)

I lifted my eyes to his and swallowed hard. I didn’t tell him that I’d already read this book—his favorite. That he’d given a copy to me before and that I’d memorized line after line and that he was the one who’d taught me the beauty of reading. “Thank you,” I managed while he let me take it from him.

Our fingers brushed, more than brushed, as the book exchanged hands and my cheeks ignited all over again.

“I can’t stay,” he whispered. “I just wanted to give you this. I gotta go.” He glanced back at me once more after he ducked his head, leaving Natty and me in our tent as he left to meet Griffin, or do whatever it is her trainees were supposed to be doing all day.

I clutched the book to my heart.

“I see what you mean,” Natty joked when I finally spun around and saw her watching me. “A book. That’s pretty serious.”

“It’s Fahrenheit 451,” I breathed, ignoring her mocking tone as I held the book even tighter. “It was the first gift he ever gave me.”

The bantering look melted from her face. “He doesn’t remember?”

“It doesn’t matter. He gave it to me again. It means something.”

Natty didn’t argue, and I went to my cot and sat down with my treasure, looking at a cover I’d looked at a hundred times before, and ran my fingers over it. This wasn’t just about the book.

But as I peeled the cover back and began thumbing through the pages, my heart throbbed savagely, achingly.

Tyler might not readily recall the other things from our old life together the way I did, but they were still there, buried somewhere in his subconscious. I knew for sure because I was looking right at them with my very own eyes.

The best things in life are worth the risk.

The phrase was scribbled in Tyler’s familiar handwriting across the top of one of the pages, and had been traced over again and again, as if he’d considered them. Chewed on them. Come back to them time and time again.

I wondered if he even knew who he’d written them for . . . if he knew he’d meant them for me. Or if that was what haunted him. If the memory was right there, elusive and insubstantial and just out of his reach.

I could picture them clearly, though, even if he couldn’t. Vibrant and crisp and artfully chalk-drawn on the road between our houses: The best things in life are worth the risk.

That’s what he’d written. About me. About us.

The birdcage was there on the page too, with the small bird escaping from it.

And as I flipped through the book, there were others. Tyler had copied the chalk pathway he’d drawn for me—the one that had extended from his side of the road to mine, joining my house to his. Him to me. And the words he’d drawn over the top of it:

I’ll remember you always.

It was still true, I told myself.

Those memories might not be right at the surface, but they were absolutely-totally-undeniably there, waiting to be called back. The book, and what he’d scribbled inside of it, was proof of that.

I thumbed through the pages, and for the first time in forever I hardly wondered what time it was, as instead I let myself get lost in the drawings and words, and in the passages I’d read before. I let all of it dredge up the past and tried to hold on to the feelings they elicited . . . the emotions, the sensations, the memories.

I got lost in Tyler.


I barely noticed when Simon sat down beside me.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, even though we both knew he hadn’t.

I shoved the book beneath my pillow, right next to my stolen copy of Slaughterhouse-Five, not wanting to share it with him—the book itself or the meaning behind it. When I glanced at my watch, I was stunned to realize that hours had passed. Glancing around, I was even more surprised that Natty was gone. How had I lost track for so long? “What’s happening?” Simon wore a serious expression, and my stomach dropped. “Did something happen to Tyler?”

Hurt flashed behind Simon’s copper eyes, and immediately I regretted letting Tyler’s name slip past my lips. I might not understand what had happened between Simon and me, which pretty much amounted to a whole lot of nothing, at least from my vantage point, but that didn’t mean I needed to rub this whole Tyler-coming-back thing in his face. Simon had never seen things the way I had. That I wasn’t available the way he’d wanted me to be, no matter how much I’d protested. He’d made it pretty clear he wanted something between us.

“No. He’s fine.” His voice was flat. “I came to check on you.”

“Sorry,” I said. And then again, my whole body relaxing: “Really. I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I just . . .” I sighed because it wasn’t really a mystery what had gotten into me. It was everything. Being here at Blackwater, finding Tyler the way we had, which should have been the best thing ever except that he didn’t remember anything about us, and then learning about Simon’s history with Griffin and Thom and Willow. It was . . . a lot to take in.

Simon’s shoulders fell. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry.” His expression was pensive. “I shouldn’t have put so much pressure on you.”

We were silent for a long time after that, not in a weird way, but in a comfortable way. The way I wished things could have been between us all along. This was the Simon I felt like I could confide in. Count on.