The Darkest Part (23 page)

“Right,” I say, glancing around, like somewhere special is going to materialize out of the concrete. Then it hits me. “What about the Hernando Desoto Bridge? We’re passing over it anyway, and Tyler had a thing for bridges when he was a kid.” I feel a smile stretch my lips. “He had a shit ton of them for his boxcars.”

Sam’s face brightens. “Yeah. I remember that. Good call.” She smiles at me, and it’s free, unguarded. It almost feels like we’re back to normal. At least where we picked up at the beginning of the trip. It’s not where I want to be. But I’ll take it.

I unlock the truck and slide in, reaching over to open her door. Sam pulls the map from the glove box and traces her finger over the route we’re about to take. “I can’t believe you remembered the name of that bridge off the top of your head.”

Turning the ignition, I check my rearview. “I’ve looked at the map, and I have a photographic memory.” I tap my temple and glance over. And watch her jaw go slack. She stares down at the map, fiddles with her thumbnail, her cheeks reddening and giving away her embarrassment.

My words smack me across the face as realization dawns. Facing forward, I grip the wheel.
Shit. Fuck
. I pull out of the parking space with more speed then I intend, then peel the tires as I gun it out of the garage.

Trying to make her understand that picturing her half-naked isn’t a bad thing . . . I guess . . . probably isn’t smart right now. So I shut my mouth and drive. It shouldn’t
be
a bad thing. Not for her, anyway. But for
me?
I almost laugh.

I used to think my awesome memory was a gift. Got me through a lot of tests I never studied for. But now it feels more like a curse. I can picture her perfect little hot body in my mind every time I close my eyes. And I want to tell her that, it’s not a pervy thing. That she’s beautiful and tantalizing and delicate. That I never knew I preferred a perfectly shaven girl—completely smooth; so fucking sexy—until I saw her. That now, I can’t ever imagine being with anyone else.

Just knowing that she puts in that kind of attention to detail . . . oh, my shit. When I first laid my eyes on her, I didn’t think I could hold out. I wanted her right then. Had to know what she’d feel like around me. But I held back, wanting to bring her to the edge first, to make her want me as badly as I was craving her.

But the look on her face just now says it all. I can’t tell her any of that.

It goes into the lockbox.

After a few minutes, we come up on the bridge, and Sam points out her window at a giant silver pyramid. “Wow. That’s gorgeous.” She glances at the map. “It’s the Pyramid Arena. Too bad we can’t check it out.”

My chest tightens. “We’re not on a tight schedule or anything. We can go. If you really want.”

She shakes her head. “No. It’s fine.” She looks at her lap and says even lower, “I’m over Memphis.”

And she finishes me off. Dagger right to the heart. But what did I expect? After only a few days, the girl I’d fallen for way back when, who was
engaged
to my fucking brother, who I ignored every time we were around each other after I treated her like shit, would just be ready to hop into bed with me?

I’m beyond delusional. Hell, I’m a
guy
. I guess a typical one.

Whatever was going on between us at the club was like she said, the atmosphere. Grinding bodies everywhere. Alcohol. And back at the hotel? I took her off-guard. But I think one thing needs to be stated so that she’s not freaked out around me. So that she doesn’t resort to fearing me, the way she did when I first carried her to my truck.

I don’t want her to look at me like that ever again.

“Sam,” I say, my voice raspy. I clear my throat. “I won’t touch you again. I promise.”

Her body tenses. From the corner of my vision, I watch as her shoulders and neck pull straight, her chin lifts a fraction. And I might actually be delusional, but a flicker of something akin to hurt flashes across her face. It hits my chest, so quickly, knocking the breath from my lungs.

But just as quickly, she’s composed. “Thanks. And I won’t, like, wear sexy jean skirts again. I promise.”

I bark a laugh. It escapes my mouth before I can rein it in. She laughs, too, and the tension-filled cab releases some of its pressure.

I’m still smiling as I pull onto the bridge. And so is she.

Sam

Tyler’s picture box feels heavy in my hands. Weighted. Like all my shame has been added to the inside. I inhale a huge breath, taking in the mix of marshy river and city fuel smell as I walk the bridge toward the section overlooking the Mississippi River.

The much needed tension breaker in the truck didn’t last long, unfortunately. Holden and I have to get past last night if we’re going to continue this journey. And I can’t let him take on all the responsibility himself. Not all of it, anyway. But it’s easier, for me, to pretend like it never happened.

Besides, Tyler still hasn’t come back to me. And when he does (because he
has
to), I don’t want him popping up in the middle of an awkward moment or conversation between me and his brother.

As far as I know, Tyler isn’t aware of what happened. For a moment last night, I forgot about everything—him, us, his death, this trip. And it was just that moment. Holden’s touch disconnected me from my painful reality, and I welcomed the escape. But if Tyler doesn’t know, then it can only mean he was in that darkness.

I hate thinking of him there, trapped, while I was . . . No. I don’t want to think about that. I can’t believe I let myself get caught up in Holden all over again.

Even though I feel like the crap that gets scraped off the bottom of a shoe, and I should be honest with Tyler, I just don’t think I can bear to have that conversation with him. Sure, Tyler kept kissing some girl from me. And I can pretend that last night was just a rebound for my hurt feelings. I can use it as my excuse . . . but it wouldn’t be the truth. Holden and I have a history. There’re feelings I’ve buried—emotions I thought I’d moved on from. Obviously, some of them lingered. The more time we spend together, the more they’re uncovered, resurfacing.

It doesn’t matter, though. At least not right now. Here, standing in the tiny space between the cemented edge of the bridge and the three-lane highway, I’m all Tyler’s. The drama of the past few days disappears, and I feel his absence more prominently than ever.

“I think here’s good,” Holden calls out. He stops ahead of me at the edge and braces a hand against one of the metal cables. His truck is parked a little ways back, the hazards flashing. Cars honk as they speed by, drivers pissed at the two idiots parked on the bridge.

The wind whips my hair around my face as I stand next to him, the satin box getting heavier in my hands. “We need to block the wind,” I say. “And hurry. Someone might smack right into the back of your truck.” I toss my head, clearing the strands of hair from my eyes.

“They’ve got time to move out of the way. People break down on bridges, right?” He smiles, but I can see a bit of worry lacing his blue irises. He loves his truck.

He positions his back to the Mississippi and faces me. As he grasps the bottom of the box, he holds my gaze. I can feel his eyes studying me, analyzing every facial tick.

I take another deep breath and focus on Tyler.

I hope you like it here. I miss you
.

As I lift the lid, we turn together, letting the wind catch the ashes. Holden holds the box out for a few seconds as the breeze carries some of Tyler’s remains over the river. I quickly fasten the lid back over the box, cutting out the wind.

Then we stare at the blue sky for a while. Just the
whoosh
of cars rushing by, the wind in our ears, the distant lapping of the river below.

“I miss him,” Holden says, and a hard lump forms in my throat. It’s as if I somehow said my thoughts aloud, and he’s agreeing with me.

On our way back to his truck, Holden walks beside me on the outside stretch. His hand brushes against mine. I glance down as he flexes his fingers and curls them into a fist. After last night, he promised to never touch me again.

And I
let
him promise it. Even if somewhere, with everything inside me fighting my feelings for him, and everything telling me that anything I could have with him is wrong . . . I don’t want him to keep that promise.

“Springfield.” I’m looking at our next destination on the map. I’ve been staring at it for the past ten minutes, dodging any kind of engaging conversation with Holden. “Almost five hours, but with the way you drive, I guess we’ll be there in three.”

He chuckles. “Not quite.” He glances over, and his lips tug into a sexy smirk. “But close.”

My stomach tumbles, and I berate myself (for the fiftieth time this morning) for nearly losing control last night.

And
Tyler
.

Something reaches inside and squeezes my heart. I wish he’d at least let me know he’s here, lingering in the background. I feel like at any moment, he’ll come back. But he hasn’t. Not yet. I’m so scared that he knows what happened between me and his brother and he’s left me for good. His last words confuse the hell out of me. Even if he knew I had feelings for Holden back then, that doesn’t warrant him claiming I’m still in love with him.

Where did that come from?

It hits me suddenly, and I feel like a moron. I can’t talk to Tyler, not right now. But I do have his thoughts. I pull out my paperback from underneath the seat and angle myself away from Holden.

“Must be a damn good book,” he says, peeking over at me.

A mix of shame and panic swirls within me. Shame that I can’t offer to drive some of this trip (him driving the whole way has to be getting old), and panic at what he’d say or do if he discovered the story I was actually losing myself in.

I shrug. “It’s a romance. One of my mom’s books.” Hoping that dampens his curiosity (what guy actually reads romance novels?), I hunker down in the seat. It works, and Holden shakes his head before reaching to turn the volume up on the stereo.

Pink’s
Just Give Me a Reason
blares out of the speakers. And I can’t help mentally singing along with the lyrics, my chest growing heavier with each word. They fit so perfectly for my and Holden’s . . . whatever it is that’s happening between us.

Shaking the chills away, I bury myself in Tyler’s journal.

Starting from the point where I left off, before I so brilliantly skipped ahead, I skim Tyler’s memories of middle school, a smile forming on my lips when I read about the time he took me to see
Pirates of the Caribbean
. According to his journal, he considered it a date. His first one. A tiny pebble of guilt forms in my stomach.

I’d thought we were only friends. Best friends, but
just
friends. After we became more, Tyler told me that he’d always harbored a secret crust on me when we were kids, but I never believed him. Not really. He’d always been a romantic, and I thought he just wanted our relationship to be even more special than it already was. He wasn’t falsifying, though. According to his written thoughts, he loved me. Even back then.

When I get to our freshman year, I stop skimming. I want to know when he suspected me of having feelings for his brother, and even if it’s painful, I want to understand how that affected him. How it affected us.

At some point back in middle school, he must have had suspicions, because by the time we entered ninth grade, he already knew. I feel my brow crease as I read over his bitter words.