Page 19 of The Spirit Key
He chuckled. “I don’t want to be the one to say I told you so….”
I frowned at him. “Please. You live for that.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Tim took a sip of his soda, and there was a tension in him that I hadn’t noticed before.
“What’s wrong?”
The groan that rolled out of him wasn’t what I was expecting. “Remember when I told your mom that we couldn’t hold on to the hurt?”
Shit.“Yeah, I remember.”
“Five years, Scotty. Like your mom said, every day I expected the call that they found your body. My life was on hold because I needed closure that wasn’t ever going to come. At least you knew what was happening in your life.”
I slumped back. “No, I didn’t. All I knew was for the first time since I was eight, I found a normal, and I would have given anything to hold on to that. Then your mom came to me….”
Tim sat up, and that warm expression morphed into something icy cold. “See, that’s what I don’t understand. Why did she come to you? I’ve been wanting to ask, but I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer.”
“She said you needed me and that I had to come back for you.”
His jaw clenched, and his hand tightened around the can. “So, what? She sacrificed herself to get to you? Why? I mean, you were gone, right? What the hell difference did it make if you came back?”
The anger in his eyes had me scooting back. They were so dark and a tremor of fear ran through me. “Maybe I should stay with my mom.”
“Oh no. You’re not getting out that easily.”
He leaped up, put his can on the table, turned, and grabbed me by the front of my shirt, hauling me off the couch. He fisted the fabric in his hand, then marched me backward to the wall. When I ran out of room, he crowded in near me, his face pressed in close to mine.
“You know, I never realized what an asshole you are. I guess I should have the day you walked out of our lives, but to be honest, I never really paid attention to that. All I saw was my friend, and I took him warts and all. But you being gone has given me a new perspective. Now I remember every fucked-up thing you did or said. And I find myself wondering why I thought you were my best friend.”
I swallowed back the sob that wanted to escape. If I was going to lose my best friend—the man I had loved almost my whole life—then I was going to do my damnedest not to cry.
“Did you know I had plans before you left? I wanted to make my mark in the world, wanted money to have nice things, to make a fucking home. Then you just up and vanished, and that came to a screeching halt. For eight months I refused to leave the house, because any minute I expected the call that they’d found you and we needed to identify your body. I wasn’t about to let your mom and Ryan go alone. I had to know for myself. But that call? Never came. And it’s because you fucking didn’t give a damn what you did to us.”
“I did.” My reply was weak and pathetic, even to my ears.
“No, you didn’t. A good friend—a goodman—would have called to let us know he was okay. If you had done that, we could have moved on with our lives, without the whole what-if scenario hanging over us.”
He pressed in a little harder and glared at me.
“What if he died? What if they never found his body? What if we go somewhere and he calls for help? Those and a million more things went through my head every fucking day. I couldn’t even date because the thought that I was supposed to go out and have a good time while you might be buried in the cold ground made me nauseous.”
“I’m—”
He shoved me once more, and I slammed against the wall hard enough that the photos on it rattled. “Don’t you fucking dare say you’re sorry! I am so goddamn sick of those words from your mouth. You waltz back into our lives and think we should all bow down to you because you were gracious enough to come home. You act as though we’re not entitled to be angry or hurt. Yeah, I get it, you’ve got a shitty life, and in your shoes, I can’t say what I would have done, but I hope to hell it wouldn’t be to scare my family to death.”
There was nothing I could say. He was right. Ever since I’d stepped off the train, Ihadexpected that people would be upset but that they’d welcome me back.
“You know, before you disappeared, I had this idea—more a dream, really—where I’d ask you to go out to dinner with me. I’d take you to a nice restaurant, and we’d sit and enjoy each other’s company. I even went so far as to make reservations at c.1880, a newer place in Milwaukee. Then you were just… gone. It was like you never existed. I scoured the area, trying to think where you might go, and every time I didn’t find you, I came home and cried. Mom was a rock. She comforted me, told me that I needed to have faith you’d find your way back and that I needed to do whatever I could to ensure that happened. So, I answered every question the cops asked, because I didn’t want to hold anything back that might help us find you. In the end, none of it did one fucking bit of good.”
He jerked his arm away, and as weird as it sounded, I missed the contact.
“I know what you’re thinking now. Why would he want to go with me to dinner? Well, confession time. After a lot of prodding by my mom, I was going to come clean to you. She said I shouldn’t hold a secret, but then, I guess I wasn’t the only one doing that, was I?”
He sounded so bitter and his posture was so tense, I was afraid to move.
“In my dream, we’d go and sit. We were too young for a bottle of wine, so we were going to have soda, and an elegant dinner. Then, after, I was going to tell you….” He drew in a deep breath. “Tell you I… I loved you.”
Loved me?A thousand thoughts flitted through my head, but the one thing that kept coming back was that he said he loved me.
