We both take a few more swigs from the jug.
“I hope she’s okay,” he says. “I can’t lose them both. God, I can’t.” His eyes grow glossy and I realize he’s mourning not only for Emma, but for Xavier, too. They were best friends, always walking around Crevice Valley like they were each other’s shadow. And Sammy watched that friend die at the hands of a thing he thought he loved. He might be as messed up about Emma as I am.
“She has to be alive still,” I tell him, because the alternative is unthinkable. “We’ll find her somehow. I have to find her.”
“I feel the same way. It’s just that . . .” He takes a deep breath and looks right at me. “You don’t deserve her, Gray. Not if you can’t see her, and it’s so damn obvious that Nox is the only thing you really, truly see.”
“I know,” I say again. Deep down, I think I’ve known all along.
“That’s it?” Sammy looks confused. “I was sure you’d be furious with me for saying that.”
“Last week I might have been. Or even yesterday. But now I see what everyone else already knew, what Bree’s been trying to tell me for ages.” He still doesn’t look convinced. “I’ve loved Emma since I was six, Sammy. It’s sort of hard to admit you might love someone new more than the person you’ve loved for forever.”
He nods at this, stares at the fire.
We keep drinking and the ache of sorrow steadily surrenders. I grow warm despite the setting sun. We don’t exchange any more words. We don’t need to. Maybe I have a friend in him now. I’m not sure if it’s a real friendship, or something forced upon us from everything we’ve been through. Maybe the details don’t matter. Maybe a friend is a friend.
By the time we are called inside for dinner, the jug is empty.
Sylvia’s cooking is the best meal we’ve had in ages—some sort of meat stew with fresh bread. My head is humming, my body warm. I imagine Sammy is the same. We’re not belligerent by any means, but we keep laughing at things that aren’t very funny and fumbling with our spoons. Sylvia’s looking pretty annoyed and I start feeling bad about the whole thing. She did patch up our team and give us beds and agree to keep us under her roof until Adam returns with Elijah and Blaine. So I apologize for being rude, only to have Sammy tell her we’re not being rude at all. I knock over my bowl while trying to punch his arm.
“Dammit, I am so sorry,” I say, sopping up the mess.
“I’ve got it,” Sylvia says. “Just stop. I have it under control.”
“No. I’ll help.” I manage to knock Sammy’s bowl askew as I try to clean quicker than her. More stew floods the table.
“Why don’t you just excuse yourself,” she says to me sharply.
Everyone at the table is glaring at me and I have the foresight to not push things. I get up, leave. I have no intention of falling asleep, but when I lie down on my bed, the weight of the last few days is suddenly unbearable.
I wake to a knock on my door.
I’m cold now, the pleasant hum of alcohol replaced with guilt and regret and things I wish I could change. It’s dark out, the sun still hours away from rising. I couldn’t have been asleep long.
Another knock, less patient this time.
“Come in.”
Bree enters and tosses something on my bed. “I was going through the gear and found that in Owen’s pack. I thought you might want it.”
My fingers close around the handle of a small knife sheathed in leather. I pull it from the case. A couple of shavings fall onto my lap and the memory of a wooden duck Blaine and I played with as children hits me. It was a gift from our father, a product of his work with this very blade. Weathersby is carved into the handle.
My breath snags as I exhale, and I’m caught between wanting to laugh and needing to cry. I look at Bree and I can’t seem to get my mouth to form the words thank you, but she must hear me anyway because she says, “Don’t mention it.”
My eyes trail over her. The angle of her brows, her slender neck, the shape of her collarbone, which has been hidden beneath bulky attire for what feels like a lifetime. Bree turns to leave and I grab her wrist, pull her toward me.
She frowns. “I have to go now.”
“No you don’t.”
“Yes. I do.” She twists free of my grasp.
I sit up, swing my legs over the mattress. “Bree, I was wrong. About us. About everything. I should—”
“I’m not your consolation prize,” she snaps.
It takes me a long moment to realize what she means.
“No. It’s not like that. I always needed . . . I just . . . I thought . . .” But I know I’m not making sense. I’m still half-asleep, flustered from being given Owen’s knife, aching from how much I need to pull Bree into my bed, to strip her bare and touch her everywhere and use my lips to tell her all the things I worked out earlier and am currently grappling for so poorly.
“You told me you needed her more than you needed me, Gray. That’s what you implied that night on the beach. So what happens when you see her again? The real her? What then?” She folds her arms across her chest. “If I wasn’t enough for you before, I don’t see why things would be any different now.”
She heads for the hallway and I’m left gaping after her, still trying to process her words.
“But we’re stronger together,” I say. “We both know it.”
She pauses near the doorway. “Yeah. We are.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“The problem is I told you things I’ve told no one else. I let you get close to me. I stopped protecting myself all the time and dropped my guard. I trusted you to not shatter what we had, and when you did I felt so vulnerable, so exposed, so foreign in my own skin that I couldn’t think straight. I still feel this way and I hate it, Gray! I hate that you can make me so weak.”
So this is what she meant when she spoke about weakness in Burg. I think I understand her now, because a piece of who I am is so tied up in her that she’s made me feel weak, too. Weak when I’m without her. Never stronger than when we’re together. I want to tell her this but the concept seems too complex for words.
She pulls the door open.
“Don’t go,” is all I manage to say. “Please?”
But Bree just shakes her head.
“I already gave you everything, Gray, and I’m not doing it again. I’m putting myself first.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
IT IS MIDDAY WHEN ADAM returns.
Our gear is packed—the team, restless. I’m sitting on my bed, sharpening Owen’s knife and replaying my conversation with Bree, when I hear the helicopter approaching. I slip the knife into its sheath and race from the room.
Adam is jumping from the vehicle when I burst outside. Elijah comes next, and finally, Blaine. He has a bag slung over his shoulder in this carefree manner, and he’s smiling so wide that I remember it is possible to be happy. We collide, our greeting a series of playful shoves that are punctuated by moments when one of us breaks down and clasps the other around the back.
This is my brother. This is what I should have felt that day back in Stonewalclass="underline" complete ease and sureness. I still don’t know how that Forgery fooled me for even the briefest of moments.
“I hope this isn’t too much for you,” I joke, shoving him. “Given your fragile, recovering state and all.”
He shoves me back. “I’m in working order again. Might even be able to outrun you if you don’t watch yourself.”
“I don’t doubt it. I took a knife to the leg two nights ago.”