Page 9 of Where the Darkness Goes

“What are you doing?”

“Taking you to Britney’s funeral.” With his brows pinched together, he adds, “Unless you don’t want me to.”

“Um, no. That would be great, actually. I just had no idea you were planning to.”

He pulls his head back a half inch, clearly shocked. “Well, I knew that’s why you were coming into town, and without a car, I assumed you had no way there.”

For some reason, this surprises me. He knew Britney well enough, sure, but I hadn’t automatically assumed he’d go to her funeral. She was his friend by default, because we were always together, but the two of them never spent any time together without me as their glue. “Really? You don’t have plans?”

His mouth plays into a cocky grin. “Consider them canceled, Little Bit.”

The grin that escapes my lips is reminiscent of the many years we’ve spent tormenting each other. “Please don’t call me that. I’m not so little anymore, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

He stares over my head, pretending he can’t see me, and I swat his chest. He catches my hand, and the moment implodes into stark silence. Suddenly, all the feelings I’ve been fighting against, everything that I’ve tried for years not to feel, smack mesquare in the ribs. I can’t breathe or talk or do anything except stare up at him, waiting to see what he’ll do.

Golden flecks of sunshine shimmer in the dark depths of his cocoa eyes. There’s a warmth there in the abyss, an ocean of things unsaid—the Pacific of dangerous truths.

I can’t?—

He drops my hand, stepping back and running that same hand through his hair. “We should probably get going, yeah?”

When he lowers his hand to his side, I catch his fingers flexing. The movement is stiff and rigid, like I’m coursing through his veins the same way he’s swimming through mine.

“Right. Yeah.” My voice is shaky—rollercoaster ride meets stage fright meets the flu—but he’s gracious enough not to mention it.

We make our way out of the bungalow, off the porch, and down the walk in utter silence, both lost in our own thoughts.

It’s always been terribly easy and dreadfully complicated with Garrett in equal measure. He was Will’s friend, sure, but he was mine, too. In a way that none of the others were. For most of our lives, that’s all we were. Friends. Comrades. We teased each other like siblings, played like teammates, and fought like family.

But something changed along the way, and we’ve never been able to find our way back to that path. That place. We’re still in the woods of it. The same woods we’ve always been in—it’s the same trees, the same streams we know like the backs of our hands. I look around, and everything looks just as it was. But something is different.Everythingis different. Sometimes I think we’re walking a parallel path, one where we can see the former path just beyond the trees—we can reach out and almost touch it—but no amount of reaching or sidestepping or backtracking will get us where we were.

We’re the main characters who have been recast in season two, where the creators hope you won’t notice. The same but noticeably different.

Checking his watch, Garrett looks back at me. “We have time to stop by your mom’s. You feeling up for it?”

The shaky breath I draw in betrays me.

“Will doesn’t like to go either.” His weighty tone is a hug, even from a distance. He knows this isn’t easy on either of us. The more I study the grave expression on his face, his pinched cheeks and somber, distant eyes, I wonder if it’s hard on him, too.

I never really thought about it until now, selfishly, but Garrett was at our house almost every day from the time the boys became inseparable sitting next to each other in class in second grade. As he got older, he spent holidays at our house and skipped vacations with his family to stay over. He spent nearly as much time with Mom as we did.

“Do you visit her often?”

He hesitates and turns his head, waiting until we’re in the car to answer. Something in his expression worries me. I suspect he thinks I’m going to be mad. Like I’ll stick a flag in Mom and declare hermine, not his.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Eventually, the conflict smooths out over his face, and he lands on, “I’ve gone by a few times.”

“I’m glad.”

The last wrinkle at the corner of his eye disappears. “Yeah?”

I buckle in and stare ahead as he pulls out of the short driveway. The house is oddly comforting. It’s the Tom Hanks of houses. Familiar and ordinary, the same gray craftsman you see in every neighborhood no matter where you live. Four white pillars that run from the overhanging roof to the porch’s brick pony wall. The ornamental grass bushes are a beard, overgrownand covering the entire front of the structure, aside from the stone steps. The four windows are eyes, met in the middle with the simple front door nose. It’s simple and safe and so completely perfect for my brother.

With a solid nod, I glance at Garrett. “We should visit. If there’s time.”

He doesn’t meet my eyes, but his smile betrays his relief as he says, “There’s definitely time.”

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