Page 94 of I Did Something Bad
And there he is. Blue jeans and a white polo shirt. Simple. Clean. Unadorned. Sohim.
Tyler’s face cycles through joy to surprise to confusion before ending on an expression that’s more serious than I’m comfortable with. The grin that he’d been approaching Jess with is gone. His brows are knitted, caution threading into his every vein.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi,” Tyler says.
“I… heard you were in town.”
The sight of his half smile makes my heart soar. “Youarea good journalist,” he says, then motions back behind him with his eyes. “I’m a little busy right now. If this is about the story, can you email—”
“It’s not about the story,” I blurt out.
“Oh.”
“Can we please talk?”
“Yes,” Jess cuts in. Before either of us knows what’s happening, she takes Tyler’s hand and drags him out into the hallway, closing the door with her other hand.
“Jess—” Tyler warns, but she waves him off.
“Thankgodyou’re here,” she says to me. “He has been absolutelymiserableto be around, you have no idea. All he does is fucking mope. Between you and me, we’ve been saying that if this is how he’s going to be all the time, then maybe heshouldn’tmove back home after retiring.”
Tyler scoffs but, like me, a smile slips through. “Jess, I don’t think this is the right time to be—”
“Jesus Christ, Ty!” She spins on her feet and snaps her fingersas though trying to snap him out of a trance. “I get it, Khin messed up. But good god, haveyounever made a single mistake ever in your whole entire life? Besides, you saw the draft. Khin didn’t even mention your secrets! Any of them! Now can you please get off of your mopey high horse and listen to what she has to say?”
“I—”
“It’s my birthday!”
Tyler cocks an eyebrow, but his demeanor makes it clear that he’s going to give in because she hasalwayshad him wrapped around her finger. “You’re pulling the birthday card right now?”
Jess points at the rectangular piece of white-and-gold satin draped across her. “I’m the one wearing theBIRTHDAY GIRLsash, aren’t I? Now—” She points at the apartment door. “I’m going to go back in there, and we are cutting the cake in approximately half an hour, and you are going to stop being such a doofus.” With a wave at me, she adds, “Hope you like red velvet, Khin!” before marching back toward the apartment and muttering under her breath, “Do I really have to do everything around here, even on my birthday?”
And then she’s gone, and it’s just the two of us in the middle of the long hall.
“So,” I say, trying my hardest not to grin at what just transpired. “I see Jess is as…independentas always.”
“Clearly,” he says through a chuckle. He slides one hand inside the pocket of his trousers and the other through his hair, and, as embarrassing as it sounds, I’m not prepared for how my heart tries to thud its way out of my rib cage the second he looks up from the floor and locks eyes with me. “Hi” is all he says, except it’s him, so it’s enough to make me forget to breathe.
“Hey.” He opens his mouth to respond, but I keep talking before I lose the nerve. “No, I need to speak first. I need to… say everything I have to say, and thenyousay what you have to say, okay?”
He nods, eyes burning with something I can’t describe.
“When we first met, I was in…nota good place. Some might even say theworstplace I’ve ever been in my life. My husband had left me, and it was like dominos—I lost my marriage, then my house, and then our mutual friends who would alternate between acting weird and being nosy and asking mehow I was,and all I wanted to do was leave all of it behind. That’s what Singapore was for me. It was a way out. A lifeline. And then right when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, I went and killed someone. Everything was falling apart. Everythinghadfallen apart. When that thing at the park happened, I thought that that was it, that everything was done. But you—” I attempt a smile, shaky as it may be. “—kept me going. When I was down on my knees, you picked me up and carried the both of us on your back. And even though I wassoscared—because what did I know about you apart from what I’d read in magazines?—I had no choice but to trust you. And the truth is, I kept waiting for you to let me down. I kept waiting for you to turn me in, or at the very least, wash your hands of me. I kept waiting foryouto be just another thing in my life that didn’t work out. Another domino that fell. But you weren’t. You stayed and even when I tried to push you away, you still stayed. Youneverlet me down.”
“Of course I stayed, Khin,” he says, voice just as ragged as mine. “We were on the same team. At least,Ithought we were.”
“We were, Tyler. Iamon your team. I’m, like, the head cheerleader!”
His laugh is a dazzling electrical storm. “I read your draft.”
“And?”
“Why didn’t you include the story? I gave you permission. That job would change your life. It would’ve been—” He swallows hard. “—your lifeline.”
“If I can’t write a good article without including a secret that youtold me in confidence, then I’m not a good writer. I’m a journalist, not a paparazzo. Turns out, Clarissa agrees, and she offered me the job.”
