Page 11 of Resurrection
"That’s one way to put it."
"I wish things were different."
"What things?"
There’s an awkward moment of silence filled with the hum of the guests in the background.
"I’m glad you got what you wanted, Ty," she says all of sudden. "Your big dream."
"And I'm glad you achieved yours."
"How come you know so much about where I’ve been?"
Fuck. Busted."I mean, you’re not a stranger. I wanted to make sure you were doing well."
She shakes her head. "And if I wasn’t?"
The question leaves me speechless for a second. "I knew you'd be fine. You’re Naomi Medina. Only the strongest person I’ve ever met."
Her cheeks redden a little.Bingo.
"You don’t need to do this, Ty."
"I’m just stating facts."
"Facts my ass."
"So… Besides being a very successful chef, are you seeing anyone?"
Time ticks by excruciatingly slowly. "You dumped me seventeen years ago, Ty," she finally replies. "Now you want to know if I'm dating?"
Her words cut through the noise of the house like a knife, slicing everything else away. I knew it would be like this, but I didn’t expect it to hurt so damn much.
"I didn’t—" I start, then stop, shaking my head. I don’t even know where to begin.
"You could have said something." Her voice breaks slightly, a crack in her armor. "You could have told me you didn’t want to be together."
"I thought I was doing the right thing," I mumble out an excuse, drowning in everything that’s been left unsaid.
"Right."
She’s standing there, all fire and defiance. I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. We’re stuck in this moment, the past wrapped tightly around us, and all I can do is watch when she turns and starts walking toward the living room.
I know I should follow her, explain why things happened the way they did. But instead, I chicken out. I bolt from the house through the back door like a coward. I don't stop moving as I rush past the garden and toward the wooden fence on the edge of the property.
There, behind a jojoba bush, I find that plank that’s been weathered by the relentless desert and slide it open to squeeze into the narrow alley running behind the line of houses on the street.
This route is all too familiar and stirs up a cloud of memories—our sneaking out to see each other after the curfew imposed by our parents.
The silence here is loud, screaming around me and pushing me back to the things I thought I’d left behind.
I keep walking.
By the time I reach the park, my pulse has slowed, but my heart is still heavy. I hate feeling this way. I've been very good at keeping my emotions at bay all these years, but now that I've seen her, I can't seem to get a handle on them.
I find the old tree we used to sit under, the one that witnessed us making plans we’d never keep. The wooden bench beneath it is like a relic of who we were, and I collapse onto it, running my fingers over the carved letters that are our initials, faint yet unmistakable. We were so young and stupid, thinking nothing could touch us.
The park is full of children playing and people walking their dogs. Notsomething you’ll see three months from now when the heatwave hits. I take in a lungful of air, hoping it’ll calm my nerves, but the world feels raw and unfinished, and my chest tightens even more.
