Page 49 of Resurrection
I steal a glance at Tyler. His face is unreadable, but I know he’s wishing he’d never shown up.
A part of me agrees.
I excuse myself, needing to gather my thoughts.
I slip out to the back yard and press up against the oak tree, hugging the rough bark like a memory I can’t let go of. It smells of old sap and something sweeter underneath. Teenage hopes. And I desperately want to go back to those times, go back to my youth.
But sadly, time doesn’t change its nature for anyone, no matter how hard we wish for it.
Tyler and Adri stay inside to help Mom clear the table. I can hear them talking in the kitchen, but it’s all very clinical. Just instructions on what plate goes where and some single-syllable answers.
Sometime later, I hear the screen door slam, then soft, careful footsteps approach.
I feel him beside me before I see him.
"Naomi." His voice floats across the dark like a ghost. I think about letting him haunt me for a while before I turn around.
He’s watching me with those terrifyingly honest blue eyes. There’s enough light to see his expression, and it’s the same one he had after I slapped him the other day. Baffled and scared. He takes another step toward me to close the distance.
I look past him at the far-off lights of town glittering like stars that got lost on their way to the sky. I breathe in the desert air, letting the last of spring coolness sink into me, letting it numb me to what just happened inside.
"I'm sorry," Ty whispers. "I meant to talk to you, but I didn’t know where you lived, so I figured your mother would tell me," Ty admits.
"And you chose to crash our family dinner?"
"That wasn’t my intention."
"Don’t you understand what you’re doing?" I lift my chin and stare at him. "It’s already difficult, trying to let him go, trying to get over the fact that he’s truly not in this world anymore. And with you showing up…digging up all these old memories…it’s like digging up his grave."
"I’m sorry," he whispers again.
"How are we supposed to move on?" I gesture at the house, as if pointing at the past itself. My voice is trembling. So are my hands. "How are we supposed to heal when you keep coming back into our lives and stirring up everything."
He stands there, his hands shoved in his pockets, looking more like the kid I used to know than the man I don’t.
"I am sorry." He rubs the back of his neck, awkward and sheepish. "I got caught up in seeing you. In remembering. I didn’t think it through. I didn’t think about?—"
"How it would mess with my head?" I cut him off, trying to sound angry instead of hurt.
"I know. It’s just…seeing you again. After all these years. I’m sorry, Naomi."
"You keep saying you're sorry, Ty. But are you really?" I ask. "Why are you back now? Is this some sort of mid-life crisis?"
There’s a long pause filled with something tense, something heavy. "My feelings for you haven't changed, Naomi. Not in all these years."
The words hit me like a jolt. I knew, of course. I knew that kiss was full of history. But hearing him say it is different.
"You left," I say, my voice small and accusing.
"I did."
"You wanted to." The bitterness seeps out before I can stop it.
"I didn’t want to leave you." He sounds so sincere, I almost believe it.
But then I remember how it felt that morning I went next door—how emptiness lodged itself into my chest and around my heart.
I turn away, looking back at the tree. He carved our initials here on my eighteenth birthday. It’s not just the bench in the park. They’re still faintly visible, though the bark has tried to grow over them, erase them.
