Page 36 of A Vicious Rumor

"Where do you have to go?" I asked, a little wary.

Tyson pulled his hand back and scratched the back of his neck. I hated to admit it, but I loved watching the way his heavy muscles rippled in his black tee shirt. Even more than that, I loved seeing the bracelet back on his wrist.

"It's at the house of one of the guys I go to school with," he said. "I'm sort of in a club with them, and they need me to be present for something."

"Sounds weird, considering it's the summertime, but okay," I replied.

Tyson almost smiled, but he must have caught himself, because he covered it up quickly. "Alright, let's get it over with then," he said. I slid out of the booth and gasped when he grabbed my hand, threading his fingers through mine as we walked back out to his Jeep.

My mother’s concerns slipped away, as I let my fingers slip through his.

The sun was setting as we made our way across the bridge. Beautiful pinks and yellows were strewn like ink across the sky.

"I love sunsets," I said out loud.

"Yeah? Why's that?" Tyson asked me as he kept his eyes on the road.

"Sunsets always remind me of how beautiful endings can be."

"That sounds pretty sad," Tyson replied as he exited the highway.

"Not really," I said, looking back across the water. "Endings don't have to be bad. Think about the ending of a war. That's a happy thought."

"True," Tyson said. "But, in my life, most of the endings have been sad."

I looked at him, but he kept his eyes on the road. Even still, I could see that there was a lot of hurt behind them.

"You haven't forgiven them, have you?" I asked him.

"Forgiven who?"

"Everyone that hurt you," I replied.

"They haven't apologized."

"That doesn't matter," I replied.

"It does to me," he said, his jaw clenched.

We both just sat in comfortable silence for some time and I thought about what Tyson had just admitted to me. It was clear that he was still hurting. I understood that, to a certain extent. The woman he thought was his mother just walked out on him after finding out something about him that he had no control over. He didn't know it, but I understood his pain, because I'd also lived it.

"Do you talk to her?" I ventured to ask. We were on the back roads now. The top was still off of his Jeep, and I could see the night sky above me now that the sun was down. The crisp night air ran through my hair, and I raised my fingertips up to try and catch more of it.

"Which one?" he asked.

"The one who left you," I replied.

"No."

"How come?"

He chuckled darkly. "She never left a note."

"You don't know where she is now?"

He shook his head. "I don't. But, I don't think she's trying to hide herself. I'm sure if I looked, I could find her. But, why try and reach out to a person who clearly didn't want you in their life?"

"It sounds like you need closure with her," I replied.

---