Like Daniel and me, the room and I took some time to grow accustomed to each other again. I took off the ring and placed it in the chipped ceramic bowl on my nightstand before tackling the bathroom and the dresser drawers. After, I sat on the floor in front of the fan and leaned back on my elbows.
Hour two and I was already procrastinating. I had to go see Dad. I had to bring the paperwork and listen to him talk in circles. I had to ask him what he meant in that letter and hope that he remembered. I had to pretend it didn’t sting when he forgot my name.
Didn’t matter how many times it had happened before. It gutted me every time.
* * *
I GATHERED UP THE guardianship paperwork to bring to Dad’s doctor—to start the process. So that, in life’s biggest irony, we would become guardians to our father and his assets. As I prepared to leave, I heard faint, muffled noises from outside—closing of doors, revving of a motor. I figured Daniel must’ve called someone about the yard. But then the screen door creaked, cutting through the noise of the fan.
“Nic?” I knew that voice like twelve years of history filed down into a single memory, a single syllable.
I leaned toward my window. Saw Tyler’s truck idling on the side of the road. Some girl in the passenger seat. Daniel’s sun-scorched back facing me as he leaned against the open window of the truck, talking to her.
Shit.
I spun around just in time to see Tyler standing in front of my open bedroom door.
“Figured it’d be rude not to come in and say hi.”
I smiled without meaning to, because it was Tyler. A knee-jerk reaction.
“Kind of like not knocking?” I said, which made him laugh—but at me. I was going transparent, and I hated it.
He didn’t say How’ve you been or What have you been up to or ask if I missed him, joking but not. He didn’t mention the boxes or the luggage or my hair, which was longer than last year and curled into submission. But I saw him taking it all in. I was doing the same.
Face just a bit fuller, brown hair just a bit wilder, blue eyes just a bit brighter. When we were younger, he had these dark circles under his eyes that never went away, even if he’d spent the entire day sleeping. They kind of added to his appeal, but now that they were gone, he looked just as good. More youthful. Happier.
“Dan didn’t tell me you’d be getting here today,” he said, now fully inside my room.
Daniel liked us both fine apart, just not together. When I was sixteen, he told me I’d get a reputation if I started hanging around a guy like Tyler—I’m still not sure whether the slight was against me or against Tyler—and he never seemed to get over the fact that he was wrong.
“He didn’t tell me you were coming today, either,” I said, crossing my arms.
“In his defense, I was supposed to drop the mower off on my lunch break five hours ago.” He shrugged. “But I had to be in the area anyway. Two birds, right?”
I peered over my shoulder to check out the girl, but also for the opportunity to look anywhere other than at him. While it took Daniel and me days to slide back into some form of comfort with each other, Tyler and I took no time at all. Didn’t matter how long it had been or what we last said to each other. He stands in my room and it’s spring break two years ago. He takes a step forward and it’s the summer after college graduation. He says my name and I’m seventeen.
“Date?” I asked, seeing a blond ponytail, a skinny arm hanging out the window.
He grinned. “Something like that.”
I looked over my shoulder again. “Better get back out there,” I said. “Daniel’s probably warning her off.” Daniel’s upper body disappeared farther into the truck, and I jumped at the sound of the horn. “By the way,” I said, “that wasn’t your date.”
When I turned back around, Tyler was even closer. “If I didn’t know any better,” he said, “I’d guess he didn’t want me around his little sister.”
I kept myself from smiling at the running joke, because this was the dangerous part. Didn’t matter that there was a girl in his car or that he was heading out on a date this very