“You think I should know everything,” Wes begins, “but I don’t see it that way. It’s deciding between my past and my future. Which would you choose, Tate? Would you think your old self, your old life—one you don’t even remember—would be worth dying for?”
“I don’t know. Do you?”
He watches me for a long moment. “No. I just want to be a normal guy. I want to start over. I want . . .” He furrows his brow and lowers his eyes. “Forget it,” he says, not finishing his thought.
Kyle leaves the coffee shop without even noticing us, and the intensity of the moment seems to fade without her presence. What would Wes think if I told him he’d left me and started dating her? That he broke my heart utterly and completely?
“No offense,” Wes adds. “But you don’t really remember either, not if you were in The Program, right? So let’s accept that we’re different people now and move on. Why spend our lives chasing the past?”
He’s right. We could start over and be whoever we want. Leave this place, leave the past. But almost as a cosmic answer, I see another figure step up to the coffee counter. My heart trips.
Michael Realm glances over his shoulder at me and Wes, and then quickly darts his eyes away when he finds me already watching him. He followed us here.
“We should go,” I say to Wes. I don’t have time to wait for the bill, so I throw down some cash and stand up. I’m truly frightened.
Wes laughs like I’m acting strangely, and he motions to the money. “You don’t have to pay. I’ll—”
“We have to go,” I say in a low voice, more forcefully.
Wes stands up and pushes in his chair. “Fine,” he says, taking one last sip of his coffee. “But buying me brunch doesn’t mean I owe you anything, if that’s what you’re—” He stops joking when he sees I’m not playing around. He swallows hard and holds out his hand for me to take. I almost do, but that would be a signal—proof that Wes and I are building something.
And I don’t want Michael to see that. I don’t want to give him any ammunition against us. I walk past Wes, my arm brushing against his, his hand left hanging out. I swear I can feel him wilt slightly, but then he shoves his hands in his pockets and walks with me out the door and into the afternoon.
I quickly grab my helmet and put it on, watching the door of Lulu’s. I’m on the bike before I realize Wes is standing there, staring at me.
“I don’t mean to be nosy,” he says, “but are you on the run from the cops or something?”
“What?” I ask, surprised. He smiles.
“I’m kidding,” he says. “Mostly. But the fact that wasn’t immediately obvious is worrisome.” He puts on his helmet and gets in front of me on the bike. I slip my arms around him and lean in closer, my heart racing as I wait for Michael Realm to appear.
“Sorry,” I say. “I’m just a little freaked out right now.”
“Why? Because I—”
“No, nothing about you,” I say. “It was this guy.”
“Huh,” Wes says, kicking the bike to life and revving it loudly. “Another promising development.”
“It was the guy I saw earlier—the one I pointed out in the parking lot?”
Wes turns to me, his eyes concerned. “He’s following you?”
“Us.” I pause. “Or me, I don’t know.”
“And why would he be doing that?” Wes asks, his voice ticking up.
“I’m not exactly sure,” I say. “At first, I thought it was because you just returned, you know? But now I’m thinking it might be me. I don’t know. Let’s just get out of here.”
“Done,” Wes says, telling me to hang on. We ride out of the parking lot, on our way back to school, when I lean forward, my lips near his ear.
“Would you take me home instead?” I ask. Despite everything going on, home seems the safest place to be.
“Of course,” Wes says, and I give him my address.
I glance back and make sure that no one is following us. I notice the first return of clouds clinging to the sky and immediately miss the sun. Wind blows through the trees, and Wes has to tighten his grip against it.
At the next stoplight, Wes turns slightly to talk to me. I love this angle of him, so familiar. I lean in closer.
“So who is this guy?” Wes asks as if he’s just curious. “What’s his name?”
“Michael Realm,” I say. The light turns green.
“Stupid name,” Wes says under his breath, and continues toward my house.
CHAPTER FIVE
MY STREET IS QUIET FROM the absence of children, cars gone from driveways. It’s like we have the entire block to ourselves. And as far as I can tell, no one followed us from the café.
Wes pulls his bike up on the side of my house, off the road and hidden. It’s the same place he’d always park, and I wonder if it just makes sense or if it’s a memory. Wes looks at my modest house—not nearly as nice as his. I don’t have an entire basement apartment to myself like he does.
“You mentioned your grandfather,” he says, both of us climbing off his motorcycle. “Do you live with him?”
“Yeah. Him and my gram.” I unsnap my helmet and set it on the seat.
“Your parents, too?” he asks.
“Nope. My mom’s remarried, and I see her on holidays sometimes. We’re not close. And my dad—I don’t know where my dad is. New York, maybe.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why?” I ask. “My grandparents are great. They—” But the words, the ones I’ve said over and over through the years, fall silent on my lips. I was going to say my grandparents are great—they never let me down. They’ve always had my back.
But they did let me down. And they lied about it.
Wes’s expression grows serious for a moment, but then it clears and he points to the house. “Mind if I come in for a bit?” he asks. “I don’t really want to go back to school yet.”
It makes me smile, the way he invites himself—always inquisitive. He wants to know more, wants to explore. It’s not expectant or pushy. It’s a quality I’ve always found endearing. Still do.
Even so, I debate continuing our conversation. A large part of me has missed him desperately, madly. But am I putting him in danger just by being near him? Can that trigger a crashback?
I decide that as long as I keep control of the situation, control the narrative, Wes and I will be better for it. We’ll each have someone to talk to. Someone to confide in. Or, at least, that’s what I rationalize as I lead him toward the back door of my house to enter through the kitchen.
As I unlock the door, Wes peeks over the fence, checking out Pop’s vegetable garden. Insatiably curious.
When we get inside, my house still smells slightly of the roast beef Gram cooked last night. Wes looks around, seeming comfortable within the space. When he catches me staring at him, he smiles.
We walk into the living room, and he immediately goes to where my family pictures are hanging on the wall. He points to one of me at my first Communion, decked out in white.
“Adorable,” Wes says. I smile. “Are you an only child?” he asks, continuing down the line to inspect each picture.
“Yep,” I say.
“When I first came back,” Wes says, stopping at a picture of me in eighth grade, riding a horse in Washington, “I thought I was an only child. Turns out I had a sister.” He swallows hard and turns to me.
Of course, I already know this. Weston’s sister died several years ago in a suicide pact with her boyfriend, Mackey. They drove a car off a bridge and into the water, causing Mackey to die on impact. Cheyenne drowned in the car. It was during the height of the epidemic, when one in three teens died. With so many deaths, theirs could have been lost among the rest, but Mackey’s friends started a memorial by the river. And it was at that memorial when I met Wes almost three years ago.
He’d been so lost, watching the water, trying to be close to his sister. He was tormented. I should have known how badly, but I wasn’t paying
enough attention. I regret that. I regret that I let him suffer.
His sister’s gone now. And even though I didn’t know her, Cheyenne was a part of my life too. She was the ghost who haunted him. Her death a wound I couldn’t heal.
I loved Wes deeply and truly—but I missed the signs of his complicated, life-altering grief. Despite what I wanted to believe, love wasn’t enough.
And just like that, Dr. McKee’s warning rings truer in my ears. I have to be careful with Wes. I couldn’t live with myself if I hurt him again.
“Did you know her?” Wes asks, furrowing his brow. “Did you know Cheyenne?”
“No,” I admit. “But I sort of knew her boyfriend, Mackey. It was awful what happened to them. I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t remember her,” he admits. “I saw her picture and read up on the accident.” He looks sideways at me. “Can I call it an accident?”
“Yes,” I answer immediately.
The corners of Wes’s mouth turn up in a soft smile. “I have to say, you seem like a really good person.”
“Sometimes,” I respond, although the simple fact that he’s here right now might disprove his assumption.
Wes seems to consider my response and walks over to sit on the couch. When I sit next to him, dropping my car keys on the coffee table, he turns to me.
“So how did things get so messed up that both of us—really good people,” he adds, “ended up in The Program?”
And I don’t have to lie when I respond. “I’m not sure. But I intend to find out.”
A car pulls into my driveway, and I go over to the window, surprised to see my grandfather park his car next to Wes’s bike. He climbs out, his phone pressed to his ear.
“My pop’s home,” I say, looking back at Wes worriedly. My grandfather usually works until four or five, and he has no idea that Wes came back to school today. He has no idea that I know the truth about The Program.
“Are you not allowed to have company?” Wes asks, seeming confused by my alarm.
“Get to the table,” I say, and point toward the kitchen. Wes is apprehensive, but he does what I ask while I run to the fridge to grab two sodas. The outer door opens, and I quickly set one can in front of Wes. I open mine, drop down in the chair, and look up just as Pop walks into the kitchen. He stops dead when he sees us and lowers the phone from his ear, clicking it off.
His glasses are askew, and he straightens them before darting his eyes from Wes to me. “Tatum,” he says in a tight voice. “What are you—?”
I cross in front of him to stop my grandfather from questioning Wes. “Pop, this is Weston,” I say, like I’m introducing them for the first time. Pop turns his eyes to mine questioningly, but when Wes stands and offers his hand, Pop shakes it and forces a smile.
“Hello, son,” he says to him, a touch of grief in his voice that I don’t think Wes notices. For the most part, Pop plays along. Wes sits down and takes a drink from his soda, oblivious to the glare my grandfather sends in my direction.
“Tatum,” Pop says. “Why aren’t you at school?”
“Lunch,” I say easily.
He glances at his watch. “Lunch ended nearly a half hour ago.”
I fake a look of surprise. “We lost track of time,” I say. “It’s been a stressful day. My Jeep wouldn’t start, and Wes offered me a ride to lunch. We ate, but then came back here because I had a headache.”
Wes doesn’t acknowledge the lie I’m dealing my grandfather. He quietly sips his drink.
“Headache?” Pop asks with concern, putting his hand gently on my back. “Are you okay?”
“It’s gone now,” I say. “Wasn’t a huge deal. I think it was too warm today. Or I could be dehydrated. Who knows.” I wave away the concern. “I’m feeling better, so we’re heading back to school now.”
Wes looks at me as if asking if we’re really going back. I nod that he should get up, my expression telling him We’re definitely not going back to school. He stands and pushes in his chair.
“Why don’t you go ahead, Weston,” my grandfather tells him. “I’ll give Tatum a ride. We’ll look at her Jeep, too.”
In his hand, Pop’s phone begins to ring, and he glances at the number. “I have to take this,” he says, backing away from me. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.” He answers the phone with a curt “Yes?” and walks through the living room to hurry up the stairs toward his bedroom. The moment he’s gone, Wes breathes out a heavy sigh.
“Do you want me to stay while you ask him about The Program?” he offers. And I’m surprised by the question, a little embarrassed. Because even though I want to find out the truth, now that my grandfather’s here, I’ve lost my nerve.
Is it possible to both want the truth and be scared of it?
“Thank you,” I tell Wes. “But I’ve got it.”
He looks a little doubtful at first, but then he says that it’s up to me. I walk him to the door and hold it open, resting my cheek against the side as I regard him. Wes smiles, not seeming to mind my attention.
“Hey,” he says. “Since you and Dr. Wyatt are the only people who talked to me today, I was wondering . . . want to have lunch tomorrow? If not, I can see if Wyatt’s available.”
There’s a pang of butterflies in my stomach, but I’m not sure how to answer. At what point will I know for sure when I’m doing something wrong? Will I even see it? Or will I keep going until it’s too late?
“I’ll take you anywhere you want,” Wes adds, reading my hesitation.
Although I know I shouldn’t, the temptation is too great. “Maybe,” I say, insinuating that I most certainly will. Wes smiles, triumphant, and backs out of the doorway.
“Well then, I’ll see you tomorrow,” he whispers.
And when he leaves, I watch him ride away, my heart fuller than it’s been in weeks.
CHAPTER SIX
MY GRANDFATHER COMES BACK INTO the kitchen with a manila folder in his hand, and I get a chance to examine him. His face is pale, his breathing a little too fast. He’s obviously worried about something, probably me.
“Who called?” I ask.
“A source for a story I’m working on,” he says, and briefly looks around. “Did Weston leave?” he asks. When I tell him he has, my grandfather shakes his head, letting his politeness fade.
“What were you thinking?” he demands. “Why would you bring him here?”
“He doesn’t remember anything,” I say. “He offered me a ride home, and I took it.”
I leave out the part about Dr. Wyatt interrogating us, the part where Nathan told me I was in The Program. My grandfather doesn’t exactly have my trust right now.
“And what about you, Pop?” I ask. “Why are you home?”
“I needed a file,” he says, holding up the folder. He darts his gaze away, and his file seems more like an afterthought. A prop. I suspect it’s more likely that he knew I was here somehow.
Michael Realm was following me and Wes today. Maybe he wasn’t the only one watching us.
Pop and I are clearly lying to each other about our intentions, but neither of us calls the other out. I can’t believe I’m okay with this level of deceit. We’ve never done this before. At least, not that I can remember.
This is the same person who would slay the monsters under my bed when I was kid. Who would bandage my scraped knee. Who would take up my cause whenever I had a problem. How can he be the same man who would lie about something so awful?
I’ve lived with my grandparents for as long as I can remember. My mother was seventeen when she got pregnant with me, and my grandparents promised to stand by whatever she wanted to do. Athena—my mother—decided to have the baby and get married.
Unfortunately, a few weeks before I arrived, my father announced that teenage parenthood wasn’t really for him. He had plans to go to college in New York the next year, and I guess my mother and I didn’t work into that plan. He left.
I was born, and my mother dressed me up like a doll, a showpiece.
I’ve seen pictures. But she had a hard time with the essentials. She’d leave the house without feeding me. Or forget to change my diaper. Frustrated, my grandmother told her she had to do better. My mother promised she would.
The next day, my mother went out and didn’t come home. She called from the road and told my grandparents she was moving to California. That it was best for me to stay with them. That this was her doing better.
My grandparents never really told me about those days, the first days. And I don’t remember them. I’m not even sure how I know the whole story. I guess I put the pieces together over time through scrapbooks and overheard conversations.
In all this time, my mother has never offered any sort of apology for abandoning me. I’m not sure she even feels guilty. She’s never once mentioned it. She’s never once said she loves me.
But she was right—it was better. Leaving me was the best thing she’s ever done for me, will ever do for me. My grandparents are my parents. They’ve raised me. We don’t deceive each other; we’re not supposed to. And yet . . . here we are.
“We should head out,” my grandfather says, startling me from my thoughts. “I have to get back to the office.”
“Yeah,” I say with a quick nod. “Let me just grab my keys.”
I walk into the living room, and as I pick up the key ring from the coffee table, I see that Pop left his phone on the side table. Without thinking, I grab it for him. But when I do, a new text pops up—a preview on his screen. I look down at it, and a chill settles in my bones.
Just keep them apart.
I recognize the phone number. It’s the Adjustment office.
My stomach sickens, and I set the phone facedown on the table, pretending not to have seen it. Now I know who sent my grandfather here. And I guess that means Michael Realm really was there to remind me to stay away from Wes.
The level of interference, spying, and deception is suffocating. It’s clear the people around me are trying to control me.