She didn’t know what to say, or if she should ask morequestions. He shifted behind her, and she was almost sure she felt his knuckles brush her cheek just lightly, for a moment.
“When he was eleven.”
Eleven.
The image she’d had of him as a boy buying candy with his brother rushed through her mind again and her whole chest hurt.
The tears that flooded her eyes were instantaneous. She bit her lip to hold them back. “When he was a child?” she whispered.
“Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t mean to lie to you. It’s just not a very fun thing to talk about, and the truth is, I don’t know where he is. I hope it’s good. I hope it’s bright and full of bluebonnets. I hope there’s all the chocolate candy that he could possibly want. But he gets to walk to the store and get whatever he wants to get. It’s weird. It’s weird that all he ever was, was a child. And I’m still here. Even if he’s in a place where we can meet again someday… Will he still be a kid? I don’t know.” He breathed in slowly, then back out. “It’s just easier to say that I don’t know.”
She couldn’t breathe, but she could see him. She could see the path he’d taken from that boy to this man. From losing his brother, to joining the military, needing to make things right for his friend who had died, doing the rodeo in his honor, was he really doing these things for… for his brother?”
“What was his name?” she asked, her voice a whisper.
“Tyler. He was my best friend. We ran all over that ranch together. Did everything together. Well, almost everything. I had a group of friends, and when they were around, I didn’t much like to hang out with him. Because he was just a little kid then.” He shook his head, she could feel it against the back of her head. “I regret that. More than I can say.”
She shook her head, even though he couldn’t see it. “That’s just normal. I mean, my older brother never wanted to hang out with me when he had friends around.”
“Your older brother sucks. So that’s not really reassuring.”
She laughed. “I know. It’s different. He’s a lot older than I am. And we didn’t have a friendship like that. I’m so sorry that you lost him.”
“Thanks. Me too. Me too.”
“If you don’t mind me asking you, was he sick or…”
“It was an accident.”
“I’m sorry. Your parents…”
“I lost my parents in the same accident.”
The whole forest held its breath in response to that. Everything was quiet. The night air around them went still. Even the crickets didn’t chirp. A moment of silence. She stared through a gap in the firs in the lean-to, and saw the clouds had parted, the stars bearing witness to his grief.
“Zane…”
“I don’t tell people this, Cara. I don’t like to talk about it.”
“Cody knows?”
“No. I mean, maybe he does. It was in the news. I don’t expect Cody is the type to go digging for information on anyone, friends or otherwise, but he may have. But we haven’t discussed it.”
“Just me?”
“Just you.”
She wanted to ask more questions, and she also didn’t. But she decided to let the silence lead. To let him decide. Because he had already decided to trust her, and so maybe it was the right thing to do, to just see how far he would trust her.
“I went away to a friend’s house to spend the night. My brother was annoying me. He was badgering me and saying it wasn’t fair that I got invited to do this stuff and he didn’t. I told him he would get to do cool shitwhen he was older.”
Cara put her hand over her mouth so that she didn’t make a sound. So that she didn’t weep. Not openly.
“When I got back the next day, the house was quiet. It was weird. No one was around. I went upstairs looking for my brother. And I found him. He was already gone.”
A sob shook her body, and she tried to stop it. She didn’t want him to know she was crying. She didn’t want to make this moment about her feelings when they were about his.
Zane must not have noticed. Because he continued. “I went to look for my mom and dad, and they were there, but they weren’t. I ran out of the house, I ran all the way to the neighbors’, and it was a mile down the road. They called the police. It was carbon monoxide. Everybody died in their sleep. Everybody died in their sleep except me because I wasn’t there. I survived.”
