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“He had a different set of days mapped out,” she adds. “Timed to events he wanted to see. But I couldn’t wait to take this trip.”
I feel my forehead crease, and I’m glad I’m wearing my shades to hide my eyes. “Why now, Sam?”
She exhales softly. “You’ll think I’m crazy . . . crazier.” She returns her gaze to the cars, and my heart lurches. I should apologize for calling her that. But I don’t want to condone what she’s doing to herself. Whatever guilt she’s harboring over Tyler’s death, it’s not hers to own. She needs to know this one truth: I won’t play the fool so she can have her fantasy.
The cars are now zooming around the racetrack, doing practice runs. I grip the water bottle in my hand, and with a forced shrug, I say, “You were dancing by yourself last night, and not on purpose. I think that ship has sailed.”
She nods slowly. Neither denying she’s unstable or trying to debate my opinion. “Thanks, by the way.”
“For what?”
“For trying to help me not look crazy.” She smiles. It’s fragile, like she’s not sure she’s actually grateful. And hell. I didn’t think she’d remember. She was three sheets to the wind, and she also called me Tyler. She thought I was him. I wonder how she’s spinning what actually happened in her mind.
I clear my throat, preparing myself for this conversation, but not really sure I want to dive headfirst into the cracked pot. But with Sam, I’m either all in or not. I make my choice. “So it’s true, then?”
She takes a deep breath. “Yeah, well, whatever you’ve heard”—she looks at me—“I’m not crazy. As hard as it is to believe, Tyler’s here. Or at least he was.” She glances away and drops her shades over her eyes. “It’s getting harder for him. And he’s starting to forget things. That’s why this trip is important. It’s his unfinished business. He has to cross over. I’m scared he’ll get lost if he doesn’t, and I can’t bear the thought of him a wandering ghost forever.”
Holy hell. She didn’t hold back at all, just let the full crazy fly. I don’t know whether to feel honored she’s trusting me with it, or insulted she thinks I’m buying it. Regardless, I opened the door. Now I have to decide how to deal with it.
She has to know, somewhere in the logical recesses of her brain, that if I wanted to, I could prove her wrong. Even though she and Tyler were close their whole lives, I’m his brother. There’re things only a brother would know.
If Tyler were really trapped in some ghostly form, then all I have to do is ask her something there’s no way she could know. Something she’d have to ask Tyler. And when he doesn’t know the answer—because she doesn’t know it—she’d have to accept this is all in her mind.
But before I open my mouth to do just that, I consider the ramifications. If her mind is really in this bad of shape, what will happen when her beliefs start crumbling? Will she fall apart? Will she have an actual breakdown?
I know for damn sure I’m not here to help her regain her sanity. I’m not delusional enough to believe I can save her—I’m not hero material. I know there’s nothing romantic between us, either. Not now. She was young before, with a girl’s crush. And she loved—loves—my brother.
But I can’t turn my back on what his death has done to her. I’m warring with my own guilt, my own part in his death, and I don’t want her issues added to the mound weighing me down. Selfish? Maybe. But if she realizes by the end of this trip that Tyler’s really gone, it will just be one less thing on my conscience.
I swallow my rebuttal, and instead say, “So this trip will . . . what? You believe Tyler’s ghost will magically cross over once you complete it?”
She pushes her shades on top of her head and eyes me warily. “I have to believe that.”
Like grabbing a livewire, a bolt of electricity zings through me. The conviction in her eyes is absolute. Despite the heat, a chill slithers down my spine. She thinks she’s trying to save Tyler. But the truth is, whatever it is that protects our minds from crazy shit like this is fighting to protect hers. She doesn’t realize it, but her subconscious is trying to save her.
I can work with that.
“All right,” I say. “We fulfill Tyler’s unfinished business, and then he crosses over.”
Her eyebrows raise. “That’s it? No fight. No debate about how I should be taking my meds and talking to my psychiatrist and everything? You just believe me, and you’re going to stick this trip out? With a crazy girl?”
I hold her gaze, unwavering. “If you believe it, then in your mind, it’s real. I won’t lie and say I think Tyler’s ghost is haunting you—”
“Don’t use that word.” Her eyes are pleading.
I nod. “Okay. Sorry. But I can’t. We’ll just have to agree to disagree, but I trust you believe it. And I’ll do the trip, for Tyler, and for my own reason.” I suck in a sharp breath. “But from here on out, we’re not discussing my past . . . at least that part of it.”
She studies me for a moment, searching my face for something. “I didn’t know about your father until yesterday.” Her mouth pulls into a tight frown. “Just so you know, I haven’t told anyone. And I promise, I never will, Holden.”
I’m grabbing that livewire again, and a painful current strikes my chest. “Yesterday?”
She nods. “And I’ll never bring it up again.”
Fuck. I bite down hard on my tongue. If she’s trying to convince me that my brother’s really a ghost—she’s messing up. I hate being lied to. But in the back of my mind, I feel a nagging twinge of doubt creeping in. Tyler never would’ve told her that—not while he was alive. And my mind flashes to the moment she got sick in the truck yesterday . . .
Shit. No. He told her at some point. Maybe after that night at the bar. After Mom died. After he started spiraling again.
“What is your reason?” she asks, catching me off-guard. Then I remember what I said. My reason for doing this trip.
