Chapter Eighteen
Eighteen
I sat on the beach, my fingers buried deep in the sand as I stared out at the opaque water. This sea reminded me of my brother. The weary, windblown cypress trees on the bluff, the brutal cliff face.
The harshness of the environment made things grow differently here, and maybe Six Rivers was like that, too. I wondered now if that’s why Johnny had always said that we were made in the dark.
I wasn’t thinking about Autumn anymore. My mind wasn’t twisting around the photographs or the timeline or even the day Johnny died. There was only one moment that kept replaying in my mind—Griffin Walker.
The memory was like a brick in my stomach. One I’d gladly swallowed for my brother. But with every day that I was back here, it seemed that night was cast in a brighter and brighter light.
I had always wanted to believe that I understood Johnny in a way that no one else did. That I had a handle on what he was and wasn’t capable of. But my mind wasn’t just spinning now. It was unwinding. I had the distinct feeling that the world around me was coming undone. And there was nothing I could do to stop it.
What I had never allowed myself to consider was whether my brother was really, truly broken. Whether he didn’t fit in this world for a reason. And maybe between the two of us, I was the only one who hadn’t actually known that.
Micah found me after the sun began to set, rippling on the water like liquid fire. The fog had cleared just enough for the sky to peek through, changing the color of the sea. I didn’t pull my eyes from the waves as he sat beside me or turn to look at him when his arm touched mine. We sat there in silence for a long time before I finally said it.
“He was going to get kicked off the project.”
Micah turned to look at me. “What?”
“Josie. She told me Johnny was poaching the invasive owls that were impacting the outcomes of the study. He was worried his sectors would be eliminated from the report because they weren’t viable. If that happened, his owls wouldn’t be included in the protections. So, he started controlling the numbers himself and Josie threatened to report him to the board.”
Micah let out a taut breath. “What the hell was he thinking?”
“That’s the question, right? That’s always been the question.”
Micah didn’t speak, but I could see that he was struggling to come up with some kind of explanation. Some reasoning that would dispel the implication of what I was saying. Because I wasn’t just talking about the owls. I was talking about Autumn, Griffin…everything. I was even talking about him.
“How did you know that Johnny knew about us?” I asked.
Micah stayed quiet, turning his face into the wind blowing up the beach. It pushed his hair across his forehead, making that flash of his younger self come back to life.
“Tell me.”
He thought about it a moment, as if deciding how much he wanted me to know. “Because he told me he did.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. A while before the night Griffin died.”
I folded my legs beneath me, shifting so that I could look at him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Delaying the inevitable, I guess? He told me to break things off with you, that I was going to hold you back.”
A bitter laugh escaped my lips. “From what?”
“From everything. Life, leaving, whatever.”
“And were you going to? Break things off, I mean?”
His eyes were still pinned on the horizon. “I didn’t have to.”
A sting lit behind my eyes as a familiar anger bubbled up inside of me. I never had to break the news about Byron to Johnny and Micah, because Griffin had done it for me. And when I told Johnny I wasn’t sure about going, he’d been furious. It was the worst fight we’d ever had.
I could still see him pacing our living room, my acceptance letter clutched in his hand. His voice boomed in the claustrophobic space of the cabin as I leaned into the fireplace, watching him. He was coming undone in the days after Griffin died, and even I couldn’t hold him together.
For the first time, Johnny looked different to me. I couldn’t un-feel that rage that had coursed through his veins. I couldn’t erase the sight of him going after Griffin, of them both disappearing into the dark.
I think Johnny felt it, too. I think he’d scared himself that night. And in the days that had followed, he’d barely even looked at me.
You’re going.
He said it with a finality that loosed the knot inside of me. I’d dreaded making the decision, but now Johnny was making it for me. Like he didn’t just believe that I needed to get away from him, but that he needed me gone, too.
If you don’t…I mean, if you don’t, James, then what the fuck are we even here for?
What I hadn’t expected was that Micah hadn’t once tried to stop me. He’d never even said that he didn’t want me to go. After that night in the gorge, he stopped calling. Stopped coming by. He pulled away from me until I was so alone that I didn’t feel like I could stay.
It wasn’t until Griffin’s funeral, as the three of us stood side by side staring at that casket, that I’d made up my mind. I wasn’t just afraid of becoming my mother anymore, getting stuck in this town and letting it erase me. I was afraid of the person I’d already become.
The waves climbed higher up the beach as Micah and I sat there, the sound of the ocean roaring.
“What if he wasn’t who we thought he was?” I whispered, my voice nearly lost to the wind.
Micah didn’t answer.
“Well, I guess he got everything he wanted,” I muttered, voice broken. I couldn’t say the same for the rest of us.
“He wanted you away from here, James. Away from him. ”
I wiped the tears from my face, trying to breathe through the pain waking inside of me. I wondered now if I hadn’t known that, even back then. Because I wasn’t ever actually scared of Johnny. I knew he’d open his own veins before he ever let anything happen to me. But I was scared, I was terrified, of finding out who he really was.