Chapter 18 #3
For a split second, resentment flared, sharp, ugly, disloyal. You don’t get to act like this. You don’t get to keep going when she’s gone.
The thought sickened him as soon as it surfaced.
This wasn’t about Fly betraying Mei.
It was about Than losing the last thing anchoring him to the world before her death.
The realization hit hard enough to steal his breath.
If Fly kept moving, if Fly pulled away, Than didn’t know how to stand still without him.
Panic slipped in, cold and insistent. The idea of losing his best friend lodged in his chest, nearly as unbearable as losing Mei. Cutting ties would be like cutting off his own arm, but standing here, watching Fly change, hurt almost as much.
So he did what he’d always done. He held it in and let the distance begin.
Silence followed, heavy and suffocating. Than didn’t answer. He couldn’t. The words were lodged too deep, scraping against his ribs.
That night, the dream came.
He was back on the water. The storm was louder than he remembered, a roar that drowned out his own thoughts. Waves climbed too high, too fast, walls of black water closing in. He could hear her calling his name, calm and clear, like she was just beyond his reach.
He saw her beneath the surface. Her hair floated around her face like a dark halo. Her eyes were open, watching him.
Come get me, she said.
He tried to move. The water held him, thick as molasses. His arms were heavy, useless dead weight. The pendant burned against his chest, searing his skin.
He woke gasping, bolting upright in the dark. His heart slammed against his ribs, a trapped bird fighting to get out. Her voice echoed in the room, fading but lingering.
Than pressed his fist to the pendant, his knuckles white, and bowed forward. His breath shook, tearing out of him in ragged bursts.
The weeks kept going.
None of them were ready, and none of them were allowed to stop.
Fly’s voice came out of the dark, anguished, a man who had been simmering since they’d clashed earlier.
“Don’t you know how crushed I am?” Fly asked, his voice low and tight, stretched thin between restraint and collapse. “Between what I did and what I should have done?”
Than didn’t answer.
“I go over every goddamn minute,” Fly continued. “Every decision. Every second I waited. That memory is vivid. It’s not fading. It never will.”
Than could hear him shift, the mattress creaking as Fly sat up. A light flared, brief and harsh. Fly had never been one to back down. Not from anyone. Never from himself.
“Her death is on me,” Fly said. “I was in charge. I was responsible.”
His voice changed then, went colder, steadier, the way it did when he forced himself through something that hurt too much to touch directly.
“Someday, Than,” he said quietly, “someone’s death will be on you. You’ll go over every goddamn minute of what you said and what you did.” The words cut clean. “You’ll need to find a place where you can live with it,” Fly went on. “I’m still…working on that.”
Silence settled between them, heavy and unyielding.
Than stared into the dark, Fly’s words threading themselves into his bones. One day that would be him. The certainty of it didn’t deter him from the path ahead. If anything, it anchored him more firmly to it.
“I hear you, brother,” Than said quietly. “When it does, I can only hope that I handle it as well as you have and pray for some compassion.”
He turned his head slightly, gaze fixed on the ceiling.
“You weren’t just barking orders out there.
You were commanding. Not only from your head, but from your heart.
You did the best you could under the circumstances.
” His voice steadied. “I’m sorry I was short-sighted in thinking you didn’t love Mei. That was the grief and anger talking.”
He didn’t look away.
Fly’s shoulders dropped a fraction, the tension easing just enough to be felt. Fly shifted, swung his legs off the bed, and crossed the small distance between them. He crouched in front of Than, solid and unhurried.
His hand closed briefly at the back of Than’s neck, firm and grounding, thumb pressing once like punctuation. Then his forehead touched Than’s for a heartbeat.
“You don’t have to carry this alone,” he said quietly.
Than reached out, grabbed the back of Fly’s neck, and squeezed, increasing the pressure between their foreheads. “You don’t, either.”
Fly closed his eyes and took a hard breath. “We’re in this together. All of it. Together.”
He released him and stood, just as simply as he’d come.
“Whatever happens at the inquest, Than,” Fly said after a moment, his voice rougher now, stripped bare. “It’s been unbelievable. This journey with you.”
Than’s throat tightened. He nodded once.
Fly got back into bed, reached over and turned off the light. The room went dark, familiar shapes dissolving into shadow. Both of them lay still, breathing in the quiet.
Than was pretty sure Fly wasn’t sleeping either.
Relief came hard and fast, almost dizzying. Fly was still Fly. That mattered more than truth, more than absolution. Whatever Than carried in his darker moments, whatever thoughts he didn’t recognize in himself anymore, he would bury them first. This bond would not be the thing that broke.