Chapter 19 Kyle
Kyle
There was something about being in this young body that made me feel like a teenager again: impulsive, emotional, and desperate to be understood.
And I didn't like it because Lily had started to feel like my priority again, just like ten years ago.
Having her so close again made me feel all the emotions I once thought were dead.
No matter how hard I've tried to keep my distance from Lily these past two weeks, nothing has worked to make me stop thinking about her.
I couldn't think about anything but her.
How to make her calmer, happier, how to make things back to the way they were before everything went wrong.
I wanted her to smile at me the way she used to.
I wanted her to have dreams and goals again with me.
I wanted her by my side, trying to build something together.
I wanted us back, even if it meant changing the whole future just for another chance.
Most people would have called me crazy. How could I still think about someone I had not seen in ages?
But love did not simply disappear with time, or at least not real love.
We either learned to live with the absence of someone, or we met others and realized we had not loved the first person enough, and so we healed.
And I’ve been fooling myself all these days into thinking I’m over her. I’m not. Not even close. And every time I’m near her, it just proves what I already know—that I’ll probably never be able to let her go.
But she seemed to be thinking precisely the opposite.
Talking to Lily felt like talking to a wall.
She refused to open up, and I hadn't realized until now how much my choices had affected the Lily she was now: closed off, cold, and distrustful.
I remembered a cheerful girl, talkative, eager to take on the world at large.
This one was more reserved, quiet, and unwilling to stand out too much.
How much of this change was my fault? How much had my testimony against Leo shaped the woman she'd become?
The way she'd closed herself off, built walls around her heart, and stopped trusting anyone, that part of her personality was definitely my fault. I'd been the one person she thought she could count on, and I'd betrayed that trust in the worst possible way.
I hadn't felt this uncertain since college, and I hated it.
But I couldn't change the past. Well, technically, that's exactly what we were trying to do, but I couldn't change what had already happened between us.
All I could do was try to be better this time around.
To be the person she needed now, not the terrified teenager who'd made all the wrong choices.
"I went for a run this weekend even though I had my arm in a sling. It was something I hadn't done in a long time, but I still love it." I told her.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"You said the person I miss doesn't exist. I want to show you that we're the same, and that even though many things have changed, we have the same essence inside us."
"I do drink my coffee the way you made it at the office, but I didn't want to admit you were right." She confessed, making me laugh out loud.
"Don't push me away again," I whispered, taking a step to her close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from her skin. I lowered my gaze to her mouth for a moment, then raised it back to her eyes. "I'm just trying to make things right this time."
"I know, but..." she said, her eyes darting to the floor, the wall, anywhere but at me.
The confident Lily I'd known would have met my gaze head-on, challenge in her eyes.
This Lily couldn't even look at me. "Now doesn't feel like the time to think about me.
Some people need me. And I don't need anyone right now. I know what I have to do."
I started understanding all the weight and burden she was carrying. She felt guilty because she couldn't do anything to save her loved ones, and she had to watch everything around her fall apart without anyone by her side.
"You don't have to do everything alone; that's why I'm here, too. I know you can do it all alone, and that you want to be everyone's hero, but I’m here too, and I’m willing to let you use me.
" I touched her cheek, and she let me. "Come on, let’s go to the place that always made us feel better when we were there.
I promise I'm not trying to confuse you.
I want to make things clearer between us. "
She nodded, and that small gesture felt like a victory.
She was finally willing to give in.
When we finished our hospital shift, I waited for Lily by the door, and then we went to the park, “our place,” as we liked to call it. This time we were lying on the grass, our backpacks propped up behind our heads, watching the sunset side by side.
"Do you remember the first time we came here?" I asked her.
"How could I forget? You threw up on your first day at the hospital and almost quit when that man came in with a nail stuck in his arm."
When I first started volunteering at the hospital years ago, I thought the tasks would be simple, mostly helping patients already under care. Instead, the very first thing they had us do was review every case that came through the emergency room so we could learn how to perform first aid.
I almost quit that day, but Lily convinced me to come here to calm down, and it became a routine when one of us felt overwhelmed. But then it became more and more frequent until we no longer needed an excuse because we both knew we wanted to be here.
"Hey, at least this time, I was able to help that man and make it to Friday without wanting to run away," I said proudly. "And the nurses love me; they say I have a natural talent."
"Seriously?" Lily asked, "Because I saw you run to the bathroom several times."
I pretended to be offended. "Hey, I’m not perfect! I didn’t even remember half of what happened in those first weeks, but at least I’ve gotten better, right?"
When you have the chance to do things over again, something inside you makes you feel like you can't make mistakes this time.
I've felt that way all week, pressured to be better than the first time, to try not to be a coward, to face things head-on, to be perfect.
The need to get everything right the second time around was exhausting.
We're not meant to live life looking over our shoulders, second-guessing every choice.
And even with the advantage of knowing what's coming, I couldn't control everything.
No one could. And trying to do so was a quick path to madness.
I hadn't realized until now the weight I also carried from being so focused on trying to control everything around me.
But perfection was an impossible standard, even for someone who'd lived through all of this before. Maybe especially for someone who'd lived through it before because the stakes felt so much higher.
You can't screw up this time, Kyle.
I looked at Lily, a little more relaxed this time.
So, I decided to talk more about those memories we tried to forget a long time ago.
We talked more about cases that came when we were here the first time, some things that happened in school, and a little bit about my family and the situation I was in right now.
My plan was for her to clear her mind of the things that had been blocking her today, and little by little, I felt her become more and more comfortable.
"Kyle? Can I ask you a question?"
"Of course?"
"Why did you really come back? In our present, I mean."
I remained silent, trying to formulate the words correctly. How could I explain something I barely understood myself? The pull I'd felt to come back, the restlessness, the sense that I'd left something unfinished?
Sydney was good for me for a while. I wanted to simply escape from it all and start over in a faraway place where no one would know me.
It was as if life had given me another chance to do things right this time, to not make the same mistakes I'd made once before.
But part of me always felt like I was running away.
This wasn't how things were meant to be. That's why Lily never left my mind, no matter how many people I met. Because I knew there was something in my life that never had the proper closure, and I blamed myself for that.
I turned to her, and she did the same, meeting my gaze, like she wanted to shut out everything else and focus only on me. The way her eyes locked on mine made my chest tighten, and for a moment, I remained silent just appreciating her face.
"I liked Sydney, but it never felt like home to me."
"Sometimes I feel that way, and I've never left this city," she confessed. "I've been saving as much as I could this whole time so my father, Leo, and I could finally leave the state when he got out of prison, to see if we could finally forget and heal."
We'd both been running, in our own ways. Me across the country, her into herself. But neither of us had found peace. "So I imagine seeing me again wasn't part of your plan."
"I hadn't thought about it until now," she answered honestly. "But it's very sad to know that the memories will always haunt you, no matter how much you run and how much you want to get away."
And so it was. The past wasn't forgotten by changing environments; I tried for many years without luck. "Regrets don't go away even if you try to be a different person somewhere else."
We spend so much of our lives running from pain, from fear, from brutal truths we don't want to face. But no matter how far or how fast we run, our shadows follow. The only way forward is through, not around. Through the pain, through the memories, through the hard work of healing.
"That's why coming back felt like the right thing to do," I told her, "I wanted to be able to fix everything so I could finally heal and move on. Because no matter how hard I tried, running away didn't work."