Chapter 29
29
This trip up the mountain is nothing like the first time.
For one, it’s a lot quieter—and lonelier—without Tyler here to keep me company. Instead of a sky full of stars and a clear view of the glowing village below, it’s like I’m in a freshly shaken snow globe: the higher the gondola ascends, the less I can see down in the valley. And even though Julie said we’re below the wind threshold, it’s still unnerving every time even the slightest gust picks up.
I’ve almost figured out what I want to say to Tyler by the time I reach the top. The doors open, and a swirl of snow rushes in as I step out.
It’s otherworldly up here, entirely white and eerily silent. No one’s been up to clear the sidewalks—and if Tyler left any footprints earlier, they’ve already been filled in with more snow.
Fortunately, I remember how to get to the lookout from here, not to mention that everything is clearly marked with Black Maple Lodge’s official signage.
The walk isn’t far. I stay steady on my feet, determined not to land in the medical center this time, silently going over the words I’ve planned in my head. Even once I get there—when I see him sitting on the bench, alone, his back to me, the oversized hood of his coat flecked with snowflakes—I’m still running through it all, reluctant to actually say anything.
But it doesn’t matter, because Tyler speaks first.
“You got my note.”
He hasn’t turned around; he must have heard me, or the lift on its way up.
I make my way over to him, boots crunching through the snow. He continues staring off into the distance—or what would be the distance if we weren’t currently inside a cloud—even when I join him on the bench. I sit close, turn my body to face his.
He stares at his gloved hands.
“Yeah,” I say, careful to keep my voice even. “I got your note.”
He still doesn’t look at me.
I have a strong urge to pull his hood back so I can see more of his face, but I resist. For now.
“Tyler,” I say, and finally— finally —he turns.
The look on his face breaks my heart.
I don’t know what I expected, exactly, but this isn’t it: an expression so numb, so void of emotion, it’s in danger of getting frostbite.
The more I take him in, though, the more I see that it isn’t so much the absence of feeling as it is too many conflicting ones at the same time.
Anger, simmering just beneath the surface.
Panic—fear.
Sorrow.
Exhaustion.
“I’m sorry, Alix,” he says, voice low and crackling. “I… I can’t.”
“You can’t what ?” I push.
He blinks, looks away, like it’s physically impossible to meet my eyes when he says, simply: “Stay.”
I grit my teeth, summoning the speech I went over on my way up the mountain.
“But you’re still here. You wrote, ‘Nothing in me wants this to be over,’?” I continue, quoting his own letter back to him. “So stay .” I take a deep breath, look him right in the eye. “You don’t have to be someone who runs from problems when they get too hard—who makes himself disappear rather than face them. I don’t think you actually want to leave so much as you’re just… afraid… to face the world.”
His jaw twitches, and I know I’ve struck a nerve.
“Of course I don’t want to leave,” he says, skirting around my more pointed comment. “I’ve made a life here, one I actually enjoy. I love where I live. I love what I do. I love—who I do it with.”
“This isn’t the same as when you disappeared the first time, Tyler,” I say, a new edge in my voice. “You left for good reasons. You were trapped in your contract, surrounded by toxic people you couldn’t trust, and you found a way to get yourself out of that life. You shouldn’t be afraid to share that story with the world. Some people will never understand—but I think you underestimate the number of people who will .”
I take another deep breath, plow forward before he can say anything. “If you run this time, it’s officially a pattern. You become someone who runs . You’d be turning your back on your closest friends, the ones who saved your life by helping you go off the grid—and you’d be running from me too. I’m fully aware that I haven’t been in your life very long at all, but I know enough to recognize that this kind of connection we have? It doesn’t come along all that often. There was something about me that made you trust me enough to let me in. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think that should count for something.”
The snow is picking up again, thicker flakes instead of the delicate ones. It’s absolutely freezing out here, and I’m shivering, but there’s no way I’m heading back down the mountain until we’re done with this conversation.
“It does count for something,” Tyler says with fresh intensity. “You are the best thing that’s happened to me since I left the band, Alix. I didn’t realize how much—”
He breaks off, looks away.
River’s voice flits through my memory: It’s been hard watching you spend so many years alone. We want more for you.
“… how much I’d been missing,” he finally finishes. “I didn’t realize how many parts of me I’d left for dead until you came along and made me feel alive.”
“So stay .”
“It’s not that simple—”
“It doesn’t have to be that hard, either.”
His expression darkens. “You don’t know what it’s like to have your every move scrutinized,” he says bitterly. “You don’t know how it feels to have the entire world salivating, just waiting for you to make a mistake so they can feast on it. You don’t know how it feels like fire for people to pass judgment on your life when they don’t know the first real thing about it—and how it burns your soul to ash when no one sees you for who you actually are. You don’t know what it’s like, Alix. So forgive me if I don’t want to show my face after eight years only to be torn apart all over again—I let the entire world think I was gone for good and dragged my best friends into lying for me. Some people will say that’s unforgivable.”
His words hang between us, like he’s just painted a black streak through the bright white sky, until the wind whips them away.
Silence takes over, thick and heavy.
“I never said I thought it would be easy,” I say carefully. “I just think you’re strong enough to handle it—stronger than you give yourself credit for.” I inhale, the cold air sharp and stinging.
Tyler considers my words.
“Also,” I go on, while I still have the boldness, “I truly believe that for every person angry with you for the choices you made, there will be more who understand. People who’d be thrilled to see you back—and not just because they write clickbaity articles, but because they loved and missed you , Tyler. Not everyone is a Sebastian fan, you know. You could tell your own story.”
When he finally looks at me again, those gorgeous eyes are filled with more sadness than I’ve ever seen on him—but otherwise, he’s unreadable.
“You said it yourself,” Tyler says evenly. “You haven’t been in my life long at all. I appreciate the confidence—but I’m not sure I’m as strong as you think I am. I’m sorry, Alix. You should go somewhere warm before you get hypothermia.”
I should. I really should.
But I’m frozen, and not just in the literal sense.
“Where will you go?” I ask.
I want so badly for him to see that he is strong enough.
“Wherever I end up,” he says, “I’ll find some way to let you know I’m safe. I trust you, Alix—”
His voice breaks. I hate this for him. I hate it for me .
But it was always going to come down to this, wasn’t it? There’s no way we could ever have been together for more than just a fling unless he left his life of reclusion behind—I can’t imagine loving someone so intensely in secret for the rest of my life.
Still, there was part of me that hoped we’d sparked something special enough, rare enough, to make him consider abandoning his life of perpetual anonymity and loneliness.
I leave him alone on the lookout bench. It takes everything in me not to turn around for one last glance.