Chapter 19 #2
“Lucky is one word for it,” he snorts, shooting me a sideways glance, one brow arched. He’s already ridiculously handsome, but when he gives me that silly little smile, I feel like I’m going to melt right into the gorgeous old hardwood floor.
“I think I told you I’m an only child,” I muse, taking the books he hands over to me.
“You did,” he says. I’m sure he hears the words I’m not saying. But he doesn’t push. Doesn’t pry. He knows how heavy personal histories can get in this world, how uneasily those gory stories lie beneath their headstones.
But with Wyatt, I feel like I can safely dig mine up. I know he’ll catch me before I tumble into an open grave.
He pulls one or two more books from the shelf and then turns to face me. I should go back to the table. I should dive into research. But I feel safe, just like I said last night, and if he was willing to tell me about his parents—about Fallon, about New Big Sur—then I want him to know this, too.
“I grew up southeast of here,” I say, clutching the books tightly against my chest, their soft leather-and-paper smell like a security blanket. “My grandparents’ farm. Not too far from the coast, but safely inland enough to not worry about flooding.”
Wyatt watches me carefully. “Why don’t we sit, Alice?” he asks. I blush, because I’m “Alice” again. “Feels like you’re ’bout to tell me something that might be a little easier with a warm mug in your hands.”
“Yeah.” I nod, tucking an errant wave of hair behind my ear.
“Yeah, okay.” We pile the books in the center of the table, and then I slide into my chair.
He pushes my mug closer to me, and I oblige with a choked laugh, wrapping my hands around the warm ceramic.
It does help. I examine the mug’s artwork—a faded, vintage-style ad for a resort town that’s been underwater for a few years now.
“So you grew up southeast of here,” he says gently. The sunlight streaming through the window gilds his dark hair like he’s some knight in shining armor from an old story. Not that I need saving. But someone to ride into battle alongside? Absolutely. I’m tired of doing it alone.
“On my grandparents’ farm,” I say, looking down at my hands. “My mom had moved away, but when things got bad, she thought it made sense to go back. She’d just married my dad, and they were living together in one of the big Northeastern cities.”
The ones that are just rubble now, I don’t have to tell him. He knows. He’s not interested in pretending the last fifty years didn’t happen or rewriting them into something less awful. And, god, I didn’t realize how much I needed that.
“The farm must’ve been so appealing,” I continue. “Crops, fresh water, enough space and fresh air to ride out the pandemics.” I pause, my fingers tightening around the mug. “For a while, it was good. I mean, as good as anything was gonna be.”
He nods, all his attention on me, but it doesn’t feel scary or judgmental. It’s not even heavy. It’s like my favorite sweater on a cool day, wrapping me up in soft warmth, keeping the cold and the dark at bay.
“I was born there,” I say, looking up to meet his gaze. Memories flicker through my mind, and I almost smile. “Pretty fucking idyllic, honestly. Because my whole life was just the farm. I didn’t really know what was out there, and the Fe—those of Them we had nearby were pretty tame, in hindsight.”
I pull in a long, jagged breath. “But everything bad just kept spreading. I didn’t realize how many nights my parents and grandparents were spending wide awake, always two of them on patrol at all times.
They’d help anybody they could, of course, but as the years went by, less and less people wanted help, and more people just wanted to take whatever they could. ”
I don’t need to explain that to Wyatt, either. He knows. Without a word, he reaches across the table and wraps his fingers around my wrist. Easy as that, just like he’s settled right in between my ribs, somewhere near my heart.
“And the government, they…they didn’t want to help.
They wanted people to raid and loot. They wanted the excuse to crack down even further,” I continue, squeezing my eyes shut.
I’ve only told one old boyfriend this story, and honestly, I hope he’s forgotten all about it.
I don’t want him to know me like that anymore.
But I desperately want Wyatt to. So I open my eyes and meet his gaze, even though tears stream down my face.
“We ended up being right in the middle of Zone 1.”
His gaze widens, and then his jaw clamps down. “Christ, Alice.”
I laugh, because I have to, raising my hand to roughly wipe away tears.
“Yeah,” I croak. “My grandpa was convinced the soldiers would let us stay if we just explained ourselves, if he showed them the deed and the photo albums, if he made them understand how long his family had worked that land. But of course they didn’t.
Whoever was in charge saw fertile land that was actually still producing crops, and the big creek on the property that hadn’t dried up, and they decided to take it.
My grandfather refused to hand it over, and one of the soldiers shot him. ”
I swallow down more tears, my hands shaking. I keep my eyes open, because if I close them, I’ll see it, and I’d rather not. It’s cruel that I can remember that moment so clearly, but not the barn kittens or what the apple trees smelled like or the taste of my grandma’s strawberry-rhubarb jam.
“It was chaos after that,” I continue, letting out a long, shaky exhale. “I don’t know how my mom got us out, but she did. My grandma came with us, but she didn’t make it to the town where we’ve been living. Just too heartbroken.”
Wyatt says nothing, because he knows words don’t mean shit against the weight of something like this. Instead, he gets up and comes to kneel beside my chair, and then wraps his arms around me. I bury my face into his flannel, the scent of woodsmoke and pine sap clinging to the fabric.
When I was a kid, I never understood my mom when she told me that my grandmother was too heartbroken to keep going, keep walking for miles and miles to find somewhere safe.
The grandmother I knew could manhandle the big, mean billy goat without breaking a sweat.
She could pick apples for days and then hike all the way to the closest towns to make sure everybody had something to eat.
It made no sense to me that someone so strong could just fade away over a broken heart.
As I press myself tighter to Wyatt, the memory of our kiss still on my lips, I’m terrified that I’m beginning to understand.