The Taking

This was Tyler Wahl. Tyler, who looked far too much like his older brother—my seventeen-year-old boyfriend—in looks, in stature...and, most of all, in age.
Tyler, who, the last time I’d seen him just the day before, had been only twelve years old.

This was Tyler Wahl. Tyler, who looked far too much like his older brother—my seventeen-year-old boyfriend—in looks, in stature...and, most of all, in age.
Tyler, who, the last time I’d seen him just the day before, had been only twelve years old.

"They’ve done something different to you—to make you special.”
I was still attempting to process what he’d just told me. About me being different from everyone else.

“I don’t know what you’re problem is,” he hissed, trying to keep his voice low. “But this is my house, and you’re scaring my son. If you need help, then call 9-1-1. I can’t do anything for you.”

...pipsqueak Tyler, who used to follow us around the house, intruding on conversations and telling the same annoying jokes that we used to tell when we were his age

I tried not to look at how defined his bare chest was. Tried to keep my gaze from moving lower and noticing his muscled stomach and his navel, which was surrounded by a tuft of dark hair.

"You should know I’m glad you’re back.” He flashed me a sheepish smile as he added, “And now that I’m older, I’ll try to be a little more memorable.”

We stood there for a moment, our eyes locked. It was too long, and we both knew it, but neither of us looked away, and then it was way, way too long. I’m not sure if it meant something, or nothing, and I hated how badly I wished I could see inside his head, to read his thoughts. But eventually my cheeks got hot, and I blinked first.

I saw a show on Animal Planet once about these fainting goats whose muscles froze up when they were startled, and they passed out. Like, they literally fell over if you scared them.
That was me, right now.
We stood like that for fifty-five straight heartbeats.

Besides, on top of everything else, Tyler was still just Austin’s little brother. Too young to be anything more than a friend.

If I stopped lying to myself for even a second, then maybe there was a part of me where Tyler mattered more than he should.

His green eyes, his new deeper voice, the way he teased me, his disarming smile. I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

He got out and came around to my side, opening my door and waiting for me. No one had ever opened my car door like that, not even Austin.

I’d never been so alive, and I knew this was why I’d come back. To be here, right now, in this moment, with Tyler.

“Don’t pretend you didn’t know I had the hugest crush on you, Kyra. It wasn’t my fault I was only in the seventh grade and you barely noticed me.”

If you’re worried that I think you’re too old for me or something, I’m not.” He directed his gaze back to the road, but he was scowling now. “It’s not a big deal, Kyra. Really.” His lazy smile made a fleeting appearance. “I kinda like the whole cougar thing you’ve got goin’ on.”

Tyler had drawn a cobblestone pathway that stretched all the way from one side of our street to the other, bridging our two houses, practically from my front door to his. And running across the top of the pathway was a saying, written in beautiful, scrawling script. It said:

I’ll remember you always.

My phone buzzed again. "I’m saying I want to share one of my very favorite things in the world with you, Kyra."

“You like that? I like to pull out the big guns when I’m trying to make an impression.”
My eyes lifted. “Is that what you were trying to do, impress me?”
There was a beat, a moment in which our eyes met and my heart leaped, and then his voice dropped, feathering my skin and making me shiver. “Of course I am, Kyra. I was sort of hoping you understood that.”

I’d known Tyler his whole life. I’d been to all of his birthday parties, teased him when he had a lisp because he lost his front teeth, walked him to school on his first day, pushed him on the swing set until he cried mercy because it was too high, and built snowmen with him on snow days.

...the brat who’d stolen my mom.

I’d already offended her and The Husband that morning when I’d implied that, perhaps, he needed more practice with a spoon as more of the oatmeal had fallen off it than made it to his mouth.

The only two people I thought I’d wanted to talk to were now the enemy, camped out together and colluding against me.

I bet I could implode, disintegrate into ash on this very spot where I was perched in my hospital gown on the edge of the bed, and no one would even notice.

“Cat misses you,” Austin said at last, clearing his throat loudly.
And with that, any nerves or worry that I might not say or do the right thing evaporated. Older, yes, but still just a stupid boy who said stupid things when he opened his mouth. “Cat? Really? You drove all this way to talk about Cat?”

The fact that he was here, standing outside my window and asking me how my day was, almost made me cry. No one else had bothered to ask how I was. He was the first person who wasn’t pulling me at both ends, like I was a rope in a tug-of-war.