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chapter thirty-eight

Emily

He was pulling away from me. Not physically, but mentally and emotionally. I remembered what it felt like; it’d happened before.

I didn’t ask where we were going. I just walked the couple blocks beside him, allowing him time to come to terms with the fact that his uncle was dead. There wasn’t the time for grief—that would have to be set aside—but acceptance would help. Or so I hoped.

We stopped in front of a small house that looked very similar to his uncle’s, as did most of the homes in this obviously low-income neighborhood. A large red x marked this door as well and Tuck let out a staggered breath and hung his head. After a moment, he turned and looked around and then walked up to the porch, leaning toward the window and using his hand to shade his eyes as he gazed inside. I heard a groan come from his throat before he stood straight. “Let’s go.”

“Whose house is it, Tuck?” I asked quietly as we turned back down the block and began walking.

For a moment he was quiet, leaning toward an alley and peering down it before taking my arm and pulling me forward. “Abel’s girlfriend’s.”

Abel.

The young man who’d robbed a convenience store and bled to death in Tuck’s car, a crime that Tuck had taken partial responsibility for even though—to my mind—he shouldn’t have. I looked up at him, his jaw set, expression blank. “Were they…were they both in—”

“Yes,” he said, his voice choked.

“I’m so sorry. Tuck—”

“Come on. I know somewhere we can stay overnight. We’ll leave for your parents’ in the morning.”

My heart sank. I saw him shutting down, returning to the man he’d been. Not angry like I’d once thought. Not bitter. Helpless. Grief-stricken. All this carnage, all this death, and now the vision of what had to be the dead bodies of Abel’s girlfriend and young son had reminded him that he was still trying to make up for not doing what he believed he should have when presented the chance. For failing Abel, and in so doing, failing Abel’s girlfriend and son.

And the thing was? It’d just so happened that he’d found himself in a world ripe with chances to pay that unseen debt. They were everywhere. I’d seen the relief on his face when he’d given the man with the baby our condensed milk. And I’d felt relief too. I’d wanted to give it to him. But for Tuck, it wasn’t just an act of kindness, it was a small step toward the redemption he was still seeking.

Only I wondered when it would be enough, wondered how many lives he’d have to save to assuage the shame and guilt he couldn’t let go of.

What I was beginning to fear—deeply—was that I wasn’t enough to convince him to give it up.

I wasn’t even sure it was right that I try. Because the world needed heroes now and their motivations didn’t much matter.

“This way,” he said, leading me toward an obviously abandoned laundromat. Only, it clearly wasn’t abandoned recently. This place had been an empty shell for quite some time—a decade at least if I had to guess. I followed Tuck to the rear, and he looked around before opening the back door and pulling me inside. The large empty space was dim and mostly empty. Any equipment had been cleared long ago, the only remnant of what it’d once been a coin machine half hanging on the wall that said, “Detergent.”

“No one’s going to come in here,” he said, turning to our right where there was a smaller room that had likely once been a manager’s office. We entered the mostly empty space, a small window high up on the wall glowing with the final rays of sunset. There was a large metal shelf on one wall, and Tuck closed the door and then pushed the shelf in front of it.

“How long has this place been abandoned?”

“It closed down a year or so after I moved here. There was a for-sale sign up on the land for years, and I think it was purchased a couple of times, but it always fell through. I don’t know why.”

I put my pack down and then sat on the floor under the window, my back propped against the wall. I took out a can of beans and peeled the top back, tipping it and pouring them into my mouth before handing the can to Tuck. “Bon appetite,” I said, attempting to make him smile.

He did, sitting down next to me and taking the can. “Are you okay?” I asked.

He was quiet as he chewed but nodded when he handed the can back to me. “I will be.”

Will you, Tuck?

We took out a few crackers and we ate for a moment. As hungry as I was, the food brought no pleasure. I felt heavy with fear and sorrow. And I knew what these feelings meant. I remembered well the distant look on Tuck’s face.

“What happened to Abel’s girlfriend and their son wasn’t your fault. Neither was your uncle’s death. Evil men with guns are to blame for that.”

Maybe Tuck’s feelings for me weren’t as big as his need for atonement. Maybe he’d decide his place wasn’t with me and my parents. But even so, even if he chose to go out into the world and fight for others, I wanted him to find a way to let go of the guilt he carried, because it killed me to see him hurting and trying with all his might to find forgiveness from those who weren’t alive to extend it. An impossible task. And too painful for any one person to bear.

He sighed. “They had no one to protect them, Emily. I’m talking about Cherie and Abel Jr. If Abel hadn’t died that day, he’d have been there to protect them.”

“If, Tuck. If. That’s a losing game and you know it. Everyone made choices that day, and the days preceding it. The what-if game isn’t going to bring anyone back. What if Abel had decided that staying home and taking care of his pregnant girlfriend was more important than committing a crime that might get him thrown in jail? Or killed? What if he’d decided to go out and get a job instead of robbing a store?”

“Stop, Em. He was desperate.”

“His desperation and his choices weren’t your fault. You didn’t owe him anything.”

“You’re being judgmental.”

“Sure, I am,” I said. “That’s what the what-if game is all about. You have to judge every choice made—fair or not, reasonable or not—if you’re going to play.”

He looked away and ran his hand through his hair.

“Aren’t you even a little bit mad at him, Tuck? Aren’t you angry that Abel put you in the position he did? Even despite being young and desperate. He asked you for a ride and didn’t tell you he was going to commit a crime. He set you up, Tuck, whether he thought about that or not.”

Something passed over his face, a discomfort that let me know I’d come somewhere close to the truth whether Tuck was willing to admit that yet or not. Or maybe his anger at Abel helped fuel his guilt. God, he was carrying so much. “What he did wasn’t right,” he said. “But I can only judge what I did that day. Only me.”

I got up on my knees and turned toward him. “Yes. But what you did then was influenced by so many things.” I reached out, and put my fingers on his jaw, turning his face my way, demanding that he look at me. He didn’t get to do this this time, retreat inside himself without letting me have a say. I was hurting here too. For him. For me. For the world and all the people suffering right now. And maybe this wasn’t the perfect time for this conversation, hiding in the back of an abandoned laundromat while outside the world burned. But I wanted Tuck to be whole so that he could let go of the shame he’d been stubbornly holding on to all these years. He believed the only way he could serve the world was to sacrifice his own happiness, and I could tell that the particular dead bodies he’d seen today had opened a wound in him and reconfirmed that. And if that inner narrative was going to be interrupted by outside rationale, my time to offer a voice of reason might very well be dwindling.

“I know you regret not being there for Abel in the way you now see he needed,” I said. “I get it.” I lowered my hand from his bearded jaw and lay it on his arm. “But so many choices were made, and they weren’t all yours. You’re carrying all of them, every single one, and no one’s shoulders are strong enough for that. You can’t bring them back. Even if you save a thousand lives or do a million good deeds, they’ll still be gone.”

His head fell back against the wall. “I know that, Em. But I finally have the chance to right some wrongs by putting my talents to use and doing something worthwhile, something necessary. Who would I be if I walked away from that?”

“No one’s asking you not to help where you can,” I said. Just do it closer to home. Do it without leaving me again.

The room had grown dim while we talked and now we were both in shadow. We’d need to sleep if we were going to wake up at dawn and begin journeying to my parents’ farm. Tuck sighed and gestured for me to come closer. I did, and he wrapped his arm around me, pulling me against him and kissing my temple. “I’m sorry,” he said. And though I wasn’t sure exactly what he was saying sorry for, it broke my heart anyway.

Was Tuck planning to go to battle for a collapsing society in honor of the deaths he felt responsible for? Or was he using that calling as a way to avoid staying with me? Or a vague combination of both even he couldn’t separate or explain? Suddenly, the words I’d spoken to him while standing at that substation weeks ago, before we had any real idea that we were walking into a changed world came back to me. I’m standing here too, Tuck, among the ashes. I’d meant it figuratively then, but it was literal too, wasn’t it? And something I’d experienced before.

And once again, I was losing my best friend. But this time, I was also losing the man I’d fallen deeply in love with. Once again, his pain was bigger than his love for me.