Page 66 of The Night We Lost Him

He looks at her, and for a moment it seems like he is going to tell her the thing that he hasn’t wanted me to tell anyone. That he suspects he didn’t just lose him, but rather that he was taken.

Except Sam bites that back, forces a smile.

“Thank you for wanting to,” he says. “And for not.”

She nods. And they share a look, a long look, that I need to turn away from. Because my brother is wearing it all on his face. Call it vulnerability, call it longing. He is wearing what she means to him everywhere. Maybe it’s too much for Taylor too, because she clears her throat, breaks the moment.

“I really do need to get inside,” she says.

“Okay—”

I stand up, trying to make this exit easier. An exit Sam clearly isn’t ready for. And which Taylor seems to need.

“It was nice meeting you,” I say.

She leans over, puts her hand on my shoulder. “You too,” she says, her voice suddenly low and entirely between us.

“Careful with him,” she says.

She says it so softly and so quickly that for a minute I think I’ve misheard her. But I know I haven’t. I want to ask what she means by that—does she mean that she thinks Sam is fragile and so I should be careful with him? Or does she mean that Sam is tricky and I should be careful dealing with him? Or, perhaps, she means both.

Before I can ask, she has turned away from me. She is looking at Sam again.

“I’ll miss you,” she says.

Then she kisses him on the cheek.

And, like that, she is gone.

One More Thing We Need to Do

Instead of getting back in the car, Sam walks.

I try to keep up as he turns onto Green Street, then onto Crown. He seems to know where he wants to go and keeps walking at double-time until he gets there—walking straight into Rough Draft Bar & Books, which is apparently partially a bookstore and partially a bar, because he walks past the shelves of books and up to the counter where he orders two IPAs.

“I don’t want one,” I say.

“That’s good. Since they’re both for me.”

He puts a twenty on the counter and takes both glasses from the bartender, moves them over to a two-top.

“I guess I’m driving home.”

He ignores this. “What did you think of her?”

“What does that matter?”

“I’m curious,” he says.

Except that he is not actually curious. He is crazy about her in that way that nothing anyone else says matters.

So I try to think of what he’s really asking. I try to think of what Taylor was trying to ask of me. Careful with him.

“I think that if you don’t want it to be over with her, it felt like maybe it’s not too late,” I say.

“No. It’s too late.”

He says it with a finality that surprises me.