by Maria Farrer
Tyler nods.
I sit back, stunned. “Why me? What about Kelly’s mates – I’m sure a few of them would’ve been happy to oblige?”
“I didn’t want to get Kelly or Sonia involved.”
“But it was fine to get me involved?” I stand up. I’m not hanging around here listening to this. Simon was right. I should stay away from Tyler.
He grabs my wrist and holds it. “Please wait,” he says. “You said you wouldn’t judge me. Let me finish at least.”
He lets go of me, making it clear I’m free to leave if I want to. For some reason I sit down again.
“Your family treated me like shit after Liam died. I saw the way you looked at me when I left the hospital that day. You could have stuck up for me, but you didn’t. You let your dad spread all those rumours. I’d never have done anything to hurt Liam. It was you who stole his stone on the day he died and some warped part of my brain wanted to make you pay.”
I shake my head and laugh in disbelief. “So you thought you’d set me up with Declan? To make me pay?”
“I’d been wanting to contact you for a while. It was time we put a few things straight. The anniversary of Liam’s death was coming up and it seemed like a good time.”
“Terrific time,” I say sarcastically.
“Then Declan started putting the pressure on me and I just thought – why not?”
I look away, trying to distance myself, but this is me he’s talking about.
“So you got Kelly to invite me to her party?”
He gives a small shrug. “Didn’t think I’d have much chance of getting you to see me otherwise.”
“What would’ve happened if I’d been busy – if I hadn’t gone to the party?”
“But you did go.”
“But if I hadn’t.”
“I don’t know. I’d have found a way. That’s life, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” I stare out across the cemetery. I suppose it all comes to this in the end. A hole in the ground.
Tyler gives a deep sigh. “Thing is, it didn’t work out like I expected.”
“I’m so sorry.” I can’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “I suppose I wasn’t willing enough as far as Declan was concerned.”
“No, I don’t mean that.” He turns to face me now, his eyes holding mine. “I mean on the night of the party. Nothing had prepared me for seeing you again. When you turned round – it was like looking at Liam. Everything came flooding back. And you seemed so pleased to see me. I should’ve taken you straight home. I never planned for us to end up here, at Liam’s grave. And I didn’t intend for you to stay at the caravan. I thought it would all be simple – but it got complicated.”
“Complicated!” I could bloody strangle him. I sit on my hands.
“I didn’t realize, until that night, how badly Liam’s death had affected you.”
“He was my brother! How did you think it was going to affect me?”
He scratches his fingers backwards and forwards through his hair. “That’s the thing. I didn’t think. I was too cut up by my own sadness, my own anger – that and bombed out on drugs. I wasn’t thinking straight. I didn’t expect you to like me. I didn’t know how being with you would make me feel. By the time I realized I’d got it all wrong, it was too late. You have to believe me. I never meant for you to get involved in all the bad stuff.”
“That’s crap. You introduced me to Declan, brought me back to the caravan, broke into my house and persuaded me to help you and now you’re telling me you didn’t mean for me to get me involved. Do you think I’m stupid?”
Tyler hangs his head between his knees. “I couldn’t see another way. I was trying to buy time. You weren’t making things easy for Declan and that upset him – and made him all the more determined. Breaking into your house was Declan’s idea, not mine.”
“I don’t care whose idea it was; you didn’t have to go along with it.”
“At least by being there I thought I could protect you.” He laughs a hopeless, sad laugh. “I should’ve known better. Declan knew too much and he’d worked out he could play one of us off against the other. That gave him added power. He told me what he’d do to you if I didn’t co-operate. He’d already been threatening me. Threatening you just gave him added power.”
I start to get it – or I think I do. “How do you mean he knew too much?”
“You remember the night I took you home after we’d all been together in the caravan?” Tyler looks at me and then stares into the distance. “Declan followed us. I suspected something at the time, more a hunch than anything else, but it turned out I was right. I was a mess that night. I could see what I was dragging you into and I didn’t know how to stop it.” He clasps and unclasps his hands. “I felt guilty and I was scared – for both of us. I needed to think things through. After I left you I came here.”
“To the cemetery?”
Tyler nods. “I went to Liam’s grave. I needed to talk to him. I never thought Declan would still be tailing me. I don’t know how he managed to get so close without me noticing. As I said, I was a mess. Then Declan overheard every word I said.”
For a moment, I wonder why Tyler would talk out loud to a dead person. Then I think of the times that I’ve done the same; talking to Liam in the empty air, hoping I might get an answer.
“As I got up to leave, Declan appeared. He knew everything now. And that made things a hundred times worse. And he thought it would be helpful if he looked after Liam’s stone.”
My head is spinning. Tyler is talking in riddles.
“I should have told you straight after Liam died. I would have done if I’d known what I know now.”
“What should you have told me?”
“What Liam was going to tell you on the day he died.” Tyler examines my face as if he’s expecting me to say something. “You really have no idea, do you?” His words make me feel useless and inadequate. I wait. A softness comes over his face, a wisp of a smile. “Liam and me. We loved each other.”
For a moment, the world stands still. I turn myself away from Tyler to hide the blush that’s burning in my face and neck. In my head, I’m trying to rewrite the last three years, to reel through everything I know about Liam and Tyler and me. The hours they spent locked up in Liam’s room. The time they spent training together. Tyler and my brother. Why hadn’t Liam told me? I think of the way Tyler held me on Liam’s bed, of how he told me I was like my brother.
“You should’ve said something,” I say. “You should’ve…”
“I couldn’t. That’s what I’m trying to explain to you. If I was going to keep my deal with Declan, I had to pretend to be straight – I had to!”
I cover my hand with my mouth as the whole tangled picture begins to unravel in front of me. I feel so stupid for not knowing. I think of the times Tyler and me were together and how awful it must have been for him – pretending. I want to apologize to him, but I don’t know what to say.
“Why did Liam hide it from me?” I say. “What did he think; that I’d disapprove or something? This is the twenty-first century. Being gay is not a big deal. I was his sister!” I try to hold back the tide of resentment, the sense of betrayal. “I always thought we were close,” I whisper.
Tyler puts his hand on my shoulder. “He was going to tell you. He knew he was pushing you away and he hated that as much as you did. He didn’t want to hide anything from you, but he was terrified of your dad finding out. Like cripplingly terrified.”
“I wouldn’t have said anything. Not if he told me not to.”
“Not on purpose, but it was an added risk – a risk he wasn’t ready to take.”
I think about how Dad would’ve reacted and I know Liam was right. Mum would’ve been fine, Gran probably would have celebrated, but Dad would’ve freaked. I think of the hurt it would have caused Liam and Tyler and I
understand Liam’s terror.
“I’m sorry,” Tyler says. “I don’t ever expect you to forgive me, but I want you to know I’m sorry.”
“Please, please don’t be sorry for loving Liam.”
“That’s not what I mean. I could never be sorry for loving Liam. I’ll never meet anyone like him again.” He blows out a long, whistling breath, trying to control his emotions. “But I’m sorry about everything else. I wish I could undo what’s happened. Liam would’ve wanted me to take care of you and, instead, look what I’ve done!” He shakes his head and I almost laugh at the irony of it all. “That’s why I needed to see you today. I had to try to explain. And I had to give you this.”
Tyler presses something into my hand. It’s cold and hard. I open my fingers and stare down at the stone.
“You got it back for me.” My eyes swim with tears.
“I promised I would. I wasn’t going to let Declan have it, even if it killed me – which it nearly did.”
I have to frame my next question carefully. “Tell me honestly, do you think Liam would’ve survived if he’d been wearing his stone?”
Tyler’s face darkens. “I shouldn’t have said what I said earlier. I didn’t mean it.”
“It’s haunted me every day,” I say, staring down at the stone in my hands, “that maybe I had something to do with his death – that maybe this stone really is lucky.”
Tyler leans back and tips his head towards the sky. “Let me tell you about how he died.”
“I know how he died,” I say miserably.
“No, you don’t. Not the whole story. I haven’t told anyone.” Tyler takes both my hands, the stone cupped between them. “We’d talked about you in the car and he told me he was going to tell you about us. I was pleased. He said he felt a lot better now he’d made the decision. He was in a hyper-good mood. We started racing. Crazy racing. Laughing. We were pushing each other faster and faster; it was always competitive, both of us wanting to win. Then he said he wasn’t feeling good. I thought he was messing around. ‘One last race,’ I said. I forced him. I made him race me. I was winning. I was laughing. Then he just kind of crumpled and I still laughed and I hugged him and then I realized something was wrong. It was the things he was saying – as if he knew he was going to die. I shouted for help. This bloke tried mouth to mouth and kept thumping Liam’s chest … the ambulance arrived. There were moments when I thought there was still hope. I blamed myself for pushing him too hard, I blamed you for taking his stone, I blamed your dad, the world, anything. But this heart problem existed before he found his stone, before you were born, before he met me. It was in his genes. There’s nothing anyone could do about that.”
Tyler’s matter-of-fact tone can’t hide the emotions inside. He lets go of my hands. Every angle of his body, every muscle, every joint spells out his agony.
“Still,” he says with a small smile, “I wish it hadn’t happened when he was out running with me.”
My mind slips back to the hospital, to Dad screaming at Tyler. I can’t bear to think about it knowing what I know now.
“I wish it hadn’t happened on the day I took his stone,” I say.
He gives my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “You only borrowed it. You were going to give it back.”
I steeple my fingers. “Yes, I was, but I never got the chance. And I’m glad it’s you that was with him. He loved you. More than anything, he would’ve wanted you with him when he died.”
I sense a small giving of the tension in Tyler’s body. “He loved you too,” he says.
We sit for a space of minutes without talking.
I put my head on Tyler’s shoulder. Suddenly the fact that Liam loved him is very, very important. Being close to Tyler makes me feel close to Liam again. I don’t feel shut out any more. But I’m still struggling to fit everything into place.
“That night at Kelly’s, did you steal my keys and phone?”
“Yes. Spur of the moment – it wasn’t planned.”
“But then you had the excuse to come to my house?”
“Again, not planned exactly. But I was desperate to see Liam’s room again.”
“God, Tyler, you don’t make things easy, do you?”
I turn Liam’s stone over in my hand. It’s not cold now.
“I think you should keep it,” I say holding it out to him. “Liam would want you to have it.”
Tyler ignores me. His forehead is gathered into a deep frown.
I take the stone between my thumb and forefinger and hold it up, angling it so the sun shines straight through the hole in the centre, small flashes of blue glistening in the bright light.
“Maybe Liam had a hand in all this after all,” I say. “It may sound crazy, but at least we’ve got away from Declan and, in some bizarre way, it’s got my family back together again.”
“Maybe,” says Tyler. We both stare up at the stone.
“So what next?” I ask.
“I think we should give it back to Liam, don’t you?”
I look at him and smile. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it myself. I let the stone drop back into the palm of my hand.
“So,” he says, “are you ready?”
He stands up and takes me by the hand and we walk in silence towards Liam’s grave. We both kneel and Tyler takes a penknife from his pocket and cuts away a small square of grass. We dig into the earth beneath until we have made a deep hole.
I bring the stone to my lips and give it a kiss then hand it to Tyler. He does the same. Then we both take hold of the thin leather lanyard and lower the stone into the hole. I’m not sure either of us breathes. We pack the earth in over the top of it and press down hard. You’d hardly know the ground had been touched.
Tyler gives a small sniff and says, “He’ll be happy now.”
I close my eyes. An intense peacefulness fills my whole body. We kneel, in silence, for a few more moments and then we both stand. This time when Tyler’s arms go round me it feels perfect. In some strange way I feel happier than I’ve felt since… I can’t even remember the last time I felt happy.
“Do you think he’s watching us?” I say.
“No. I think he’s had enough of us. You and me – we’ve got to sort ourselves out and try to make something of the rest of our lives.”
He starts to laugh. Is it OK to laugh? Is it?
“Come on,” he says. “I’ll race you to the car.”
By the time we arrive, breathless, we’re both laughing.
It’s hard to believe another year has passed. The final race of the season is here. I’ve been training hard; not because Dad has made me but because I want to; I have my own timetable and my own agenda.
Jeremy’s there, standing with Simon. They watch as I warm up with my friends.
“Coming to join us?” I shout over to them.
“Are you joking?” Simon says. “Jeremy and me – we’d thrash you all, no question.”
Jeremy looks so frail, wrapped up even though it’s warm. But he’s alive, his transplant was successful and life is getting back to normal.
Dad’s chatting to the other parents and paying no attention to me. I love him for that. But when our race is called, he comes over and whispers in my ear, “Just enjoy it. But don’t let them get you on the final sprint.”
“Shut up,” I say, laughing and he strides off with a huge grin on his face. If I’m totally honest, I think there’s still a hint of tension in his shoulders, a tiny breath of expectation. I would like to win for him – just once.
I run a good race but they do get me in the final sprint. I come fourth and I’m happy enough. No trophy or medal, but that’s life.
After all the racing is over, we head to the hall for prize-giving. It’ll be a long one as it covers all the running club events, including athletics, for all ages. Jeremy’s been invited
to give out the prizes – on account of his exceptional good looks, he tells me. Tyler wins the men’s trophy and even Mum and Dad look happy. I asked Siân if she could help put things right between Tyler and Dad. I thought it would help Tyler but I think it helped Dad more. I can’t help wondering if Mum and Dad knew about Tyler and Liam. One day, maybe I’ll ask them. I reckon they’d be fine with it. Simon goes up to Tyler, shakes his hand and slaps him on the back. I never thought I’d see the day that those two became good mates – though it took a bit of time.
At the end of the formal prize-giving, the president stands up to give his end of season speech. I hope he keeps it short. I let my mind wander. I’m supposed to have decided what movie to go and see with Simon this evening.
“…and we have one last trophy this year, the Liam Neville cup for the most valued member of the club.”
At Liam’s name, my attention jolts back to the president. I look at Dad and he shrugs as if he knows nothing about it, but he’s grinning.
“This year, I am sure you’ll all agree that the trophy should be awarded to Amber. Thanks to her amazing campaign, more than a thousand new organ donors have signed up. It is also a fitting tribute to her brother Liam, who was one of the most talented runners this club has ever had.”
I’m half crying, half smiling as I go to the front. The president shakes my hand, and Jeremy hands over a small silver cup. Hanging from one of the handles by a chain is a tiny stone with a hole in it.
“Did you have something to do with this?” I whisper.
“No – nothing to do with me.” He nods towards the back of the room. “You might want to speak to Tyler.”
I make my way to the back, people congratulating me on the way.
“So?” I say, holding up the cup.
He doesn’t have to say anything, I can tell by his face.
“You didn’t steal it did you?”
He raises both eyebrows in a wouldn’t you like to know kind of way. We both laugh.
Dad hurries over and puts one arm around Tyler and one around me.
I can see Mum and Gran chatting to Dr Levine – Chris, as I now call him. Mum’s only had one relapse into drinking and that was when Dad spilled the beans about his girlfriend. It’s all over now and it wasn’t as if Mum didn’t know. Since then, she’s been clean for seven months, three weeks and two days. But who’s counting?!