Page 34 of A Sea of Unspoken Things

Micah’s hand drummed on the steering wheel as he thought. “Honestly, I don’t know. It was always hard to tell with him.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I admitted.

We fell into a pensive silence, and for the thousandth time, I tried to think back to my last conversation with my brother, replaying it in my head over and over and trying to sift the last words he ever spoke to me from the broken memories.

“Can I ask you something else?” My hands tightened around the coffee cup, but I could hardly feel its heat anymore.

Micah pulled his gaze from the road again, eyes running over my face. Like he was trying to guess what I was about to say. “Yeah, sure.”

“What happened that day?”

I watched as, inch by inch, Micah’s shoulders went rigid, the tension traveling down his arms, into his hands. His knuckles paled as his grip on the wheel clenched again.

“When Johnny went missing,” I said, more softly. “When you found him.”

He took one hand from the wheel, propping his elbow in the window of the driver’s side door. His fingers brushed over his mouth likehe was thinking. Maybe remembering. I could see a flush blooming beneath his skin.

“A couple of days before he died, he borrowed the truck to go out to the gorge.”

“November tenth,” I said, looking for confirmation.

“It was the ninth, actually. He only shot at dawn, before the sun was up, because that’s when the owls are still active. But the gorge is so remote that he’d leave the night before and camp.”

I waited.

“So, he went out that day and I was expecting him to return late the next night, but then he was back a lot earlier than usual. He dropped the truck off and picked up Smoke, then the next day, he showed up at my place again saying he needed to go back. He was in a hurry, so he just grabbed my keys and went.”

“Did he usually do that? Just show up last minute and go?”

Micah hesitated. “No, it was usually a planned thing. But I think he was just behind schedule and trying to fit it in.”

“When exactly was that?”

“The day before he died. He left that afternoon, and when he didn’t come back the next day I started getting worried, but I figured maybe he’d had to stay an extra night or go out to one of the other locations. I couldn’t call him because there’s no cell service out there. Amelia was out of town, but she got back that next day, and when Johnny still hadn’t shown up, I called her. We drove out together to check on him, and we found the truck, but no sign of Johnny.” He paused, swallowing. “We split up to start looking for him, and”—he exhaled—“Ifound him across the ravine, halfway up the ridge.”

The flush in his skin deepened, and I wanted to reach for him, but I couldn’t make myself do it. The small thread that was holding me together was about to break. I could see that was true for Micah, too.

“He was gone. Had been gone since the day before,” he said.

I tried to breathe through the tight feeling in my chest. That vision of the treetops, sunlight blinking through the leaves, was there again, stretching wide over my mind.

Micah cleared his throat, as if trying to squelch the emotion in his voice. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“What?” I blinked.

“That I should have gone sooner. That first day that he didn’t come back, I should have gone to look for him then.”

My mouth dropped open wordlessly for several seconds before I could speak. “Micah, I don’t think that.”

His jaw clenched.

“Micah.” I did reach out for him then, taking a firm hold of his arm.

He looked down at my hand.

“Idon’tthink that,” I said again.

“Then what are you thinking?”