Page 76 of A Sea of Unspoken Things

Micah picked up the glass again, finishing it. It was a long moment before he asked the question. “If there was one thing you could say right now, what would it be?”

I didn’t even have to think about it. “That I know what I did. I know that when I left, I put Johnny on you.”

His eyes searched mine. “You didn’t put anything on me. He was like a brother to me, James.”

“You know what I mean. You were the only one I trusted to look out for him. And I knew that when I was leaving, I was putting it all on you.”

When Micah didn’t say anything else, I pulled his hand closer to me, clutching it to my chest. I could feel my heart beating wildly beneath it.

He looked down at our fingers tangled together, jaw clenching. “That’s not what hurt me, James.”

There was a visible pain in his eyes that appeared to travel through his body, finding the tension in every angle of him. “You cut me off. You just…erased me. Like I never existed.” The tone in his voice shifted. “I mean, I get it. You had to make a choice. And even if I wanted you, James, I was never going to be a guy in a tuxedo at an art show, living in San Francisco with you.”

My heart sank as he said it.

“I just wanted to find a way to pretend like I was someone else.”

“And did you?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I did.”

What no one knew was that I’d questioned that decision a thousand times since I made it. Looking back now, I didn’t think I would change it. I wouldn’t give up Byron or my work or the life I’d made in the city. But I also didn’t know if it was what I wanted anymore.

“You don’t hate me?” I took a chance in asking the one question that I was most afraid to have answered.

Micah’s mouth tilted in a half grin. “I wish I could hate you. It would have made things a lot easier.”

We both laughed, and it felt good. Like we were speaking a language we’d forgotten.

“What about you? What’s one thing you would say right now?” I said.

He thought about it. “If there were no consequences? No cost?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure you want me to say it?”

I nodded.

He unwound his fingers from mine and his hands came up between us, taking my face between his palms. The warmth that swelled there made me want to melt into it. I held on to his wrists, holding him in place, and my heart raced, waiting for it.

His thumb moved over my cheekbone, finding my temple. “All right. Then here it goes.”

I braced myself, my eyes running over his face. He drifted closer until his mouth touched mine, and he kissed me softly. The words were a whisper, spoken against my lips.

“Don’t go back to San Francisco.”

Twenty-Six

I stood in front of the post office, watching the end of Main Street with the package cradled in my arms. Any minute, the courier would arrive.

Quinn didn’t know anything about what was happening in Six Rivers, and I wanted to keep it that way. I’d managed to get everything I needed back from Amelia just in time for the CAS deadline, but with everything going on, I wouldn’t be able to deliver it in person as planned.

I hugged the parcel to my chest, fingers fidgeting with the twine I’d knotted around it to keep it safe. Quinn had arranged for someone to pick up the physical copies in addition to the scans, and as soon as I handed them over, all of Johnny’s work would be the property of CAS. Every notebook, spreadsheet, and photo.

The negatives in particular, I had a hard time letting go of. Because of Johnny’s aversion to digital photography, they were the only finite, ephemeral elements of his unique fingerprint on the study. The only thing that couldn’t be replaced or replicated.

A man and woman huddled in thick coats passed me on thesidewalk, shooting me a side glance but not deigning to smile. Johnny’s name hadn’t officially been cleared in Autumn’s disappearance, and the town had fully descended into the rumors about their relationship. The majority rule in Six Rivers were those who “always had afeelingabout those two.” No one had seen fit to acknowledge that if they had, in fact, thought something was going on, they’d failed to address it when it actually could have mattered.