We stared at each other, Calliope puzzled and me letting what she’d admitted steep: Zander had been ten years old and not only a witness to his father’s death but a part of it.
He came back into the room then, immediately stopping short as if the air were thick with something too heavy to breathe. It felt that way to me. Zander’s eyes narrowed, darting from Calliope to me. I felt like crying. Hearing it had put me right back at Nan’s bedside the day she died. I’d tried to help until she’d asked me to stop. But the awfulness and—truly—the guilt of that day had never fully left me. I knew why Zander didn’t talk about his dad and wanted nothing more than to give him a hug.
“What?” he demanded.
Calliope opened her mouth, but I stood before she could speak. “It’s been a long night, Zander. A lot to take in for me. So … informative.” I smiled weakly, rushing on. “I think I should head home.”
He glanced back at his mother, who smiled placidly. “Yeah, okay,” he said.
I was quiet in the car, but Zander didn’t press for details. Maybe he knew that what had passed between his mother and me was something he didn’t want to hear. I was torn about bringing it up. If he’d wanted me to know, he’d have told me himself. But maybe he couldn’t, his dad’s death the kind of memory buried so deeply it had to be called out.
Zander turned onto my street and pulled up to the curb out front, asking, “Is your roommate home?”
I nodded.
“Bummer.” His eyes were dark and mischievous. “I guess I’ll have to say good night out here.”
My heart raced as he leaned toward me, the way it always did anticipating his touch, but my mind was still caught up in untangling the knot that was Zander, one more thread loosened, waiting for me to tug it free.
“Zander …”
He paused, one hand resting on my seat back, the other on the dash. Wariness flickered in his eyes, less than a foot from mine.
I took a deep breath. “Your mom told me about your father. That he died when you were ten.”
There was a subtle clenching of his jaw and a fierceness in his gaze that both dared me to go on and warned me not to. Somehow I choked out the question. “Did you …? Were you part of it?”
He let me hang for a minute. A full minute—so much longer than it sounds. I saw it tick by on the second hand of my watch, unable to hold his stare. And when he spoke, it wasn’t an answer.
“Why are you so desperate to know stuff like this, Cassie? Things that aren’t any of your business and can’t help you—or me, for that matter? Why is it so hard for you to focus on what matters: your duty, your history. Not mine.”
Zander’s voice started quietly but by the end had sharpened into a razor-hard coldness. I felt chastised and sore and a little scared by his intensity, which seemed to be teetering between fury and despair.
“I just want to know you, Zander,” I said quietly. “Understand you better.”
“I don’t need you to know me like that.”
That stung. But I tried to ignore it. “I … I thought—and your mom did too—that it might help you to talk about it.”
He barked out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, okay. Thanks, Dr. Phil.” Zander gritted his teeth and sat back, resting his head against the seat and running his hands through those lush curls, his eyes closed. Finally, he exhaled and brought his hands down, gripping the steering wheel tightly.
“You want to know if I had a part in my father’s death?” Zander asked, his voice low and even. “Yeah. I did. It’s what I do, Cassie. My duty. I helped him go where he belonged. That’s not a bad thing, you know.”
“It doesn’t mean it’s easy, Zander,” I said hesitantly. “Or that you have to feel good about it all the time.” He didn’t answer. “Was he your first?”
He looked at me in disbelief, then dropped his eyes. “Yeah,” he said finally, without looking up. “He was. My first alone. He’d always done it with me before.”
I waited, but he didn’t go on. “What happened?” I asked gently. “Did he know it was his day?”
He breathed in, exhaling slowly before answering. “I think so,” he said. “I knew. I told my mom. I didn’t know what else to do. He’d always had the feeling about people at the same times and places I did, but this time he didn’t say anything so I didn’t know if I was wrong or if …”
“If he didn’t want you to know?” I finished when Zander didn’t continue.
“Yeah.” His voice was muffled and he wasn’t looking at me.
I didn’t ask more. The horror of what had likely happened unfolded like an awful bloom: his mom—enthusiastic advocate of his lineage and role—encouraging or helping or forcing her young son to do what he’d done. Executing his duty on an unwilling father and partner. He’d never quite made peace with it. Or probably with her, for that matter.
I reached over and gently stroked his hair, tucking the long pieces back behind his ear, the way he liked them. I wished I really were Dr. Phil so I’d know how to help Zander sift through his mess of emotions.
Zander looked up and I saw the shine of tears for just a second before he pulled me toward him, his hand firm on the back of my neck, his kiss urgent.
“Come with me,” he whispered, his hot breath tickling my ear, making me shiver.
“Where?”
“Anywhere. I don’t care. I need you.”
I pulled back a little, wanting to see his eyes, but they were unreadable. “Zander …” I hesitated, hating to say no, partly because I wanted to go, partly because I believed him. He did need me. And it was thrilling and intoxicating. But it was also a little scary. Each step I took with him felt like walking on quicksand, sinking deeper into a morass that had an inexplicable and dangerous pull.
And then, just as suddenly, he shook his head, flashed an embarrassed little smile. “Forget it,” he said.
“I just … I’m not sure.” I felt terrible—foolish—for not responding when he’d finally done the thing I’d been asking him to: share something real of himself
He held up a hand. “It’s okay, Cassie. Really.” He smiled again, sheepishly. “Bad timing.”
We looked at each other and I felt like maybe I should say something about his father and what he’d told me. But everything sounded way too trite in my head, like it would diminish what had happened and what he’d shared.