Free Love's Destiny (Love Trilogy #2) by Tracey Smith Page B

letters to Tyler became like a diary for me. I wrote to him every week, filling him in on the most inconsequential details of my days. He didn’t write back. I didn’t even know if he received the letters I sent, but still I wrote.
    Plans for our summer trip to the mountains went ahead as scheduled. Tyler would not be coming with his parents of course, and that just didn’t feel right to me. It wouldn’t be the same, not like old times at all without Tyler there. I was no longer looking forward to the trip. But it was important to my mom, and she insisted that it would be good for Claire and Charlie to have the support of their family around them during this difficult time.
    I’ll admit I was angry with them. I felt like “this difficult time” was all their fault. Sending their son off to some military camp like he was a lost cause. I knew Tyler had done something wrong, something very wrong, but I was sure he hadn’t meant to. He couldn’t have. I may not have seen him recently, but I knew who he was and I knew he wasn’t a bad person. Didn’t they know that too?
    I tried not to mention the trip to Tyler in my letters. I didn’t want him to know that life was simply going on without him, as if he didn’t matter, as if he wasn’t an integral part. I was so angry for him, angry for feeling like he’d just been pushed aside and forgotten, an inconvenience, an embarrassment. He wasn’t any of those things, he was their son and I was going to tell them that when I saw them. It just wasn’t right.
    A summer storm was raging as we drove to the cabin. The rain poured down so ferociously the windshield wipers couldn’t keep up. Mom begged Dad to pull over and wait out the storm but the radio was telling us that this storm wouldn’t pass for several hours and we were almost there.
    I could barely see the headlights of Aunt Claire and Uncle Charlie’s car as they followed us up the steep winding mountain road. Despite the dangerous conditions my thoughts were still riveted on Tyler. I thought about all the things I was going to say to them once we made it to the cabin.
    The rain picked up, you couldn’t even see the road beneath the torrents of water that were pouring down the mountainside. I had never seen a storm this bad in all the years we’d come here. I looked behind us again, but this time I didn’t see Claire and Charlie’s car. They must have pulled over. We should have.
    Suddenly a car careened around a sharp corner and slid into our lane Dad just barely avoided being hit as he swerved out of the way. Our car hydroplaned and fishtailed across the narrow road. I gripped the handle on the door so tightly my knuckles were white. I closed my eyes and I held my breath preparing for impact but Dad gained control of the car and we came to a stop.
    “Is everyone ok?” he asked breathless and Mom and I just nodded, too scared to speak. That car had come so close! My heart was pounding in my ears, my hands were shaking.
    We waited until the rain had eased before slowly making our way the rest of the way to the cabin. I didn’t fully relax until the car had stopped and we were finally inside. Uncle Charlie and Aunt Claire hadn’t made it yet.
    It was strange being back here after all these years. It seemed smaller somehow, but I knew that was just because I wasn’t so small anymore. I walked to the room that had once been Tyler’s and I sat on the edge of the bed.
    It had been several years since I’d been here, but even longer since Tyler had. He hadn’t been back since that summer when he was 12 and his parents announced that they were moving away from San Diego. We had sat on this very bed and said our goodbyes. I had planned on sitting in here with him and reminiscing about that time. This trip was supposed to be a walk down memory lane. A farewell to childhood. But not anymore.
    I sat on the bed listening to the storm outside the cabin and I thought again about all the things I would say to my Aunt