Coming back from the dead isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Tyler learned that pretty quickly. He couldn’t spend time with his friends. He couldn’t talk to his parents. He could barely leave the house. But the worst part? He couldn’t go back to school. How the hell was he supposed to finish his degree if he couldn’t go back to school?!
It wasn’t that he didn’t understand it. Of course he did. He’d died. And people didn’t come back from that. Not usually, anyway. If he tried to go back to campus like nothing ever happened, people wouldn’t react well. Hell, he was lucky that Adam thought he was Skylar when he’d taken a field trip back to the dorm rooms. That could have gone a completely different way if he hadn’t.
However, just because he understood it didn’t mean he had to like it. He was more than welcome to hate it. And he did. He hated that he couldn’t go back to school. How was he supposed to become a surgeon if he couldn’t finish the program?! Of course, there were other options – he could always transfer to a school that didn’t know who he was. But that would mean he would have to leave home. He would have to leave Skylar. And there was no way he was even entertaining that option.
So, for now, he was stuck. He hated the feeling. Being stuck gave him all kinds of time to just sit around and think. Before he’d been in the accident, he’d loved his alone time – he could get so much done when he wasn’t being bothered and expected to socialize with the outside world. But since he’d come back, Tyler hated being alone with himself. It gave him too much time to think.
He wasn’t blind. He knew something was wrong. Not feeling pain was just the beginning. Last night, after Skylar had gone to sleep, Tyler had stayed up. All night. He hadn’t been able to get even a couple minutes of sleep. And the scariest part of it was that it was well into the afternoon, and he still wasn’t even the slightest bit tired. Tyler was trying to brush it off as a side effect of sleeping for three weeks straight when he’d been dead, but he knew the likelihood of that being the case was low.
One glance at the clock told him that it was only three o’clock in the afternoon. Skylar was still in class – Abnormal Psychology, if Tyler remembered his brother’s schedule correctly. It was one of those classes Skylar took because he wanted to have something easy at the end of the day so he didn’t really have to participate before football practice.
And that was another thing. Skylar had football practice right after class, which would put him gone for another two hours. Maybe longer if he was planning on spending time with the guys after. Or Jessie. Which was a hurdle in itself. There were just too many obligations his brother had.
But Tyler was going to go nuts if he had to sit in this house by himself all damn night. When Skylar left for school this morning, Tyler had felt an unusual ache in his chest. At the time, he thought it had just been because he missed the life he’d had before the accident. But as the day dragged on, the ache became worse – now, it was almost unbearable. He needed his brother back.
Not taking any chances, Tyler snatched up the burner phone his brother had gotten him from a gas station the night before. After all, it wasn’t like he could grab his phone and start using it as if he hadn’t died! Someone would have made the connection. So, this was safer until Tyler could set up his own account and smooth out the finer details of Skylar’s crazy plan to resurrect him.
That was just another thing he had to worry about. Sure, he was grateful that Skylar brought him back, but the man hadn’t thought it through. Not that Tyler blamed him – he was grieving, and he was lost – he just wanted him back, and he acted. That’s how Skylar was. He didn’t think – he acted. Usually, it wasn’t a problem because Tyler was around to do the thinking for him, but in this instance, it showcased how Skylar’s way of thinking was flawed.
Are you going to come straight home after practice? Tyler quickly hit send on the phone and clung to it like a lifeline as he waited for a response. Thankfully, he didn’t have to wait long before his phone buzzed in his hand.
I planned on it. Want me to grab subs from the diner down the street? I’m starving to death.
A wide smile came to Tyler’s lips at Skylar’s response. He knew his brother was always hungry after practice and the diner down the street from their house had the best sub sandwiches. Sure. Sounds like a plan to me. See you when you get home. He barely restrained from adding an I miss you to the end of the message.
But it was the truth. He missed his brother. After all, Skylar was the only source of companionship for him right now. It wasn’t like he could text his buddy Erik and ask if he was down to discuss the last chapter of Anatomy and Venipuncture. Erik thought he was dead! So, that only left Skylar. His brother was the only person who knew he was back and walking around now.
Sighing, Tyler grabbed his laptop and headed into the living room. He plopped onto the couch as he turned on the television as background noise while he scrolled the internet. Not being able to go to school was really getting to him. He was 22 years old! He had his whole life ahead of him – well, maybe – and he knew what he wanted to do with it. He wanted to be a surgeon. It was all he’d ever wanted. And he wasn’t going to let a little setback ruin his plans.
After 2 hours of searching and emailing back and forth and ironing out the fine details, Tyler was finally enrolled in an online program five states over where no one knew anything about him. He was thankfully able to obtain a copy of his transcripts and get those sent over as well, so he could essentially pick up where he left off. And with the help of some potentially illegal photoshop lessons he’d gotten from Erik, Tyler was able to completely erase the fact that he’d died three weeks ago on those transcripts.
Just as he was turning off the computer, Skylar walked through the door. Almost immediately, the pain he’d been feeling all day disappeared. A wide smile spread across his lips as he allowed his eyes to rove over Skylar. Tyler could tell his brother hadn’t wasted time getting a shower before he came home. Good. That would have kept him away even longer. “Hi,” he greeted, a wide smile on his lips as he started toward the kitchen where Skylar was heading.
“Hey,” Skylar answered, returning his brother’s smile. “Sorry it took so long. There was a huge line outside of the diner. Apparently they are doing promotions now on Thursdays to try to bring in more customers? Thirsty Thursday – half off on all milkshakes.” Chuckling, Skylar tossed the bag of food onto the bar. “We’re going to have to take advantage of that sometime.”
Although Tyler wasn’t really much for sweets, he nodded. After all, Skylar loved sweets. It was surprising that the other man wasn’t obscenely overweight with the way his diet could lean toward extremely unhealthy sometimes. Then again, Skylar did spend an insane amount of time working out, too. Apparently you could out-train a bad diet, and Skylar was living proof of that.
Because Skylar was the very definition of perfect. With his sharp jawline, dark messy hair, and his ice blue eyes. And then he came in with those broad shoulders and bulging biceps. Add in the rock hard nearly eight-pack abs, and Tyler was sure this man’s photograph was going to be printed right next to the word perfect in the dictionary.
When he heard his brother snap his fingers, Tyler quickly came back to reality. Wow, that was weird. “Huh?” he muttered, brows knit in confusion as he tried to catch up with the current conversation.
Concern washed over Skylar’s face as he stared at his brother. Tyler had been cooped up in this house all day and he hadn’t had any form of social interaction. Honestly, Skylar hadn’t thought it was going to be a problem since Tyler usually kept to himself anyway, but maybe he’d been wrong. “I said I was going to take a shower before we ate,” he repeated. “But I don’t have to. I mean, you’ve been here all day by yourself. I can wait until later.”
Quickly, Tyler shook his head. “No, it’s fine,” he assured his brother. “You can shower now. I’m fine. I’m not even really hungry.” Again, that was concerning since he hadn’t eaten all day, but he was going to ignore that. His stomach probably just needed time to adjust to being back in the land of the living. “You stink, so it’s probably a good idea, anyway. I don’t know if I can eat with you while you smell like a dirty gym sneaker.”
At Tyler’s insult, Skylar barked out a laugh. “Jeez, okay,” he teased, giving his brother’s snark right back. It felt good to just go back and forth with Tyler – it felt normal. And he’d missed it more than he wanted to admit. “I’ll be quick. Why don’t you grab us some drinks and find something to watch on TV while we eat?”
As instructed, Tyler grabbed them some drinks – a blue Gatorade for Skylar and a water for himself – before he headed into the living room with their food. He plopped down on the couch before he started scrolling through Netflix. Nothing was really grabbing his attention, though.
Finally, he settled on something that would at least get a laugh out of his brother – Warm Bodies. It wasn’t like they were actually going to watch the movie anyway. They never did. Usually, it just ended up being background noise while they talked about their days.
“Really?” Skylar asked as he jogged down the steps. His black Henley was clinging to his damp skin, outlining all of the right hard lines and making Tyler’s mouth just a little bit dry. “This is what you picked?”
Brushing off the weird feelings stirring inside him, Tyler shrugged. “It was either this or a documentary on Jeffrey Dahmer, and I know how queasy you get when you’re eating,” he explained. He couldn’t help but smile when his brother agreed that this was the better pick.
Sure enough, almost as soon as he sat down, Skylar turned his attention to his brother. “So, how was your day?” he asked, eyes searching Tyler’s face for any indication that he’d had a bad day and he just didn’t want to make Skylar feel bad.
“It was okay,” Tyler answered honestly. “You know, it was slow. I, um…I was able to apply for online classes to finish my degree. So…while you’re in class, I can take classes here and get my credits so I can be prepared for my residency.”
A wide smile came to Skylar’s face when Tyler told him how he’d spent his day. “Tyler, that’s great!” he assured his brother. “I can bring your textbooks from the dorm room back here so you have everything you need to study. And then, when you graduate and it’s time for your residency, we can go wherever you want to. Any of those programs would be lucky to have you on their roster!”
Confusion was clear on his face when his brother spoke. “You’d leave Briar Hollow with me?” he asked. They’d never really had this conversation before. Tyler had just assumed that Skylar wanted to stay here after they graduated, so he’d already set his sights on Briar Hollow Medical Center. But if Skylar was planning on leaving here, that just opened so many doors for him.
Skylar frowned at his brother’s question, once again not sure how he wanted to approach this topic. Again, he figured ripping the band-aid off quick was the best approach, so he just went for it. “Well, yeah, Tyler. We’d have to. Briar Hollow isn’t exactly a big town. And news travels a lot in small towns. If anyone found out you were working at Briar Hollow Medical Center, they’d have a lot of questions, I’m sure.”
Well, when he put it like that, it made so much more sense. But it also stung a little bit. Skylar wasn’t leaving for him – he was leaving because of him. There was no way for him to do anything in this town without people finding out he was back and asking questions. And the answers to those questions would wind them both up in Ironwood State Hospital – or Ironwood Asylum as the locals called it.
But he couldn’t be mad at Skylar. How could he? This wasn’t his fault. None of this was his fault. This was just the hand they’d been dealt. And now they were both trying to navigate it. “Oh, yeah, you’re right,” he answered with a small nod and a scoff. “Of course they would. And…we don’t have answers. Nothing that would be good, anyway. I get it.”
Quickly, he plastered a smile on his lips once more. “Hey, that means I can actually work toward those Ivy Leagues that I always talked about,” he mused. “Now that we’re leaving, the sky is the limit.” Now, all he had to do was keep his grades up so that he would attract the right schools.
Although Tyler was trying to brush it off, Skylar could see something was bothering him. But he didn’t want to push. After all, this must have been hard on his brother. He couldn’t go to school, or see his friends, or his family. Skylar could only imagine the isolation he must have felt. But Skylar was going to do everything in his power to make it up to him. “There ya go,” he smiled at Tyler’s bright side. “But when you get into a program, you have to hire me on as your legal representation. You can promote me and be my first client.”
“Wasn’t that the plan all along?” Tyler asked, rolling his eyes when Skylar merely smiled at him before taking a long drink from his Gatorade. Shaking his head, Tyler finally picked up his sub, taking the first bite of food since he’d been back.
And he instantly regretted it. The food tasted like ash on his tongue. It was nothing like the flavorful black forest ham sandwiches he remembered buying from the diners. But Skylar didn’t seem to notice anything wrong with his meal, so Tyler didn’t say anything. Instead, he logged it away in his memory as something he could come back to if he really needed to. But that list was getting a bit too long for comfort, so he hoped he wasn’t going to need to.
After forcing a few more bites down his throat, Tyler cleaned up his dinner dishes as well as Skylar’s. “I’m gonna take a shower now,” he explained. “I didn’t sleep well last night, so I was thinking about turning in early. Is that okay?”
Again, Skylar couldn’t hide the confusion on his face when his brother asked permission to go to bed. “Uh, yeah, that’s fine,” he assured the other man. “You need your rest if you’re going to start classes soon. I mean, I know tomorrow is Saturday, but you can never be rested enough, I guess.”
He was acting strange. Skylar wanted to ask if everything was okay, but he felt bad enough already about how much word vomit he’d had to lay out on his brother already. So, he decided that was a conversation for another day. Preferably one in the very far future because Skylar just wasn’t sure how much more of this heavy shit he could take.
Once he was in the bathroom, Tyler finally felt like he could breathe again. Not that being with Skylar was stifling, but trying to act like everything was normal was getting a bit old. And he wasn’t even doing it for Skylar’s sake – he was trying to convince himself. Because he didn’t want to believe that anything was wrong. But the bullet points were piling up, and Tyler was afraid they were going to start exploding.
His fingers gripped the edge of the sink, Tyler using the cool porcelain to keep himself grounded. The bandages Skylar had applied to his knuckles last night were still on, reminding him that where he should have been aching and in pain, there was nothing. It was like he was numb. And he could still taste the gritty texture of the food from dinner on his tongue, making him want to spit into the sink.
However, the most concerning part of all of this was his reaction to Skylar. How he was hyperfocused on his brother. How he would catch himself thinking about Skylar in ways no brother should think of their brother – ever. It honestly scared him.
Slowly, he opened his eyes to look at himself in the mirror. Horror slammed into him as his reflection stared back at him. But it was different – off. Where he had the same ice blue eyes as Skylar, his reflection stared back at him with those eyes catching the light wrong. Almost as if his eyes were glowing. What the hell was happening to him?!