Keeper of the Lost Cities: Rebuild [COMPLETED]

Chapter Thirty-Nine - WYLIE

Linh had told him she didn't trust him.

Her words reverberated through his head: Only Purity members know where these meetings take place, and they only share that information with people they can trust.

She hadn't told him where the meeting was—which was essentially saying she didn't trust him.

Numbly, he wondered how their relationship had reached this point. But every memory he replayed, every moment he relived, Linh seemed happy.

Except maybe she'd been pretending, for his sake and not her own. She did that a lot; sacrificed what she wanted for what others wanted. It was a part of her that was both admirable and dangerous. The more she sacrificed, the less she had, until there wasn't enough left of her to form a person.

Sometimes he would see that weighing on her, but he'd always stepped in to help.

When he knew when to help. This time she had kept her burdens a secret—or maybe she'd cried for help, and he'd been too distracted to notice. It didn't matter. It was too late now. She had left—for the Purities, he knew, but he couldn't help seeing it as leaving him.

Because she doesn't trust me, he thought. Because I'm too protective.

He didn't think it was bad to want to protect those he loved, but sometimes it went too far. Like Linh, and her sacrifices; the more it was practiced, the more they became accustomed to it, until it felt like an essential piece of them. That made it all the harder to change.

Wylie just didn't want to make a mistake again, didn't want to be left again. But in the process he'd somehow received exactly what he'd been trying to avoid.

He reached Solreef's doors and slowly pulled on the rope. Inwardly he hoped no one would be home, that he could experience his sorrow alone, but Tiergan's grinning expression was there to greet him as the door opened.

"Wylie! You're back!" His adoptive father clapped him on the shoulder, but then he noticed Wylie's expression. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Wylie murmured, squeezing past Tiergan so he could go inside. His wounds were too raw, Linh's words too loud. Talking about it would only make him feel worse.

"Your father is at Everfalls, if you're wondering," Tiergain said after a moment of silence. He shut the door behind him. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"Dad's at Everfalls?" Wylie growled. "Why? Did you tell him to go?"

"No—I'm not getting in the middle of you two. He insisted he didn't want to move here, that he was fine and preferred staying at Everfalls. I think he's worried about Lesedi."

"Lesedi has Thapelo! He's not fully recovered; I wanted to watch over him!"

Tiergan placed a hand on Wylie's shoulder. "I know you did. But it's not your responsibility to take care of someone who already knows how to take care of himself, okay? I know it's hard, letting him go like that. He's my best friend, remember? Often I feel the urge to leap over there now and drag him back, but then I have to tell myself he's his own person, and stopping him from doing what he wants will only make things worse."

Wylie wanted to argue, wanted to defend his point of view. Tiergan's words were too paralleled to what he and Linh were struggling with; they felt like an attack on his beliefs.

But wasn't that what he'd been trying to tell himself all along? That stopping Linh would only prolong the flood? She was determined to join the Purities, and even if he didn't want that, he couldn't make those decisions for her.