I walked a half step behind Tyler as I followed him across campus. He had shaken the hood from his head, and buried his hands in the front pocket of his sweatshirt. His gait was slow and easy but he kept his eyes trained on the ground as he walked like he was lost in thought and did not trust himself not to trip.

We cut across the quad, passing the place where he had fallen over me. The sun behind us cast our shadows out ahead where they were same height. They stayed side by side as we walked, splayed across the grass as our physical bodies had once done.

Tyler took a winding path through the parking lot angling towards a dark grey Nissan Altima with a dented back bumper. It beeped as we approached and I looked to my left to see car keys in his hand. I hesitated when he threw his backpack in the trunk and turned to hold out his hand for mine; he hadn't said anything about needing to drive.

My vision tunneled until all I could see was the bumper, focusing on the sharp inward crush of metal, large enough to wrap around someone's head. I flinched at the slamming of the trunk.

Tyler must have caught my reaction because understanding flickered in his gray eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I should have mentioned we would have to drive to get there. I'll go slow."

A flush crept up my neck into my face while my stomach clenched hot with shame

"I never told you I was in the car accident," I said, trying to divert the subject.

"You didn't have to."

I bristled indignantly at the assumption and then realized it wasn't him I was mad at. I took a deep breath, tugging at the hem of my shirt on the pretense of pulling it straight to buy myself some time.

"I'm not afraid of driving," I said finally. I'm afraid of the drivers.

I walked around to the passenger side and slid in, methodically buckling my seatbelt and cinching it tight around my waist. A tiny voice in my head whispered, "The seatbelt didn't save, Danny."

Since the accident I had been in the car many times, though when given the option I preferred to walk. But the routine had still yet to break my physiological reactions. I wiped my sweaty palms off on my jeans, leaving dark smudges, and tried to banish the image of Tyler's dented bumper from my mind's eye. The spidery crack in the right rearview mirror did nothing to alleviate my nerves.

Tyler slid in next to me. The car purred quietly to life and he put it in reverse, perhaps over cautiously, and pulled out into the street. As we drove off campus and into town, Tyler followed the speed limit, eased the gas pedal like it was sugar glass, and obeyed traffic laws almost to fault. I gradually relaxed, watching the restaurants and small-business plazas pass us by to give away to townhouses and eventually spread-eagled neighborhoods. Finally, when Tyler had stopped at a deserted intersection for a full ten seconds before creeping forward, I spoke up.

"You know I won't spontaneously combust if you go a mile over the speed limit, right?"

The corners of his mouth pulled up in a smile. "And at what speed does that happen?"

"Well, I think scientifically speaking that happens at the speed of light."

Tyler laughed, throwing me a warm glance, before focusing back on the road. He took his right hand off the steering wheel and propped his elbow on the armrest, relaxing into a much more natural driving position.

"I'll be sure to keep it under eighty-eight miles then," he said.

"That's time-travel," I countered. We laughed in tandem.

"I just didn't want to freak you out," said Tyler, inching the speedometer up very slightly. We left another town behind us and after some minutes turned down a road that led us through what seemed to be a state forest.

"Talking helps," I said. "It distracts me." I searched for a conversation direction and picked the most obvious one. "Where exactly are we going?"

The sun winked through balding pine trees and caught the colors of the oaks and maples falling to autumn's grasp. The forest flashed by, uninterrupted, quiet, and peaceful as the miles fell away under our tires.

"River Tracks," he said, tapping on the brakes.

"Is it an actual place?" I asked, instinctively grabbing the door handle as the car lurched over a pothole.

"That's just what people call it," he said, shrugging. "Well, the people who know about it anyway."

"Are you a serial killer?" I asked.

"Yup, and this is where I'm dumping your body," he said, without missing a beat. I laughed, relaxing my death grip on the door handle and flexing my fingers.

Tyler turned down another road, this one dirt and barely wide enough for a single vehicle. Brush grew wild and unchecked and long ferns reached out to lovingly caresses the sides of the car. We bumped along for another minute until we pulled into a clearing just large enough for a small car to turn around in.

"This isn't helping the whole serial killer vibe," I said.

"C'mon Dash," said Tyler, giving me a wicked smile, "Live a little." It was a Danny line.

Tyler killed the engine and got out of the car, giving me no choice but to follow him out into the clearing. Once outside, I turned slowly on the spot to survey our surroundings. Shafts of sunlight slanted through the branches of trees casting a soft greenish-gold light that spotlighted the dancing dust motes. Inhaling gave me lungfuls of clean air laced with the musty scent of crushed and decaying leaves. I closed my eyes and inhaled again, relishing the feel of a light breeze lifting the tendrils of hair escaping my braid so they tickled my chin and nose.

"Whenever you're ready," called Tyler from somewhere to my left.

I turned on my heel to find him several yards away, seemingly standing in the middle of a thick set of brambles. Walking towards him, I saw a narrow footpath winding through the underbrush.

"How do you know about this place?" I asked, jogging the last few steps to him.

"Word of mouth," he replied. "But I've been coming here for years."

He led the way along the dirt track which climbed at a steep enough incline that after a while my calves began to ache in a pleasant sort of way. Birds and squirrels chattered above us and small rodents rustled unseen nearby. I was glad for my black combat boots as rocks shift underfoot, threatening to upset my balance, and thorny brambles scraped against my jeaned shins.

After a time the ground levelled out again and the trees began to thin. The forest ended abruptly at the edge of a ravine and opened up to the sky.

"It's beautiful," I breathed.

A river flowed lazily between the steep, rocky sides of the gully. Even from high above, I could hear it tumble over rocks. The water reflected the afternoon sun; a ribbon of silver threading its way through a pebbled shore of gray, stitching the land together. Hills rose up around us capped in towering pine trees while vultures and hawks wheeled above surveying the forest for their next meal.

I wondered what we looked like from their vantage point, how much different the world itself appeared.

"This way," said Tyler, inclining his head to the right and starting along the ravine's edge. I followed, keeping a wide enough breadth from the cliff while Tyler walked within inches of the open air. After several minutes, we rounded a bend.

Up ahead a bridge spanned the sides of the ravine, supporting the weight of two parallel train tracks.

"I can see where the name comes from," I said a little breathlessly.

Tyler stepped up onto the tracks and walked towards the bridge. "There haven't been any trains this way for years. They built newer tracks up that way a while ago," he said gesturing somewhere over the hills.

I walked up the middle of the tracks while he walked with practiced balance along the thin beams. Weeds grew unkempt between the wood and gravel and the bridge was spotted with rust from neglect. Lichen had begun to creep up the support poles as nature began to re-stake its claim.

We stopped at the halfway point of the bridge, suspended at a dizzying height above the water. From this vantage point, I could see the river winding through the hills for miles. To my right, an old, weathered piece of caution tape fluttered in the breeze.

"Don't worry," said Tyler, sitting down and sticking his legs through the latticed metal so his feet hung over empty air. "It's perfectly safe." He picked up a handful of gravel and tossed pieces one by one into the river.

I sat down beside him but kept my legs inside the bridge, though it wouldn't help should it suddenly come tumbling down.

"So," I said. "Come here often?"

Tyler smiled. "Sometimes. It's a good place to think."

"About what?"

He shrugged and tossed another pebble. It disappeared from view after a few feet, too small to track and too small to make enough noise to let us know if it had hit the water. "Life," he said. "Anything. Sometimes nothing at all."

I looked down at the river. Every day it picked up more dirt and pebbles and dropped them off somewhere else, somewhere completely new, or perhaps to float on forever. Every day it changed the ground beneath it so that it was never the same twice.

"Do you believe in an afterlife?" I asked. The question surprised even me.

"I thought we were skipping philosophy," Tyler chuckled. But he considered for a moment.

"Yes, I think I do. I can't tell you what I think it's like, but I think there is something more, something after. I don't think we just exist; there is something that makes us, well us. Call it a soul or whatever you want, but I think there is an after for that part of our being." He shook his head. "I'm not making any sense. Do you believe in one?"

I mulled over the question. Did I believe in one? When Danny died, there was a lot of talk about heaven and angels and being in a better place that was just a lot of white noise to me. Did I believe Danny was in some perfect, white eternity surrounded by golden light and watching me from above? Did I believe that his soul, tangible or not, was still existing somewhere beyond my reach or comprehension?

I shook my head in time with my thoughts. "I think people believe in it because it makes them feel better."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

I shrugged. "We have no way of knowing what comes next, if anything, and that finality scares people. And if there is truly nothing after, what was the point of being here in the first place? So people create a picture in their head of what they want to believe is waiting for them and their family and their friends to make death and loss easier."

"I didn't consider it much until I lost someone," said Tyler. His voice got slightly softer and he looked to his left, his gaze fixing on something unseen.

"We don't have to talk about it," I said quickly. "That's not why I brought up the whole after life thing."

"No, it's okay. I told you I understood what it's like to lose someone, and it's not fair for me to expect you to take that at face-value and accept it. I'm sure lots of people have told you that just to make you feel better." He tossed the rest of his handful of gravel out into the river and turned to look at me, his gray eyes finding mine. The contact made my heart beat faster; very rarely did people truly look into someone's eyes the way Tyler did mine, so much so that I could see my reflection.

"I should have thought about this more before I brought you here, but—just don't be weirded out okay?"

I laughed nervously. "I think the balance of weird is tipped in my favor, so this is your chance to even it out."

Tyler smiled. "The friend I lost was actually my girlfriend."

I blanched. For some reason, I hadn't been expecting that. I scrambled to control my facial expression and almost missed what he said next. "She died in an—" he took a deep breath, almost like he had caught himself on something, "—an accident."

Silence fell; even the river was hushed. I looked away, bit my lip, looked back and found myself repeating the same words I hated so much. "I'm sorry, Tyler."

He nodded, more to himself, and picked at a spot of flaking rust by his hand. Tiny pieces stuck to his fingers, turning them a burnt red in the sloping sunlight.

"It took me a long time, a very long time, to come to terms with it. There were a lot of things that lingered afterwards I couldn't get away from. Something always brought it back up, even when I tried to move on. Sometimes, it still happens."

"I know what you mean," I replied, staring out at the sun that was staring to edge its way behind the trees. Long shadows reached down into the ravine, hiding the river from sight.

"I was always angry, always asking why, always feeling helpless. I was forced to talk to therapists, which I resented, until finally I realized I was the only one who could make myself feel better and that asking why all the time would never get me closer to an answer."

"So what did you do?" I asked.

He looked at me once more. "I stopped asking. I went for long walks with my dog and I remembered all of the things that I loved about her. It hurt at first, going through those memories, but eventually I saw them as all of the good she brought into my life. I don't know if you ever truly get over someone's death, it's not a break-up, but you do come to terms with it."

"I want to believe that," I said, shaking my head and picking at the laces of my boots. "But I don't know if it's true."

Tyler placed his hand gently on my knee and I stilled, my heart rate picking up once more. "People will tell you that until they are blue in the face. But you won't ever believe it until it actually happens."

From somewhere in the hills a train whistle echoed mournfully. A pervasive sense of sadness washed over me. Nothing ever sounded as lonely as a train whistle.

"What was her name?" I asked, quietly.

"Emilia," he said. "But she liked to go by Mia. She was a violin player, a good one. The music she coaxed out of that thing made you feel so much you didn't know whether to laugh or cry. And when she got lost in a song, the way her eyes closed and her fingers danced—that's the memory I hold onto."

To see Tyler talk about Mia, to hear the love and loss in his voice made my chest ache. The next train whistle raised goosebumps along my bare forearms and I crossed my hands to rub them away. A strange feeling wrapped around me, one that I couldn't name or place, and stranger still was the vein of jealousy creeping into my heart.

I was jealous of a dead girl, but why? Because of the way Tyler talked about her? Because they got a chance to live out their feelings for each other before she died? Because I was acutely aware of how close we were sitting and that I could sense, real or imagined, the heat coming from his body in the cooling air?

I moved away on the pretext of standing up to stretch. I gripped the gritty bridge beams and leaned forward through the gap in the metal so I could feel the wind on my face and allow it to blow away the blush in my cheeks. A river of shadows lay below me.

"What was Danny like?" asked Tyler, standing up as well.

I laughed though it sounded more forced than natural. "I don't think anyone can really describe Danny. You had to know him."

"You two must have been close," he said.

"We were best friends," I said, my eyes watering. "Our parents were family friends so we knew each other before we could even remember we knew each other."

"Losing him must have been really hard," he said, gently.

I swiped a finger under my eye to catch the single tear that had escaped. "Thank you for this," I said, sweeping my arm out to encompass the bridge and river and hills. "For this, for everything. You don't know me from anyone, but you helped."

"You're a good person, Dash. You deserve to be happy."

I scuffed my boot along the gravel. "I don't know how good of a person I am," I mumbled.

Here Tyler's girlfriend was dead and buried while I had cheated on my living boyfriend for revenge. I swallowed hard and looked down at my shoes so he wouldn't see the truth in my eyes.

"Well, I don't think you completely suck," said Tyler. He grinned at me, hands in his sweatshirt pocket once more.

I punched him half-heartedly in the arm. "I guess you're all right too."

"Ready to head back?"

I nodded and made to walk back towards the woods when he stopped me with a gentle hand on my arm. "I'd like to help you one more way, if that's all right?"

"And how's that?"

He placed a finger lightly on my lips. "To get you to smile more."

I smiled in response, feeling the last light of the dying sun warm me from the inside out as I followed him back up the tracks shrouded in twilight.

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I'm so sorry again for the long delay between chapters, but I would love to know what you thought! Usually I have dialogue planned way in advanced, but this chapter was tricky and I wanted to get it right. I'm still not sure if I'm completely happy with it, so any and all feedback would be awesome :) Thanks so much for reading!