When Tyler and I got home at the exact same time last night, we bluffed our way out of our careless mistake by saying that he gave me a ride home again. Ella believed us. She asked Tyler if he’d enjoyed his night with Tiffani. He said yes. She asked me if I had fun with Meghan. I told her I had.
And then Tyler and I exchanged a momentary knowing glance, an unspoken secret held captive within our eyes, a secret only we knew and understood.
Dad has a late start for work today, so he’s still lingering around the house when I get back from my run. I’m exhausted. Instead of tracing a new route around the city like I set out to do, I ended up jogging down the beachfront from Santa Monica to Venice. It was refreshing listening to the waves of the Pacific Ocean instead of my music for a change. Almost relaxing, despite the way my lungs were aching.
“What time are you leaving?” I ask Dad as I slip into the kitchen after showering and pulling on fresh clothes. My hair is haphazardly piled into a messy bun atop my head.
Dad barely gives me a second glance as he rams a stack of paperwork into a briefcase. He rubs his temple and grabs his car keys from the worktop. “Right now. I’ve got an important meeting with our suppliers that I can’t fu—mess up.” His cheeks flush with color as he brushes past me, briefcase in one hand, keys in the other.
“Can you drop me off at the promenade on your way?” I’m craving some steaming-hot coffee, but Dad and Ella’s coffee machine just doesn’t do it for me. My legs are so stiff from my jog that I can’t possibly force myself to walk all the way to Third Street. Tyler can’t give me a ride, because he’s at the gym with Dean, and Ella already left to take Jamie and Chase celebrity hunting. Apparently Ben Affleck is around today.
Dad suppresses a groan. “Come on, then.”
I dart back upstairs to pull on my Chucks and get some cash before rushing back down to my waiting father, who is impatiently tapping his foot by the front door. I edge past him. He locks up and follows me over to the Lexus, his face a picture of complete stress and discomfort. If I talk to him, I think he might cry, so I decide to keep quiet for the short ride. But the silence only lasts for ten minutes.
“So.” Dad clears his throat. “Are you having a good summer?”
“It’s okay.” Talk about the biggest understatement of the year. The summer isn’t okay. The summer is like a lucid dream that I don’t seem to want to wake up from. Everything about these past few weeks has been so new and so wrong, yet so thrilling and so right. “Here’s good,” I murmur, and point to the sidewalk of Santa Monica Boulevard.
He pulls up by the curb and I step out. Before I get the chance to close the door behind me, Dad leans over the center console and offers me a small smile. “Be careful,” he says. “LA isn’t as safe as Portland.”
“Actually,” I say, leaning down to meet his eyes, “the rate of rape crimes in Portland is now higher than the US average. Good luck with the meeting.”
Dad’s eyes widen as I gently slam the door shut. I don’t look back. With my tan satchel hanging from my shoulder, I fumble with the strap and make my way to the Refinery, the small coffee shop on the corner that Rachael and Meghan took me to at the start of the summer, the one with the naturalistic vibe and the to-die-for caramel shots. It’s quiet when I enter. There are only half a dozen people huddled over steaming mugs, some reading, some with laptops, some talking to a friend.
The girl behind the counter catches my eye and her lips curve up into a welcoming grin. I make my way over to her and run my eyes over the menu on the wall behind her. It’s written in chalk, which only makes me appreciate it even more. “What can I get for you?”
“Just a regular vanilla skinny latte, extra hot with a shot of caramel.” I reach into my satchel for my wallet and place five bucks on the counter. I feel guilty for adding the extra shot, but Amelia’s spent months convincing me that it’s perfectly okay to indulge in my favorite beverage every so often.
“No problem,” the girl says as she gathers my change from the cash register. “I’ll bring it straight over to you.”
I take my change and head over to a small table against the wall. Setting my satchel down, I sit and get comfy. It feels so relaxing to just sit here, to chill out and study the people around me. I love to people-watch. I always wonder what their life story is. Where did they grow up? How many siblings do they have? What’s their favorite flavor of ice cream?
Most importantly, I wonder if their summer is as complicated as mine.
“Here you are,” the girl says softly from my side as she places the mug in front of me a few minutes later. “Enjoy.”
I thank her and then wait until she disappears again behind the counter, and when she does, I grasp my drink and take the longest of sips. It’s piping hot. It burns my throat slightly, but I don’t mind. It tastes amazing.
Sinking further into my chair, I fish around my satchel for my earphones and my phone before plugging myself into the sound of La Breve Vita. I close my eyes, nod my head in sync with the beats, and breathe. I’m so glad I ended up at their gig. I love them. Their lyrics have depth and each song tells a story about our past mistakes, about our futures. The bridge in most tracks is in Italian.
I’m totally caught up in the music when I feel something shift in front of me. My eyes snap open and my heart almost hurls itself out of my chest as a pair of eyes stare back at me. I immediately jump upright and my earphones fall to the table.
“Hey,” he says.
“You scared me,” I gasp as I place a hand to my chest and struggle to catch my breath again.
It’s only Dean. He looks like he’s just attempted to run a marathon but passed out before he even saw the finish line. His cheeks are red, his face sweaty, hair ruffled. “My bad,” he apologizes with a rueful smile. “I was getting some coffee when I noticed you sitting here.”
My eyes fall from his to the to-go cup clasped in his hands. I glance back up again. “Did you just get out of the gym?”
“Is it that noticeable?” He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand and then laughs.
I shake my head and take another sip of my latte. “No.” Mid-drink, a thought crosses my mind and I quickly swallow so that I can ask, “Is Tyler with you?”
My eyes scour the small shop, searching for a pair of green eyes and a pile of black hair, but Dean says, “No, he’s headed to Malibu to get his car waxed,” and my search is cut short.
“Oh,” I say. Disheartened, I stare at my latte and run my finger around the rim of the mug. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
“So what are you listening to?” Dean asks. He leans forward over the table to tap my phone, and when La Breve Vita appear on my screen, his face lights up. “No way!”
I shrug sheepishly. “They’re so good.”
“What’s your favorite song?”
“Oh, Dean, that’s a tough one,” I groan. I tilt my head and rest my cheek on my palm as I run through all the band’s songs from all three of their albums until I come to a conclusion. “I think it has to be ‘Holding Back.’”
Dean leans back and folds his arms across his chest. He presses his lips together as he shakes his head. “Unbelievable.”
“What?”
He falls still. His brown eyes meet my gaze for a long moment and his lips slowly and carefully twitch into a small smile. “That’s my favorite too.”
I grin back at him while trying not to, biting down on my lip. “It’s an incredible song.”
“It totally is,” he agrees. The smile on his face widens into a beaming grin and he stares at me, as though he’s content with just watching me awkwardly sip my latte. He sits down opposite me. “Your coffee is on me,” he says, finally. He reaches into the pockets of his jeans and pulls out his wallet. For a few seconds he rummages inside it and then places a crumpled five-dollar bill down on the table in front of me. “Five bucks to reimburse the expense. Your five bucks.”
I part my lips as I reach over to pick up the crinkled note, holding it between my thumb and forefinger as I squint at it. There’s black ink scrawled across the Lincoln Memorial on the reverse side. The more I focus my eyes on the writing, the quicker I realize it says “EDEN’S GAS MONEY.” My mouth parts even wider as I lift my eyes to meet Dean’s.
“You kept it?” I ask. “And you wrote on it?”
“So that I remembered to give it back to you.”
“But I don’t want it back.”
“Too bad,” he says. With a sheepish smile, he reaches down to close my fingers around the note and then pushes my hand away.
I only shake my head with a laugh as I stuff the bill into my satchel by my side. I return to my latte, taking several long gulps, as does he with his.
Dean blows out air through his mouth as though his drink is too hot, and then asks, “Where are you heading next?”
“Probably just back home.” When I meet his eyes again, he’s arching a brow curiously at me. “As in here in Santa Monica,” I clarify. “Not Portland.”
“That’s what I thought,” he says as he gets to his feet. He grabs his coffee and presses the cup to his lips, taking a cautious sip before nodding out the window. He blows some more air. “Do you need a ride?”
I’ve discovered by now that there’s a benefit to being in a new city without a ride: You don’t have to ask, because people offer them to you out of pity. “If that’s okay,” I answer. I don’t have my licence yet, anyway.
“Totally fine,” he says. “C’mon.”
I take a final drink of my latte before stuffing my earphones back into my satchel and swinging it onto my shoulder. Dean’s already made his way to the door and is leaning against it, holding it open for me as I step outside. The bright morning has dulled down slightly. I tilt my face up to the clouded sky in surprise. “Where’d the sun go?”
Dean shrugs as he trains his eyes on the traffic. “Contrary to popular belief, rain does exist in the Golden State.” He nudges me forward when there’s a gap in the traffic and we briskly rush across to the other side of the boulevard. I notice his car wedged into a tight spot and I wonder how he managed to maneuver the car into that position in the first place. “It’s rare, but sometimes there’s summer rainstorms that last for, like, an entire day. It comes out of nowhere and it’s super heavy.”
As he unlocks the car, I open up the passenger door and slide my body inside. “Rain doesn’t faze me. It’s a fixture in Portland for eight months a year.”
“That must suck.”
On the ride to my house, we talk about silly things like rain and snow and coffee shops and syrup flavors. I love caramel; Dean loves cinnamon. But my mood deflates when we get there and Tyler’s car isn’t parked on the driveway. I haven’t seen him since early this morning and I’m really starting to miss him, however pathetic and desperate it seems.
“Thanks for the ride . . . again,” I say almost shyly. My cheeks flush as he tells me it’s no problem at all, and then a brilliant idea crosses my mind. It’s so great that I grin, laugh, and almost snort. I reach into my satchel and fish around for the five-dollar bill, my five-dollar bill, the one with Dean’s messy handwriting scribbled across Abraham Lincoln’s memorial. When I finally find the battered note, I place it on the dashboard. “For gas money,” I say.
Dean lets out a loud laugh and shakes his head. “Until next time,” he says. He salutes me goodbye as I step out and head inside the house.
Tyler’s car may not be here, but the Range Rover is, which means Ella is home. The house is silent as I advance down the hall. I peer around the living room door and Ella is sitting cross-legged on the leather couch with a stack of photo albums by her side.
“So did you meet Ben Affleck?” I ask as I step into the room.
Ella’s blue eyes flicker up to meet mine while she shuts the album that’s in her lap. “Well, there were a lot of people, which meant a lot of cars, and so I told the boys I wasn’t paying for the parking fees. I dropped them off at their friends’ houses instead.”
I laugh and then nod toward the pile of albums. “What are you looking at?”
“Oh, just nothing,” she says quickly. “Just old photos. No one was here and I thought I’d—I thought I’d grab them from the attic and look at them while you were all gone. The boys all hate it when I look at their baby photos.” She stifles a laugh as she glances down, brushing her fingers over the tattered cover of the album in her hands.
“Can I see?” I move over to the couch and push the albums over to make room for myself, and then I sit down by Ella’s side and pull my legs up onto the leather.
Ella looks almost nervous as she slowly opens up the album again and moves it in between us so that it’s resting half on her knee and half on mine. “These were when Chase was born,” she tells me.
There’s a collection of photos of a newborn baby wrapped in a blue blanket within a plastic hospital cot. In all of them, Chase is crying, his cheeks flushed almost violet. Ella flicks the page to reveal more hospital photos, but this time Chase is in the arms of a middle-aged woman I don’t recognize, and then in the next picture he has been handed to a man of similar age.
“The boys’ grandparents,” Ella informs me, a little stiffly. More pages go by and I notice that there are several blank spaces with faded outlines where photos were once placed, and then Ella stops at a particular page, which she laughs at. “Oh, God, my long hair.”
Chase looks a few weeks older now, with his eyes wide and alert as a younger version of Ella holds him up to the camera, her long blond hair framing her face and her smile wide, as though the photo was snapped mid-laugh. She looks so young and so happy and so carefree. It’s as though in that moment, her life couldn’t have been more perfect. A smaller child stands at her side, clinging to her purple sweatpants with pursed lips. I can tell it’s Jamie from the blond hair, and he must be around three years old in these photos.
“They’re a little bare,” she apologizes as she switches the album around for one of the others. “This is Tyler’s.”
My interest grows even more when she says this. Adjusting myself to ensure that I’m comfortable, I bite my lip and gaze down at the black album as Ella flips open the first page. Empty. She turns over some more. Empty. And finally, six pages in, we come across the first two photos. There’s a tiny baby in an incubator, so small and so fragile and so pink.
“He was four weeks premature,” Ella tells me. “He was supposed to be born in July, but he was born in June instead.”
“I didn’t know that.” We flip over some more empty pages until there’s a photo of Ella lying on a bed in a dark room with Tyler curled up against her body. She appears even younger here, merely a teenager, perhaps only a year older than myself. Her long hair is thrown up into a scruffy ponytail and her eyes are full of fatigue. She looks exhausted, but I don’t comment on it.
On the last page of the album, Tyler is no longer a tiny infant. He’s a few years older, standing on his own two feet in a tiny black tux. He’s grinning at the camera and I smile back at him, the dark hair and green eyes feeling so familiar to me. He hasn’t changed at all.
“That was on the day of my wedding,” Ella says quietly.
It feels slightly awkward hearing her say these words given that I’m her new husband’s daughter, but I find the whole thing interesting all the same. “When did you get married?”
“When I was twenty-one. Tyler walked me down the aisle, because I don’t talk to my parents. He was only four, but he loved it.” And then she shuts the book and places it to the side.
“That’s it?” I ask, slightly in disbelief. “Only eight photos?”
“It used to be full,” she admits. She sounds sad as she talks, but she glances sideways at me and gives me a small smile, as though she’s fine. “Tyler burned a lot of them.”
My eyebrows knit together. “Burned them?”
“He set up a fire in the back yard,” she explains with a shrug. “There were a lot of photos he didn’t want to keep. I let him do it because I thought it would make him feel better.”
Before I can press the subject any further, she clears her throat and reaches for another album. It’s most likely Jamie’s, but she hasn’t even opened up to the first page when we hear the sound of the front door opening and closing.
“Ella?” a voice calls. I think we’re both expecting it to be Tyler, but the voice is feminine, and I recognize it.
“In here, Tiffani!” Ella calls back, confirming my thoughts. I wonder what she’s doing here.
It takes a few seconds for Tiffani to reach the living room. When she does, she pushes the door open and tilts her head. “Oh, hey, Eden.”
“Hey.” I can barely make eye contact with her, like I’m a drug pusher and she’s a federal agent.
“Is Tyler around?”
Ella hands me the photo album and gets to her feet, smoothing out the creases in her outfit as she takes a step closer to Tiffani. “Hmm, I haven’t seen him all morning,” she says. “Have you tried calling him? Maybe he’s still at the gym.”
“I’ve been calling him since last night,” Tiffani states bluntly. “He keeps rejecting all of my calls. And speaking of last night, where was he?”
Ella’s eyebrows furrow. “Wasn’t he with you?”
It’s at this exact moment that my heart stops beating and my blood runs cold. My lips part as I stare up at the two of them, and the only thing running through my mind is this: We have totally fucked up. I don’t know why Tyler thought our excuses last night wouldn’t backfire and I don’t know why I agreed to go along with them.
And just when I think I’m going to drop dead, I hear the front door again. This time it is the person we’re expecting. I hear him before I see him, his deep voice murmuring, “What are you doing here?” as he makes his way down the hall.
Tiffani turns around at the door of the living room to face him, her expression cold. “Where were you last night?”
“I told you,” he says. I can see half of his face from over Tiffani’s shoulder, and I watch him quickly swallow. “I was with the guys.”
“Tyler,” Ella snaps, stepping into his view. I can see him mentally curse. “You told me you were with her. Where did you go last night?”
“Oh my God,” he says. “What does it matter?”
Ella spins back around to meet my eyes. I’m still holding my breath at this point, and I fear I might turn blue. “Eden, where did he go?”
They all lock their eyes on me. Ella’s stare is stern, Tiffani’s expression is livid, and Tyler’s eyes are wide, like he’s begging me not to screw up, pleading for me to think of something. “Um, he dropped me off at Meghan’s and then he changed his plans,” I lie, praying that my thought process is logical. “He hung out with the guys instead.”
“See,” Tyler murmurs, reaching for Tiffani’s elbow as he takes a step toward her, but she shakes him off.
“Don’t talk to me,” she spits, placing a hand on his chest and shoving him back into the hall. “Eden, come with me. We need to talk to Rachael and Meghan. Right now.” The look in her eyes warns me not to object, so I don’t. Instead, I shove the photo albums off to the side and scramble to my feet. She grasps my wrist when I near her, yanking me out of the living room and into the hall. She purposely barges into Tyler as she pulls me past him.
I can tell that he is furious as he glares after us, his hands balled into fists as we disappear out of the front door. I don’t even have time to fetch my shoes, so I’m hauled across the lawn in my bare feet before Tiffani gives me no option but to get into her car.
And the second she gets into the driver’s seat and shuts the door, she bursts into tears. It’s a full-blown sob, and she buries her face into her hands and weeps against the steering wheel. Her chest rises and lowers at an erratic pace as she struggles to breathe.
“Are you okay?” I ask, but then angrily roll my eyes at myself. Of course she’s not okay. Turning around to face her, I stretch out my arm to soothingly rub her back. It doesn’t seem to do any good. “What’s wrong?”
There are some more long sobs before she lifts her head and wipes her eyes with her thumbs. Her breathing is still uneven as she puts the car in drive and pulls on her seatbelt. “You’re not going to believe it,” she whimpers as her mascara leaves trails down her cheeks. “Rach and Meg are meeting us at my place. I need to just—I need to vent.”
We drive in silence down to her place, and I’m thankful that she lives in the same neighborhood. I don’t think I’d be able to cope with the sound of her crying for anything longer than ten minutes. But those whole ten minutes, nonetheless, are spent with my stomach in knots. I’m pretty sure Tyler is the reason for her tears.
Rachael and Meghan’s cars are already parked on Tiffani’s driveway when we get there, and they quickly step out of their vehicles and come rushing over to us the second we pull up.
“Aww, Tiff! Did it go wrong?” Rachael is the first to pull her into her arms, offering her a tight hug. “Remember, he’s my neighbor, so I can easily sneak across in the middle of the night and cut his balls off if you’d like.”
Now I know it’s definitely Tyler’s fault, and I wonder if perhaps she’s just upset that he ditched her to hang out with his friends. But even that seems too pathetic to be sobbing over. It must be something bigger.
“How many times have we warned you?” Meghan asks, taking Tiffani’s hand in hers and leading her up to the front door. “Tiff, you know this isn’t the first time.”
“Those other times were rumors,” Tiffani groans, letting out another tremendous sob. “This time there’s proof!”
“Proof of what?” I ask as we all shuffle inside the house. No one has yet explained why she’s crying.
“Oh my God, Eden, please stay in the loop,” Rachael mutters as she shoots me a glare, and then glances back at Tiffani with a sympathetic pout. She still doesn’t answer my question, and soon we’re all hauling ourselves up the huge staircase and into Tiffani’s room, where she collapses on her bed.
“Start from the beginning,” Meghan says softly as Tiffani inhales and exhales repeatedly. We’re all sitting before her on the mattress, like she is our queen and we are her servants. In a way, this is true.
“I already told you,” Tiffani snaps, a little agitated. “I was getting the mail in the morning when Austin Cameron drove past and pulled up. He asked if I enjoyed my night with Tyler and he kept winking at me like the fucking pervert that he is. I asked him what his deal was and he said he saw us late last night by the pier. I wasn’t at the pier.”
If I thought I wasn’t breathing before, I’m certainly not breathing now. My mouth drops open as I stare at her. I realize that Tyler isn’t the reason that she’s crying.
I am.
“Did you tell Austin that it wasn’t you?” Rachael asks. She pats Tiffani’s knee as though it will comfort her.
“Of course I told him,” Tiffani murmurs in between even more sobs as she starts tearing up again. “He said he definitely saw Tyler ‘getting it on’ in his car in the fucking parking lot. He automatically assumed it was me, because obviously he’s going to assume that—I’m Tyler’s girlfriend.”
“You shouldn’t be,” Meghan murmurs. “He doesn’t deserve you.”
Tiffani squeezes her eyes shut for a moment before taking a deep breath. “I asked Austin if it was definitely Tyler’s car, and he said he was positive, he’d recognize it anywhere. He said it was definitely his license plate. So of course I asked if he remembers seeing anything about whoever this girl was, but he told me it was only outlines.” A sudden growl erupts in her throat as she hurls her fist into the closest pillow. “Why the hell does Tyler have tinted windows? I thought they were illegal and now I’m starting to understand why. They let the cheaters cheat!”
Oh my God, I think. This is all my fault.
“He told me he was with the guys, but he told his mom that he was with me! He’s a fucking liar!” More fist slams and punches and clawing as she destroys everything within reach. I can’t even begin to imagine how she’d react if she knew it was me. “The entire time he was just hooking up with some whore! I feel so sick. I’m actually going to throw up. Oh, God.” She clasps her hands to her stomach and drops her head low.
“You need to just break up with him, Tiffani,” Rachael says, her tone slightly condescending, as though she’s speaking to a small child experiencing their first kindergarten romance.
“But I just can’t!” she wails as her hair falls over her eyes, and off go the tears again. She pulls her comforter up to her face to dry her cheeks off. It doesn’t take long for the material to get soaked straight through. “I need him.”
“Maybe Austin just misinterpreted it?” I try, forcing the words out of my mouth. My throat is completely dry, but I try my hardest nonetheless to keep my voice from cracking or trembling. Act clueless, I tell myself. Act innocent.
“Okay,” Rachael says, straining her neck to give me a disapproving look. “Eden, I know he’s your family and all, but please don’t defend him.”
“I’m not,” I try to object. I feel as small as ever, and the truth is, I’m not defending Tyler. I’m defending myself.
For twenty minutes, we listen to Tiffani rant and vent and curse until she calms down. The entire time, I sit in silence in fear of saying something that’ll give myself away. Rachael suggests different methods of retribution while Meghan offers to go out and get ice cream, but Tiffani says no, because, “If I’m fat, he’ll only want to cheat on me even more.” This comment doesn’t sit well with me. Is she trying to imply that bigger girls aren’t attractive? That guys don’t go for girls that have a bit of body to them? I don’t know. But it still pisses me off.
Eventually she claims that she just wants to sleep, so we take it as our cue to leave. She needs space, and I’m certainly grateful to finally be getting out of there. Rachael offers to give me a ride back home again, saving me from having to walk across the neighborhood barefoot.
“Call us again if anything else happens,” Meghan says as we all hover by the door. Tiffani is still sprawling out across her bed, rolling over every so often. “You have to keep us updated.”
“I will,” she sniffs. “Can I talk to Eden for a second?”
Rachael and Meghan exchange glances with me, and I contemplate begging them not to leave me here alone with her. But before I get the chance to even plead for mercy, Rachael says, “Sure. I’ll wait for you in the car, Eden,” and they both leave.
The room falls into silence as Tiffani buries her face into her comforter. Her words are muffled as she speaks. “What we say in this room stays in this room. Don’t even think about telling Tyler anything we just said.”
“I won’t,” I almost squeak, my eyes drifting out into the hall as I stare longingly at the staircase. “I hope you’re okay.”
“I’m not,” she says. “But Eden?”
“Yeah?”
Pushing her body up, she crosses her legs and stares across the room at me with her swollen eyes. Somehow she presses her lips together, her jaw clenched, eyebrows furrowed. Something flickers within her blue eyes, something new that I’ve never seen before, an expression so twisted and so sharp that for a moment she frightens me. “I know you weren’t with Meghan last night, because I was.”
