When I wake up later in morning and take in the sight of the room around me, I don’t particularly feel different. You’re supposed to be a different person; you’re supposed to see everything in a new light. But I feel the exact same as I felt last night, except now I’ve got a headache. My body isn’t in mortal agony and I don’t want to cry, but I’m not exactly basking in joy either. It just feels like any other morning, a new day.
My throat feels dry, like I’ve been walking in a desert for a week and haven’t come across a water source yet, and my voice sounds raspy as I sit up and call out for Tyler. That’s another thing I thought would be different after you lose your virginity: I thought you would wake up next to the person you’re so infatuated with.
A moment of panic sweeps through my body. Maybe Tyler left. Maybe he abandoned me here, took off before I woke up, regretting what happened and running away. The condo is too quiet. It shouldn’t be. Tyler should be by my side like in the movies, where you wake up and the significant other kisses your forehead or plays with your hair or whispers that he loves you, or just something.
I glance around the room and see the small window has its curtains pulled over again. I can’t even figure out if it’s morning or if it’s the middle of the night or if it’s two days later, because the room is dull and starved of light.
Scrunching my face up, I grip the sheets around me and glance back over to the mirror on my right. I’m completely bare. With a gasp, I yank the sheets up to cover my chest and stare at my reflection, horrified.
Where the hell is Tyler?
The bedroom door opens then, stiff against the fluffy carpet. Tyler elbows it open fully and takes a step into the room, his face a little pale. I’m just relieved that he’s still here. He’s fully dressed and there’s a small smile on his lips as he meets my eyes.
“I was just about to wake you up,” he says, his voice soft. The emerald shade in his eyes is a light green, and I know it’s because he’s calm. That’s what I’ve noticed most over the weeks that I’ve been here: Tyler’s eyes and the way they reflect his mood. Dull and light: vulnerable. Normal: cocky jackass. Dark and vibrant: he’s furious to the point where he could possibly kill someone.
“I thought you left,” I admit, realizing that I was overreacting. I know Tyler wouldn’t leave me, because I know he wouldn’t treat me like that. I hope he wouldn’t treat me like that.
He gives me a hard look, appalled. “I’m not that much of an asshole.” The corners of his lips pull back up into a smile as he glances away, almost shyly, like his ego has been bruised and he’s lost all his confidence. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
I spot the bright mint color of my skirt in his hands, and when he notices me staring at my clothes it’s like he remembers why he’s entered the room. “Here,” he says, carefully placing the clothing on the bottom of the bed. He stands there awkwardly. He can’t really hold my gaze; he can only glance back and forth between me and my clothes and the window and the floor and anything else he can look at. Color rises in his cheeks.
“Are you okay?”
Finally his eyes lock on mine and his entire face flushes pink. He rubs at the back of his neck as he strains it to one side. “Sorry,” he murmurs, but I can hear the nervousness in his tone. “I’m—I’m not really used to, like, this.” He pauses for a second. “We should probably talk about, uh, last night.”
I’m still hugging the sheets to my chest, but by now there’s a smile on my lips. I think it’s the first time I’ve seen Tyler appear truly anxious and out of his comfort zone. Usually he’s so in control of situations and so confident, and now here he is, mumbling and unable to look at me properly. But then I think about his words and I immediately wipe the smile from my face.
“Was I bad?” I dare myself to ask.
“No, no,” he says quickly. He lightens up a little, at least enough to give a small laugh. “I meant more along the lines of . . . You know, where do we stand now?”
We exchange a long glance. He’s biting his lip, holding his breath while he waits for me to answer. But honestly? I have no idea. If anything, it’s just made our complicated situation feel all the more real and all the more intense.
“I’m not sure,” I admit. “Where do you want us to stand?”
“I’m not sure.” He heaves a sigh and stuffs his hands into his pockets, but it’s clear he’s thinking deeply about something, his face a picture of concentration. “Answer me this: Do you regret it?”
“No,” I say immediately. How could I regret something I wanted so desperately? “Do you?”
“You know I don’t,” he murmurs, and then he smiles another one of those genuine smiles, the ones I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get over. He reaches for my clothes again and walks around the bed with them, stopping by my side and placing them in my lap above the sheets. He’s still smiling. “We’ll figure all of this out. Eventually. But for now, get dressed, because we really need to go. Troy-James just called and he’s on his way home.”
I purse my lips at him a little sheepishly as I hug the comforter to my body, not moving an inch. “Can you, uh, give me a sec?”
“You’re acting like I haven’t seen you naked,” he says, but it’s playful and he nods. “Be quick,” he calls over his shoulder as he leaves the room.
Once he’s gone I grab my skirt and pull it on under the sheets, still too embarrassed to get out of this bed undressed. I pull on my bra and my top and then finally step out onto the carpet, the room feeling as though it’s spinning a little. As I slip my sweater on and wrap it around my body, I press a hand to my forehead and breathe for a few seconds. I felt fine until I stood up; now it feels like my blood is poison and it’s killing me from the inside.
When I make my way through to the kitchen, Tyler is hovering by the trash can, tipping a tray of glass into it. I glance over the worktop into the living room, where sunshine is streaming in through the huge windows and casting light over everything, and I take note of how everything has been tidied to the point where the place looks immaculate, like we were never here. He must have cleaned up all the shards from the glass that he smashed last night while I was still sleeping.
With a sigh, he shoves the tray into a cupboard and turns to me, rubbing his hands together. “I called us a cab,” he tells me. He steals a glance at his watch and then nods to the door. “I know it’s weird, but I can’t exactly ask someone for a ride without having them wonder what the hell we’ve been doing. We can’t look suspicious, remember? The cab driver won’t know us. It should be here any second.”
I give him a weak nod. “Where are my shoes?” The carpet keeps my bare feet warm, but I realize I’m not exactly sure where my Converse have ended up. I quickly scan the living room for them.
“I don’t know,” Tyler says, and his eyes also join in the search. “But we need to get outta here.”
“But my shoes—” I try to protest, upset that I’ve lost them. My favorite pair of Chucks, too: the ones with my favorite lyrics written along the side. The ones that I pull on to go to school, to go grocery shopping for my mom, to wear to beach parties when I’m drunk and want to kiss my stepbrother.
“I’ll buy you a new pair; now come on,” Tyler urges, growing slightly impatient. He furrows his eyebrows as he heads over to the door, opening it up and standing out in the lobby, waiting for me to join him. When I do, he locks up and slides the key under the doormat.
The polished tiles beneath my feet feel cold and I dash across the lobby and into the elevator before Tyler even has a chance to turn around, but when he does he smirks before joining me inside right before the doors close.
He looks at me hard as the elevator begins to move, his expression stern, but he’s struggling to suppress the smirk. “I don’t think we should mention last night to our parents.”
“I don’t think we should mention last night to anyone,” I correct, but even though we’re only joking around, I tense up. I just want to sigh endlessly. That’s all this is, one huge sigh, because we have no idea what we’re doing.
Tyler must notice the worry in my eyes, because he reaches over and gently grasps my hand the same way he did last night when he was looking after me. I stare at our hands for a moment, taking in the way they look when they’re interlocked together. I like it. When I glance up at him, he only smiles and tightens his fingers around mine.
There’s a thought lingering in my head, that perhaps we’ll never be able to tell anyone, and that we’ll constantly be whispering, “Shhh, this is a secret,” to each other. Keeping this a secret is hard, but telling is harder. We can never win.
When the elevator doors open, Tyler leads me through the lobby to the main entrance, and through the glass doors we can see a cab parked by the sidewalk. I’m hesitant about walking outside barefoot, but I quickly get over it and follow Tyler down the steps and into the vehicle. A middle-aged woman greets us, hungover smile on her lips.
It takes us almost twenty minutes to get back to the house, which is surprising considering it’s Sunday morning and the traffic is minimal. I think the cab driver is taking advantage of the fact that we’re young, assuming that therefore we must be naïve and completely blind. She takes at least five wrong turns, murmuring, “Oops, not this one!” each time. I’m glaring at her from the backseat as she drives, noticing the way she’s purposely riding up the fare and prolonging the time I have to sit in silence overthinking everything about last night. It’s making me feel nauseous, but Tyler only shrugs at me when I point to the meter with a scowl on my face. He doesn’t bother to argue about it, just hands the driver twenty bucks and yanks me out of the car, which promptly zooms off the second I’ve shut the door.
“Where did you tell them you were going last night?” Tyler asks as we linger outside the house for a moment, not quite sure how we’re going to handle our parents. I look like trash and my shoes are gone and I most likely smell of booze.
“The movies,” I say.
Tyler lets out a breath and shakes his head down at me. “The movies? Where’s your originality?”
“What was your excuse?” I fire at him.
“They didn’t get one. I left before they could notice.”
“Well,” I say, “that doesn’t surprise me.”
He chuckles, but he still appears slightly anxious when he glances back at the house. We have no choice but to go inside—we’ll have to eventually. I wish I could stay away from it, away from Dad and away from Ella, hidden somewhere with Tyler while he tells me more about his life. That would be perfect.
Ella is in the living room when we get inside. She’s holding a few sheets of paper and she’s studying them, a finger pressed to her lips. Jamie’s sitting on the recliner with his fractured wrist resting on a pillow. He stares at us both with a peeved expression, and I think it’s the first time I’ve ever seen him looking displeased.
“Dave, they’re home,” Ella says loudly without even glancing up. I was hoping she wouldn’t notice us awkwardly hanging in the doorway, but it’s true what they say about parents. They have eyes in the back of their heads and four ears.
Tyler glances sideways at me, his face taut. He’s better used to dealing with our parents than I am, and quite frankly, I’m hoping he’ll do all the talking on my behalf. If I try to explain myself, I’ll only stammer and blurt out something that I wish I hadn’t, like when Tiffani heard me tell Ella I was with Meghan and it totally backfired.
Dad barges into the living room moments later in his sweats and T-shirt. I’m not used to seeing him without a shirt on his back and a tie around his neck. It makes him seem less intimidating, like he’s my grandpa. “What do you have to say for yourselves?” he barks, and immediately it becomes clear that he is pissed off on an entirely new level.
“The movie was good?” I try, but even Tyler shoots me a look that says, Don’t even bother. I should have known Dad would go insane when I didn’t come home. Movies don’t last until 10AM.
“You two went to that beach party, didn’t you?”
Ella has looked up from her papers and placed them down on her lap while Jamie continues to watch Tyler and I struggle to get out of the shark tank. There’s a sparkle of amusement in his eyes, as though this is entertaining. On my end, it’s not.
Neither Tyler nor I muster up a reply. This tells our parents exactly what they need to know: Yes, we lied and yes, we went to the beach party underage. In my defense, nothing like it takes place in Portland. How was I supposed to turn down the opportunity? In hope of saving our fate, I try to appeal to Dad’s sympathetic side. So I cry.
“My friends took me there after the movies,” I choke out through my exaggerated sobs. My voice is raspy, but it isn’t fake. I’m still dying of thirst. “I didn’t even know what it was!”
Tyler’s staring at me, his face blank. I’m defending only myself and apparently he believes I’m not doing a very good job. With a sigh, his eyes shift from me to my dad. “I chose to go,” he says, casually honest. “What are you gonna do? Ground my ass for another five years?”
Dad glances between Tyler and me, his eyes narrowed, like he can’t figure out which problem to tackle first: my fake weeping or Tyler’s attitude. He chooses neither.
“Where have you been all night?” he interrogates while Ella watches, and her gaze only makes me think about what Tyler said last night, about her being wary when it comes to parenting and having to punish him. Dad seems to have no problem at all when it comes to striking up an argument.
“We all crashed at Dean’s place,” Tyler bluffs, although in a way it’s only a slight distortion of the truth. We did crash at someone’s place, only it was TJ’s and not Dean’s, and Tyler and I weren’t exactly sleeping. “Just chill out. It’s summer.”
“Oh,” Dad says with sarcastic realization. “My bad. I forgot that it’s summer, so that means you can do whatever the hell you want. Sincerest apologies.”
I can hear Jamie stifling a laugh and I want to tell him to just shut the hell up, but I know that wouldn’t go down well with Dad. Besides, I like Jamie. In the you’re-pretty-okay-for-a-stepbrother sense, that is.
“This isn’t the first time you haven’t come home, Eden,” Dad mutters in disgust. My eyes quickly flicker back over to him and I force a couple more tears to well up. His hair looks grayer than it did over a month ago when he picked me up from the airport, and the more his scowl dominates his features the older he appears. Mom looks twenty-one in comparison.
“It’s just sleepovers,” I sniff, way more dramatically that I intended. The first time I didn’t come home was when I fell asleep at Jake’s place after kissing him during The Lion King. The second was last night, when I was too captivated by Tyler’s touch, too charmed by his voice, too in love with his being.
“That’s not the point!”
“Then what is?”
Dad glares at me as he struggles to muster up a decent reply. He comes up with nothing and sets his attention back on Tyler. “You’re impossible, so I’m not even going to say anything. Just go upstairs. Get out of here.” He glances over his shoulder at Jamie with a sort of scowl on his lips, and Jamie gets the message and stands to leave.
“Fine by me,” Tyler says with a smirk, but it quickly fades when I catch his eye. His lips quirk into a sincere smile instead, a smile full of reassurance, like he’s trying to tell me not to worry because everything will be okay. When Jamie approaches him, Tyler swings his arm carefully over his shoulder and gently leads him out of the room, murmuring, “How’s that wrist, kid?”
In that second, I wish I was like Tyler. I wish I was able to put up a front and act like everything is a joke. I wish I got into trouble so much that being yelled at becomes part of the daily routine. I wish I wasn’t still standing here in front of my Dad, subject to questioning and disappointed expressions while I have these stupid tears running down my smeared makeup.
Dad, I have realized, clearly doesn’t have a sympathetic fiber in all of his being. I should have known. Every time Mom was upset, he didn’t care. Every time she cried over him, he cared even less. He’s never cared.
I quit the crying act and look at him hard. “Well?”
Ella’s still in the room. She’s gnawing on her lips as she continues to watch, never moving from her position on the couch, staying silent. I don’t know if I should be glad or not, because I haven’t yet figured out if she’s the type to join in the yelling or the type to defend you.
“Eden,” Dad starts slowly as he rubs his temples. “I didn’t bring you down here so that you could sneak around and lie to me.”
“Then what the hell did you bring me down for?” I explode, throwing my hands up in exasperation. “Did you want to take me bra shopping? Did you want us to sit over campfires eating s’mores? What, Dad? What did you expect?”
I cannot even begin to fathom my hatred. For the six weeks I’ve been here he hasn’t made the slightest effort to fix things with me, to apologize for walking out on both Mom and me without an explanation, for leaving and waiting three years to see me again. And he wants to come into my life now? He wants to try and act like my parent now?
“I think we all need to just calm down. The important thing is that she’s here,” Ella says with a slight edge to her voice. I’ve concluded now that not only is she the type of mother that doesn’t mind if you disappear, she’s also the kind who defends you when you do.
“Exactly,” I remark, trying to make my voice softer. “I’m home and I’m alive, and so is Tyler, but if it helps, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for us not coming home.”
Dad doesn’t accept my apology. He just stares at me in a way I’d never expect a father to look at their daughter, like he can’t stand me. In that exact moment, I hate him.
“What are you looking at me like that for?” I ask. “What is your problem with me, Dad?”
“I don’t have a problem,” he says. He glances sideways at Ella, like he needs backup in order to fight a sixteen-year-old, but she only looks at him with wide eyes.
“Is that why you didn’t talk to me for three years? Because you don’t have a problem with me?” I don’t know where my words are coming from. Somewhere in the back of my mind, these thoughts have been gathering ever since he left. Now that I’m furious at him they’re spilling out all at once, and I can’t stop them. I can see the color rising in Dad’s cheeks as he takes in my words. “Is that why you walked out? Because you don’t have a problem?”
“That’s enough!” he barks, because he can’t handle the truth. He can’t handle the fact that he’s a sorry excuse for a father, because he never thinks he’s in the wrong. That’s why he and Mom argued all the time. Nothing was ever his fault. It was always hers.
“You haven’t even tried to make an effort with me.” I even take a few steps toward him. My chin is tilted high, because I’m determined to let him know how I feel. “You haven’t even said sorry to me yet. That should have been the first thing you said to me when I stepped off the plane.”
Dad throws his hands up in defeat. “Okay, Eden, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I haven’t been around,” he mutters, but it’s far from sincere. “There. Are you happy now?”
“What’s the point of that now, Dad?” I shrug. “You’re three years too late.”
I want him to look hurt. I want my words to have an effect on him, and I want him to drown in guilt. But he doesn’t look pained at all. He looks pissed off as he narrows his sharp eyes at me, delivering a scornful glare. “You’re exactly like your mom, you know that?”
Ella looks shocked.
“Thank God,” I say. “I’d hate to be like you.”
Now I’ve got my point across, I decide it’s time to storm out before he can try and argue back with me any further. He knows I’m mad at him and it’s going to take a lot of apologizing on his part if I’m ever going to forgive him.
His eyes cold, Dad turns back to Ella, and I swing around and march toward the door.
I hear Ella hiss, “What the hell, Dave? Go after her! I know she’s been out all night, but you think you’re going to make it up to your daughter by being all high and mighty?”
“Hey, don’t blame me for this. It was your idea to get her out here in the first place. God, teenagers are a nightmare . . . Maybe once she’s back home and Tyler’s in New York we’ll be able to get back to normal.”
I halt by the door and swallow painfully. Did I just hear right? Dad just invited me because Ella told him to? It shouldn’t surprise me, it shouldn’t hurt, but it does. I turn around and look at them both. “You don’t want me here?”
They look up at me, shocked. Ella gets up. “Eden, you weren’t supposed to hear that; of course your dad—”
But I can’t stand to hear their excuses. “And why is Tyler going to New York?”
Ella fires my dad a glare, but then she looks back at me and gives a tight smile. “It’s nothing.”
I know that it’s certainly not nothing, but I’m tired of asking questions and never getting a straight answer. I’m absolutely livid and I think my heart might explode from my high blood pleasure. Mom’s always been right about Dad. He’s an asshole.
I stuff my hands into the pockets of my sweater—it only reminds me once more that I was robbed—and storm up to my room. My head’s still spinning, even more so now, and all I crave is water and a shower and Tyler. Two of those things I can have.
Ugh.
I need to clear my head, to remove myself from the house and get some fresh air instead. I need to run. I’ll shower when I get back; I’ll talk to Tyler when I get back. I just need to think straight first.
I fight the overwhelming urge to throw up as I slip out of my skirt from last night and change into my running gear, fetching myself a bottle of water from the kitchen and heading out the patio doors in order to avoid Dad.
And then I’m off, falling into a steady pace as I make my way north rather than west. I don’t want to go back to the beach. I want to take a new route; I want to end up some place different and new. And so I quickly find myself in Pacific Palisades, the sun beating down on me, my feet thudding against the concrete and my headache slowly easing away.
I think last night has just made everything even more complicated than it already was. Now Tyler and I are walking on eggshells, monitoring our words and ensuring not a single soul catches us exchanging a knowing smile. If we get caught, we’re screwed.
My head is a total mess. In a perfect world, Tyler and I wouldn’t be related through a marriage certificate. In a perfect world, Tyler and I wouldn’t have to sneak around and hurt people in the process of falling for each other. In a perfect world, I’d get to brag about him to Amelia. But this world isn’t perfect. Far from it.
* * *
When I get back to the house forty minutes later, still a little hungover and out of breath, I come to an abrupt halt on the lawn.
Tiffani’s car is parked out front. It shouldn’t be. It’s Sunday morning, and they never see each other on Sundays.
I force myself over to the front door, but there’s a stiffness in my bones, and I can’t tell if it’s because of the run or because I know there’s something not quite right. I almost want to turn around and run another five hundred thousand miles in the opposite direction, but I drag myself inside the house and creep up the staircase. I notice Dad and Ella are talking in the living room when I sweep past, most likely discussing ways to get rid of their two reckless kids.
I’ve barely reached the landing when Tiffani emerges from my room, shoving open my door with Tyler hot on her heels. He reaches for her arm and tries to pull her back, but she shakes off his grasp.
“Oh, here she is,” she says venomously, her voice dripping with acid. “You’re just in time.”
Tyler’s eyes are wide as he stares at me from behind her, and with a minute shake of his head he runs a hand through his hair.
“In time for what?” I dare myself to ask, although judging by the furious expression on her face I don’t think I want to know. Tyler looks worried, and I can’t blame him. I’m starting to feel the same.
Tiffani’s eyes are like ice and I’ve never seen her look so . . . nasty. Right now, if this was a scene in a movie, she’d be the villain for sure. “I need to talk to you both, because in case you can’t tell, I am pissed the hell off.” She balls a hand into a fist. “I am this close to punching you in the face, Tyler.”
“What have I done this time?” He’s staring at her with a perplexed look in his eyes, but it doesn’t stop him from taking a step back, just in case.
“What have you done? Are you seriously asking?” Her mouth is agape, and then she takes a deep breath. “Back yard. Now.”
She barges past me and knocks me against the wall. I scrunch up my face and glare after her as she descends the stairs. What’s her damn problem? I glance back at Tyler. He presses his hands to his face and mouths, “Fuck.”
Tiffani pauses at the bottom of the staircase and glowers back up at us. She throws a pointed glance at the living room door, where our parents are. “I can talk to you both outside or I can talk to you right here,” she says slowly, her voice hushed, “and trust me, I think you’d rather I spoke to you outside.”
She knows, I think. She so fucking knows.
The exact same thought must cross Tyler’s mind, because he shoots me a panicked look and swallows. I can’t think of a worse time to be confronted about all of this. I’m hungover, I’m sweaty, I’m tired, and I look like I’ve just escaped from rehab. I’m that trashy.
There’s absolutely no chance of me getting out of this. I wonder if it’s too late to run those five hundred thousand miles. Tyler’s nudging me down the stairs and I can literally feel his unwillingness through his touch. His arms are rigid, fists curled. Somehow, the two of us make it through the patio doors and into the back yard.
“Soooooooo,” Tiffani says.
Tyler furrows his eyebrows. “So . . .”
“So I woke up to a text from TJ this morning,” she states. She’s glancing between the two of us, so I try to look nonchalant. I try to look like I didn’t just sleep with her boyfriend. “And you know,” she continues, “I’m getting real sick of other people talking to me about us hooking up, Tyler, because half the fucking time it’s not even me.”
“What are you talking about?” Tyler asks, and both Tiffani and I stare at him. He knows what she’s talking about. He knows exactly.
“Don’t start, Tyler. Just don’t,” she snaps, her voice growing louder. She’s turning vicious, and I know that the chance of us remaining friends after this is pretty slim. “He made a joke about us hooking up last night, because his room was a total mess, and we both know perfectly fine that it wasn’t me.”
“Look,” Tyler starts, taking a step toward her. “Baby, I didn’t hook up with anyone, I just forgot to tidy the place up after—”
“Shut UP!” she yells, and he does. I think she’s past the point of putting up with his bullshit. She squeezes her eyes shut for a second, breathes in and out, and then turns to me, a smile on her lips. “Eden, didn’t you want your shoes?”
Everything stops. My heart skips a few beats, my limbs stiffen, my blood runs cold. I try to splutter some words out, but they rise in my throat only to disappear. My voice becomes a rasped whisper. “How did you—”
“Because,” she hisses, “TJ asked if I’d had a good night and then said I’d left behind my Converse. Asked me what the words written on them meant.” My heart completely stops beating now. “I sure as hell remember you waving yours around the entire night. The ones with the lyrics on them, right? By the way, you’re not getting those back. I told him I didn’t want them and asked him to toss them in the trash for me.”
“But Tyler’s my—”
“Stepbrother? Yeah, I know.” She’s growing so livid that tears are threatening to fall. Quickly wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she straightens up and adjusts the waistband of her sweats. “I just spent the past half hour arguing with myself. I was like, ‘No way, they’re totally related.’ But I’ve watched Clueless before, okay? You know, when Cher falls for her stepbrother? I’m not STUPID.”
This is it. This is what being caught feels like.
And it feels like hell.
Both Tyler and I are at a loss for words. I don’t quite think either of us ever prepared ourselves for what would happen if this ever happened, if the truth was ever uncovered. It feels like Judgment Day. I feel so small, so tiny, standing here in front of Tiffani. I can’t even look at Tyler. I just feel sick, like I could hurl at any second, so I try my hardest to hold it back as the barbecue over by the pool catches my eye.
I wish I could rewind the summer, back to my first night in this city with the neighbors piled into the yard and the barbecue sizzling and Dad cracking lame jokes. I want to do it all over again, but this time around I don’t want to fall for my stepbrother. This time I don’t want to be in the mess I’m in now.
“You didn’t really hook up with Jake, did you, Eden?” Tiffani really is crying now. Angry tears: the worst kind.
“No,” I whisper.
“It was you that night at the pier,” she says, and I feel like I’m dying inside. Everything is shattering as the guilt consumes me. I refused to ever be a cheater, but that’s exactly who I’ve become. “You’re a liar.”
“I know,” I say, my voice cracking. I’m nearly crying too. I don’t want to be here. I want to be in Portland with my mom and Amelia. I want to be sleeping until noon and I want to be watching reruns of my favorite TV shows. I don’t want this. “I’m a liar. I’m a bitch. I’m a terrible friend.”
Out of nowhere, Tyler steps in front of me and clears his throat. He’s been silent for a while, and it makes me wonder exactly what he’s preparing himself to say. “You know what, Tiffani?” he says, and she looks at him with wide, hurt eyes. “I don’t even want to be with you. I’ve wasted three years because you blackmailed me into staying with you. Do whatever you want. Tell everyone everything you know about me, because having you keep it a secret isn’t worth the effort it takes to put up with you.” His voice grows louder with each word. I can see Tiffani’s ego taking the hit. “We’re over. Sue me. Report me to the cops. I don’t care. I’m done.”
I certainly didn’t expect this. Just the other week Tyler was claiming it was almost impossible to break up with her. She could potentially ruin him if he did. But now . . . It’s like he doesn’t mind, like he just wants to get away from her. Perhaps being in a relationship with her is worse than having his life messed with.
“This is all your fault!” Tiffani screams at me. Her voice is so strained that I subconsciously take a step closer to Tyler, which probably doesn’t help in the slightest. “I don’t even care about the fact that you’re basically siblings, which I should, because it’s disgusting, but no, the only thing I care about is that you’ve ruined everything.”
I feel even worse than I did before. I stole her boyfriend. Unintentionally, but still. Shaking my head, I step out toward her again. No matter how many hurtful comments she’s thrown my way, I’m still drenched in guilt. “Tiffani, I didn’t mean for—”
Tyler holds up a hand to silence me. “It’s over, babe,” he tells her instead. With a callous shrug, he points to the gate. He’s being so harsh about it, and I feel terrible, both about my actions and for Tiffani. If she didn’t want to kill me, I’d hug her right now, like the friend I’m supposed to be to her. I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.
Frustrated and crying even harder, she throws her hands into her hair and screams, “But you can’t break up with me!”
He laughs. He actually laughs at her. I don’t think he’s processed the fact that she knows our secret and has every reason to tell it to the world. “Because I won’t be there to make you look cool? Because you won’t get to control me anymore?”
“Because I’m PREGNANT, Tyler!”
The second the words leave her lips, the atmosphere thickens so much that it’s almost suffocating. Tyler’s entire body deflates and the color drains from his face. I look back to Tiffani. She’s weeping now, and it’s the kind of crying that looks like it hurts, the kind that causes you to lose your breath. Now I really do think I’m going to hurl.
Tyler seems to lose his voice, the only sound he can breathe out being a minute whisper. “What?”
She starts backing away from us, her cheeks stained with tears and her heart broken. I can’t take it in. I feel like someone’s just punched me and knocked me out, because everything seems fuzzy and dull, the way your room feels when you first wake up.
I hear the patio doors slide open, but I’m too numb to even glance over. I make out Ella’s voice asking, “What’s all the screaming about?”
Tyler doesn’t say a word. I think he’s in shock. He’s just staring at Tiffani, his lips parted, his eyes an ocean of different emotions. I finally glance over to the patio doors, and Ella and my dad are staring at us. I know what they’re thinking. They’re wondering why Tyler looks like he’s having a heart attack and why Tiffani is a weeping mess that’s heading for the gate.
When she reaches it and pulls it open, she stops and turns back, sniffling back her sobs as she meets Ella’s eyes. “You should know that he’s hooked on coke!” she yells. “And he’s started dealing too!”
“You bitch!” Tyler snarls, snapping out of his frozen state just as she disappears through the gate, which slams shut behind her.
Her words echo through my mind so loudly that it hurts. That’s what she’s been holding over him the entire summer. It’s what Tyler was talking about when we were locked in the bathroom. It’s what she must have found out at the start of the summer, when she confronted him about it and angered him and caused him to storm into the barbecue in a horrible mood. That’s why he’s staying off the police’s radar.
Because he could go to jail for this.
If there is any way for today to get worse than it already is, then it’s this. There are too many things to deal with at once as the truth spills out: the truth about Tyler and the drugs, the truth about Tiffani, and, worst of all, the truth about Tyler and me.
“Tyler,” Ella says loudly yet slowly. “Please tell me I misheard that.” Her hands are on her chest as she steps outside, Dad close by her side. “Please, please tell me you’re not.”
I’m holding my breath as I look at Tyler, waiting to see if he’ll deny it. He’s just standing there again, like he’s so overwhelmed by everything that he’s ended up paralyzed. There are probably a million and one thoughts flying around his head right now.
He lowers his head, drops his eyes to the grass, and murmurs, “I wish I wasn’t.”
Ella clasps her hands to her mouth, muffling her horrified gasp, her eyes flooding with tears. Everything is going wrong today. She turns to Dad and buries her face in his chest, and surprisingly he wraps his arms around her and doesn’t say a word. By now, I’d expect him to be arguing. He might be silent as he comforts her, but it doesn’t stop him from glaring.
When Tyler looks up, I can see the pained expression in his eyes again, the same one as last night. The guilt is almost dripping from him. “Mom,” he says, his voice choked, “don’t cry. I’m not, like, addicted or anything. I just—well, it helps.”
Through her tears and through my dad’s shirt, Ella mumbles something, but it’s so muffled that I can barely make out what she’s saying. Tyler doesn’t either.
“Mom, breathe for a sec,” he says, and cautiously he begins to walk toward her. Even though my dad has her wrapped comfortably in his arms, Tyler reaches over to place a hand on her shoulder, but she shakes it off and lifts her head.
“I said,” she whispers, “get out.”
Tyler’s eyebrows knit together. “What?”
“Get out of this house.”
I think it’s at this point that we all freeze. We’re all stunned. Dad’s eyebrows shoot up even higher, like he can’t believe that Ella is really kicking her son out of the house, and Tyler is speechless, his lips moving but not speaking. I really, really want to cry now. He can’t get kicked out. It’s the last thing he needs, especially after Tiffani’s bombshell.
“Are you serious?” His voice is so soft, so weak.
Ella doesn’t say anything, just steps back from Dad and dabs at her eyes, sniffing. She looks devastated. “Tyler, please,” she pleads gently, and then immediately bursts into tears again. “Just leave. I can’t handle this anymore.”
Tyler and I exchange shocked glances as Dad hugs Ella to his chest again. Neither of us was expecting all of this to happen. It’s a Sunday. Sundays are supposed to be boring. I shouldn’t be watching Tyler get kicked out of the house.
Tilting his head down to face the ground, he stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jeans and walks past our parents. He moves in such a defeated manner, with his shoulders low and his steps slow. Like it’s second nature by now, I break out of my rooted spot on the lawn and go after him. I ignore Dad’s eyes as they follow me, because I’m beyond the point of caring about what he has to say.
Tyler’s already sprinted up the staircase by the time I catch up to him, and Jamie and Chase are standing on the landing, their eyes wide and curious. It makes me wonder if they’ve heard the entire thing, from Tyler being hooked on coke to getting kicked out. They quickly move to the side as Tyler and I push past them and into his room. He slams the door shut behind us.
I stand by the side of his bed and watch as he reaches into his closest and pulls down a navy duffel bag from the shelf. Dean’s varsity jacket comes with it, falling to the floor before Tyler kicks it out of the way. For a few minutes, he rummages around his room, pulling out shirts and jeans and piling them all into the bag without saying a single word. The stress shows on his face.
“Where are you going to go?” I ask, breaking the silence. I can’t imagine not having him in the house and hearing him argue about the bacon each morning. I can’t imagine the room next to mine being empty. I can’t imagine not seeing him smile at me when we pass on the stairs.
He glances up as he slides the strap of the bag onto his shoulder, but our eyes don’t meet for long before he looks away again. “I have no idea,” he says quietly, turning his back on me and heading across to his bathroom. I follow behind him. “Dean’s. Maybe. I don’t know. My head’s a mess.”
I pause at the bathroom door. My eyes are heavy, but it doesn’t stop me from keeping them trained on Tyler. I take a deep breath. “You’ve started dealing?”
Immediately he stops moving and just stands there, the only sound him exhaling slowly. He lowers his head and stares at the tiled flooring. “Only recently.”
Disappointment floods through me. I thought it was serious before, but now I’m even more concerned, knowing just how deeply involved he is with the criminal underworld. “Why?”
He shakes his head as though he doesn’t know the answer, and he still has his back to me. I wish I could see his face, mostly his eyes, so I could see if he looks sorry for what he’s doing. “It’s easy to . . . to get wrapped up in at all. Tiffani’s so mad. She’ll probably try to report me, I just know it.”
“I can’t believe she’s . . .” I can’t even bring myself to say it, because I’m struggling to wrap my head around the whole thing. The only thing I can think of is this: It’s a damn good job Ella doesn’t know yet, because I’m pretty sure she’d have a mental breakdown if she did.
“Me either,” he murmurs, and right as he’s opening up the cabinet door in the bathroom, he spins around and doubles over the toilet. He presses a hand against the wall to steady himself, and heaves. It must be the shock of it all. I felt the same way too. “Fuck.”
“I don’t know what to say, Tyler.” I honestly don’t. How can I tell him everything is going to be okay when it seems like nothing will be? I rub his back in an attempt to comfort him, but it only makes me feel stupid. His former girlfriend is pregnant, and here I am, rubbing his back while he attempts to throw up over the idea of it. “Where does this leave us?”
“What?”
“Us,” I say again. “What’s going to happen with us? You and Tiffani?”
He heaves again, but nothing comes up, so he blows out some air and stands. Turning to face me, he finally locks his eyes with mine. He does look sorry. “I don’t know. I need to figure all of this out first.”
“I don’t know either,” I say, but my heart falls through my chest the second the words leave my lips. What the hell is going to happen now? Tyler and Tiffani just got tied back together. Where does that leave me? Tossed to the side while they figure out how to handle the situation they’ve just found themselves in?
Tyler edges past me and reaches into the cabinet to gather his toiletries, tossing them into the bag and beginning to zip it up. I notice there are some bottles left behind on the top shelf, and I know exactly what’s inside them.
I nod to the antidepressants. “Please take them. You won’t feel so down all the time.”
Tyler follows my gaze, and for a moment, he contemplates the decision. I know what he’s struggling with: antidepressants or alcohol and drugs. He glances back at me, sees my pleading expression, and then reaches for the three white bottles and tucks them into his bag. I can do nothing more than hope that he puts them to good use. Perhaps he’ll feel better.
We stare at each other for a moment before he leaves. He still looks extremely pale, like he’s been throwing up for weeks and has yet to recover. With his dull eyes mirroring mine, he leans forward and wraps his arms around me, pulling me into his embrace. It’s the first time he’s hugged me. Sure, I’ve kissed him a hell of a lot—we’ve even slept together—but we’ve never once just stood and held each other. We’ve never shared a moment like this, where my face is buried into his chest and his chin is resting on my head, and I can only wish that it’s the first of many, because I like the way my body seems to fit perfectly into his.
And although I’m hungover and sweaty from my run, he presses his cold lips to my forehead and whispers, “I’ll figure it out.”
He pulls away, and in that moment he looks terrified. He has absolutely no idea what he’s doing, and no matter how hard he’s trying to put up a strong front, it’s so clear that he’s fighting the will to break down. I can’t blame him, I really can’t.
With a nod, he brushes past me and makes his way over to his door. I can only stare after him. I still feel numb, like I’m suffering from endless pins and needles, so I just watch as he steps out onto the landing without glancing back.
The last words I say before he leaves are, “I really hope you do.”
