Once my breathing has calmed, I pause and glance around. Mom has made my bed and picked up my clothes from the floor again. They’re folded and left in a neat pile on top of my dresser. I should pack them away, but I’ve discovered that if I leave them there for long enough then Mom’ll give in and pack them away herself. I’ve also discovered that the only reason Mom doesn’t mind tidying up my room every morning is because she likes to raid the place in search of anything she doesn’t approve of.
I press my lips together and get down onto my knees, ducking to check underneath my bed. Sure enough, like always, she’s stolen the pack of Bud that I put there last night. I get up and move to my bathroom to check inside the cabinet, and again, it’s no surprise that she’s swiped the packet of Marlboros too. I don’t even smoke cigarettes that often, but I still like to have them on me, just in case.
Walking back into my room, I sit down on the corner of my bed and press my hands to my temples, staring at the floor while I decide what I want to do. I’m in the strangest mood and all I want right now is a hell of a lot more beer and a joint. They’re the only things that I can always rely on to distract me when there’s things I don’t want to deal with. I want to go to that party tonight, despite the fact that I’d rather avoid Tiffani. Sticking around here isn’t an option anymore, so I take out my phone and text some of the guys for the address. Kaleb is the first to reply, and I tell him I’ll be there in twenty.
I get to my feet and spray some cologne, then turn off my music as I grab my car keys from my pocket. I feel entirely sober after all of the arguing, but I’m still livid, and it doesn’t help that the second I push open my door, that damn girl is there again.
She looks up at me with those same anxious eyes as before, only this time I’m noticing that they’re hazel, and an intense hazel at that. I can’t decide whether or not they’re more golden than they are brown. “Hi,” she says again. “Are you okay?”
That voice. I blink a couple times and try to keep my expression as blank as I possibly can to hide the fact that that voice of hers is seriously doing something to me. “Bye,” I say, stepping past her. I don’t want to be around this girl. I’ve already decided that, so I follow through by making my way downstairs and out of the front door without looking over my shoulder, despite how badly I want to.
As soon as I step outside into the front yard, I can hear the music from the back again. Laughter, too. Luckily, no one is around out front to notice me leave. I doubt Mom would put up a fight anyway. She never does.
Unlocking my car, I slide back in and pull the door shut. I start up the engine, but I don’t drive off immediately. I sit there for a minute, my elbow resting up against the window as I run the tips of my fingers along my jaw while I think.
Sighing, I get my phone out again and pull up my messages with Tiffani. It’s better to warn her.
I’ll see you at the party, I type, and then I hit send at the exact same time as I hit the accelerator.
5
FIVE YEARS EARLIER
Forcing myself across the lawn and over to Dad’s silver Mercedes is always the hardest part of every day. My legs feel stiff as I drag my feet, my eyes on the grass as I tighten my grip around the strap of my backpack. I know he’s watching me, waiting, and I know he’s going to have a lot to say during the ten-minute ride to school. I wish Mom hadn’t shown him that letter.
I’m still staring at the ground as I reach for the handle and open up the door, avoiding Dad’s harsh glare. I slide into the passenger seat and pull my backpack around onto my lap, then click on my seatbelt. I focus my eyes on my sneakers. All I can hear is the soft purring of the engine, until Dad releases a heavy sigh and starts to drive.
He increases the volume of the radio and groans when he hears that there’s already a forty-minute delay on the freeway. I know how much he hates the drive to downtown LA each morning, and it really doesn’t help that I’ve already ruined his good mood for the day. Now he’s more aggravated than usual at this time. He shuts the radio off entirely.
“So,” he says, “what the hell are you playing at? Skipping class because you felt sick? Bullshit.”
I look at him out of the corner of my eye. He’s shaking his head at the road ahead of us and I can feel his anger in the air around us, thickening it. “I . . . I just didn’t want to go,” I tell him. I’m lying again, but at the same time, I’m thinking, Isn’t it obvious? “It’s track and field. I hate running.”
“Bullshit,” he says again. “Are you trying to rebel? Is that it? Are you trying to get in trouble just to test me?”
“No. No,” I stutter. I pick at a fraying edge on my backpack as I try to think of something to say, anything. “I’m not trying to do anything. It’s just . . . Well, it’s the locker rooms.” I bite down on my lip and hold my breath as I shut my eyes. Being honest with him is the only way I’m going to get out of this car alive.
“What about the locker rooms?”
I squeeze my eyes shut tighter. I just hope he isn’t looking at me right now. I hope he’s still looking at the road. “Um. I don’t . . . I don’t want anyone . . . I don’t want anyone to ask questions.” My mouth is dry as each word sticks in my throat.
“Ask questions about what?”
My eyes flash open and I angle my face to fully stare across at him. “Dad . . .” I murmur. “You know what.”
“No,” he says more firmly, “I don’t. There’s nothing to ask questions about.”
He’s in denial. He has to be. That, or he’s crazy. “Okay,” I mumble, dropping the subject. I keep picking at the frayed edge on my backpack until it starts to get worse, splitting open completely. Dad hasn’t looked at me yet since he started driving. I hope it’s because he feels guilty, and not because he couldn’t care less.
“Now tell me,” he says, “you have math today, don’t you?”
Before I can nod, he brakes to a halt at a stop sign. The intersection is clear to go, but he wrenches up the parking brake and shifts in his seat, angling himself toward me. He snatches my backpack from my grip and pulls it onto his lap. Unzipping it, he rummages inside and pulls out my math homework that’s due next week, including the page that’s torn into three. I don’t know what he’s looking for, but whatever it is, he spends a few moments searching the pages for it.
“The second you get home from school today, I want you to sit down and fix this question,” he orders calmly, holding up one of the torn pieces for me to see that same equation from last night again, the only one I got wrong. “And you’ll need to write all of this out again.” He shakes his head at the ruined pieces of paper in his hands as though it was me who destroyed them, then he crumples them into his enclosed fist. His strained knuckles are pale from pressure, and I watch in my usual unsurprised way. My balled-up math homework is tossed into the cup holder in the center console and my backpack is thrown back at me.
“I could have kept the other pages,” I point out as I zip my bag up again. “They weren’t torn.”
“That’s too bad,” Dad says as his eyes drift to the road ahead while he puts the car back into drive. “You can go ahead and do each question all over again. Consider it extra practice. You need it.”
That homework had thirty questions. It took me over an hour to complete last night, and the thought of doing it all over again because of one mistake is enough for me to grind my teeth together until my jaw hurts. Dad does things like this all the time, and although it no longer surprises me, it still aggravates me. But I can’t let him know that, so I try to relax my features as I focus my gaze on a spot on the dashboard as Dad switches the radio back on. He just wants the best for me, I remind myself.
It’s always a relief each morning when we pull up outside Dean’s house. It’s when Dad starts smiling again and it’s when his cold tone disappears, and I know that for the final five-minute drive to school, he definitely won’t lose his cool. He can’t. Not while we have company.
The front door of the Ca
rter house swings open as if on cue, and Dean’s dad appears on the front step, holding his hand up to wave. Dean rushes to his side several moments later, struggling to haul his backpack on. His dad, Hugh, helps him with the strap and then they both make their way across their lawn toward us.
We’ve been picking Dean up for school every morning for as long as I can remember. The Carters are practically family, and Dad does the morning run to school while Hugh does the pickup. Dean opens up the car door and climbs into the backseat at the same time as Dad rolls down his window to talk to Hugh.
I crane my neck and turn around slightly in my seat, looking back at Dean as he tugs on his seatbelt. When he clicks it into place, he glances up at me and curls his hand into a fist, holding it up to me. I bump my fist against his and give him a smile, tuning out Dad and Hugh’s conversation.
“Did you do that science project?” Dean asks, sinking back against the leather of the backseat. “I got my mom to do half of mine.”
“Yeah. I handed it in last week,” I tell him.
Hugh clears his throat and ducks down a little at the window, looking past Dad at both me and Dean. “Right, you two,” he says, “I’ll be there waiting at three.” When he smiles, it’s genuine, and he throws us a thumbs-up before stepping away from the car. I like Hugh. Sometimes I wish he was my dad and not the guy sitting next to me.
Dad rolls the window back up and drives off. The radio is on again, but the volume is low enough to allow him to maintain his friendly persona, where he fills the remainder of the drive to school with questions about our classes for the day and football and if Dean’s excited for his birthday next week. I don’t know what’s worse: Dad when he’s mad, or Dad when he’s nice. It’s always so confusing to me.
By the time Dad cuts the engine just around the corner from the school entrance, I’ve already got my seatbelt off and my hand on the door, ready to escape his constant expression of disapproval for a few hours. Dean hates school. I like it, because it’s the only place I can really get away from Dad for a while.
“I hope you both have a great day,” he tells us with that tight smile of his. He leans over into the backseat, holds his palm out and lets Dean low five him. Then, as both Dean and I push open the car doors and jump out onto the sidewalk, he quickly adjusts the cuff of his shirt.
“Tyler,” he says right before I shut the door behind me. I glance over my shoulder to find him leaning over to look at me, his expression neutral. He stares at me for a long moment until his features begin to shift again. His eyebrows pull together as the corners of his lips pull into a small, sad smile. For the first time all week, I see the tiniest hint of guilt in his green eyes. “Work hard,” he murmurs, swallowing. “I love you.”
No, I think as I turn away from him and slam the door shut. You don’t.
6
PRESENT DAY
It’s nearing ten by the time I’m driving across this city. I’ve already stopped by the liquor store and now have two six-packs taking up my passenger seat. Not to mention the fresh packet of Marlboros. The cashier demanded twenty bucks in exchange for him turning a blind eye to the fact that I’m four years off of twenty-one, but lucky for him, I’m a loyal customer. And most likely his favorite considering the hefty tips I give.
The party is being thrown by some girl named Lucy who I can’t quite put a face to, and although I’m turning up earlier than I usually do, Kaleb also says that mostly everyone is already there. I can’t remember the last time I turned up at a party on my own. At the very least, I always have Tiffani by my side. But tonight I’ll have to deal with being that fucking moron who only has beer by his side rather than his friends.
It’s almost dark out as I crawl along Stanford Street on the very outskirts of the city until I arrive at the address Kaleb has given me. There’s already several cars parked up outside and a couple guys lingering on the porch, cups in their hands and lazy grins on their faces. I recognize them only vaguely from school. Their attention shifts to me as I pull up against the sidewalk across the street and kill my engine, and I notice them cocking their heads to the side as they check out my car. I pretend to ignore it, but their jealous attention is still satisfying; it always will be.
I remove my seatbelt, then roll my window down a couple inches to allow the faint pumping of music to enter my car, then I reach over and yank a bottle of beer from the pack. Not only have I never turned up at a party this early and alone before, I’ve also never turned up at a party sober. I’ve dried out from the booze from earlier and now I’m left dreading the idea of walking through that front door sober. It’s a whole lot easier to maintain my act in front of a crowd when I’m drunk.
Cracking open the cap with my teeth, I take a single swig of my beer, swallow it back, then chug the remainder of it. Shoving the bottle into my glove box, I heave a sigh and shift my gaze to my reflection in my rearview mirror. My eyes seem more intense, more of a vibrant green than usual, yet my expression seems too soft for my liking. I press my lips together, clenching my jaw while narrowing my eyes slightly until my entire expression is more sharp, more hardened, and then I grab my keys, my cigarettes and my beer.
I step out of the car and nudge the door shut behind me. I dump the beer down on the hood, shove my keys into my back pocket, and retrieve my lighter instead. I pull a cigarette out from the pack and place it between my lips, then set it alight.
One of the guys from up on the porch takes a sip of his drink and then calls across the lawn, “Are you here for the party?”
I take a long drag as I study him, allowing the smoke to fill my lungs for several seconds before I exhale, blurring my vision with the plume of smoke that fills the air around me. “Nah. Here for the view,” I deadpan. What a fucking moron.
Placing the cigarette back between my lips, I grab my beer and head toward the house, cutting across the lawn and over to the porch. The music grows louder the nearer I get, but it’s still not as loud as it should be, which makes it pretty obvious that the host is a first-timer. That and the fact that the house doesn’t appear to be packed.
“I didn’t know that you’d be coming,” the guy says when I reach him and his friend on the porch. Very quickly, he looks me up and down, and when I move my cigarette from my lips again to exhale, he holds his breath. They both look too young to be here, and I begin to wonder that they might not even be juniors, but maybe sophomores. Yikes.
“Is this your first party?” I ask, my words muffled against my cigarette. I raise an eyebrow while stepping past them. The last thing I want to do is stop and end up in a conversation with some lame ass sophomores. I want to get inside and see who’s here. I want to crack open another beer. I want to hunt down Declan Portwood.
“Yeah,” the guy says. He exchanges a confused glance with his friend and I don’t even attempt to hold back my laugh when I reply, “I can tell.”
I push open the front door a crack and immediately the music floods my ears, laced with laughter and the sound of a drink being smashed. Before I head inside, I turn around and press my back against the front door, smirking as I push it open backward. “Words of advice?” I offer, as I flick the butt of my cigarette to the ground and step on it. “Stop standing out here on the porch and get your asses inside.”
Spinning back around, I’m greeted with a party where personal space seems to actually exist for once. There’s no one that I immediately recognize besides the familiar faces I’ve seen at parties before, but I know that Kaleb is already here, so I weave my way across the living room in search of him. I don’t smile at anyone as I pass them, despite the fact that I keep receiving small nods of acknowledgment, and I edge my way through a small group of girls that are blocking my path into the kitchen.
“Tyler!” Kaleb calls at the exact same second that I spot him perched up on the countertop. The center island is covered in all sorts of booze, which makes it the most popular spot in the house, and I have to squeeze my way around everyone in order to reach Kaleb. “
You’re finally here, man,” he says, resting his hand on my shoulder once I step in front him. I can smell not only the beer on him, but the weed too, and his bloodshot gaze scans the kitchen as though he’s missing something. “Where’s Tiffani? Dean? Everyone else?”
“They’ll be here soon,” I say. I nudge his hand off me and slide my beer onto the countertop, pulling a bottle free from the pack and cracking it open. “What about Declan? Is he around tonight?”
Kaleb props his elbow up on the coffee machine and just shrugs, but at the same time he gives me a knowing grin. He’s high as fuck. “Later. What are you game for tonight?” He leans forward again and raises an eyebrow at me, then taps the front pocket of his jeans twice with his index finger. “You don’t have to wait until Declan gets here,” he murmurs, his voice hushed as the music around us thumps continuously. “I can hook you up.”
I study him intently as I swig at my beer. Sometimes I wonder how Kaleb even ends up at these parties. Both him and Declan are college freshmen, but Kaleb has the face of a fourteen-year-old, so I can understand that perhaps he fits in better at high school parties than he does at the college ones. As for Declan, he seems to be friends with everyone. He once told me that having good connections is the first rule in business.
Shaking my head, I take a step back. “I’m alright for now. Let me know when Declan shows up.”
“At least take a shot first,” Kaleb says, grabbing a bottle of vodka from his side that’s almost half empty. The cap is already off, and he slides off the countertop and accusingly points the bottle at me. “Why aren’t you drunk?”