As the tears roll down her cheeks, she gives me a small nod. Then, I take her in my arms, holding her head to my chest and burying my face into her hair. We have to put our differences aside. I have hurt her, and she has hurt me. But we can’t focus on that now. We need to grow up and cut the bullshit. We need to do what’s right.
“We have to stay together, Tyler,” Tiffani sniffs against my shirt.
“I know,” I murmur into her hair, but the harsh reality of the situation is crushing my soul. I want to be with Eden so desperately, but it was already so complicated before, and now it just seems impossible. I have to stay with Tiffani. I can’t leave her, not now.
Tiffani leans back from me, but I keep my arms hooked loosely over her shoulders. She wipes away her tears and then locks her gaze on mine. “I’m going to forgive you,” she says after a minute, her voice quiet. “Only because I have to.”
“And I’ll forgive you too.”
She furrows her eyebrows. “For what?”
“For telling my mom the truth,” I clarify. Tiffani isn’t all that innocent here, either. She did set out to ruin my life this morning, and she achieved everything that she wanted to. I have to look past that now, though. There’s no more time for games. We have to be responsible, we have to be adults. “Can I . . . Can I stay here?”
“Tyler . . .” she says, biting down on her lower lip. She shrugs my arms off her shoulders and takes a couple steps back from me. “You know my mom would flip. She always does.”
“Please,” I beg, reaching out for her elbow. I pull her back toward me until her chest hits mine. “I have nowhere else to go. Just for a couple nights until I can talk to my mom. Please, Tiffani,” I say quietly, my voice raspy.
Tiffani’s eyes search mine. I don’t know what she is looking for, but whatever it is, she must find it. Finally, she heaves a sigh and gives me a small nod. “Okay, but my mom is gonna kill us both.”
Relief fills me. I’m hoping I can lay low here for a couple days while Mom has the chance to think things through. Kicking me out was a decision she made in the heat of the moment, so I can only hope that she’ll regret it a couple days from now. “Have you told her yet?” I ask, sitting back down on the edge of Tiffani’s bed again. “Your mom?” Tiffani’s mom already hates me enough as it is, so I can only imagine how much she will despise me when she finds out I’ve knocked up her daughter.
“No,” Tiffani says abruptly, shaking her head fast. She sits down on my lap, linking her arms over my shoulders and running her fingers into my hair around the nape of my neck. “It’s our secret for now, okay?” she murmurs, her eyes locked on mine. She is so close, her mouth only inches from mine, and suddenly I find my body tensing up. The expression in her gaze is changing, gradually transforming into something that is all too familiar. She is confident, she is manipulative, she is in control. “Well, Eden knows too, I guess,” she says with a small shrug. She purses her lips and moves her hands to my jaw, tilting my face up to look directly at her. “But she seems to like keeping secrets, so I don’t think we have to worry about her,” she murmurs, then kisses me.
But her lips aren’t enough to distract me from the venom in her voice.
59
FIVE YEARS EARLIER
The first thought that goes through my head when I slowly peel open one eye is that heaven looks and feels a lot like real life.
I can smell disinfectant and coffee. There are four pairs of wide eyes looking at me. My body feels broken. I am in a hospital bed, slumped back against a thick stack of pillows, a cup of water on the small table to my left. Two of the four pairs of eyes belong to police officers. The other two belong to a man and woman in suits. They hover by the door, watching me closely with saddened gazes.
My right eye refuses to open. My left slowly drifts back to the police officers. One is sitting on a chair in the corner, the other standing by his side. It takes me a minute, but I recognize the one that’s sitting down. It’s the same officer from last week. The one who picked me up on the street. The one who was nice to me. Officer Gonzalez.
“Tyler,” he says quietly, his voice fragile, breaking the silence. The room is tense and suffocating. I don’t know what’s going on. My head is fuzzy. I try to focus solely on Officer Gonzalez. “Do you remember me? We met last week.” I can’t even nod. I can’t do anything. I am frozen in place, unable to process anything. Officer Gonzalez motions to the other cop. “This is Officer Johnson. And I’d like you to meet Paul and Janice,” he says, nodding to the man and woman by the door. “They’re social workers. They’re going to look after you.”
I try to part my lips to say something, to ask what is happening, but my entire face is throbbing. My throat is too dry. I have no words at all. Nothing comes out. I glance down at my arms, but they are black and blue. There’s a bandage around one of my hands. There’s one around my head too.
I hear Officer Gonzalez quietly murmur, “Please, give us a minute.” There are footsteps. The door closes. I look up at him. We are the only two in the room now. He stands up and grabs the chair, setting it down again by the side of my bed. He sits down. Hangs his head low, presses his hands to his face. “Tyler,” he says, but his voice breaks. He lifts his head to look at me, but his warm brown eyes are full of sorrow. “I’m so sorry. I should have . . . I should have known.”
“W-what . . . What happened?” I finally spit out. The words tear my throat apart, but I can’t find the energy to reach for the water on the table. I feel so lifeless, so drained.
Officer Gonzalez shakes his head at the floor, his eyes closing for a brief second. He’s upset. His lower lip quivers as he looks at me again, but his eyes are crinkling at their corners. “Your brother. Jamie,” he says. “You are lucky to have him, because otherwise you might not have been here right now. He called us. We got there just in time.” He interlocks his hands between his knees and goes quiet for a moment. Slowly, he takes a deep breath and glances back up. “Your father has been arrested, Tyler,” he states, and the weight of the world crashes down on me.
He knows. They all know. The secret I have been keeping for four years is now out there in the open. They know about Dad, about what he’s capable of. And he . . . He has been arrested? It’s over. It’s really, really over.
“And I . . .” Officer Gonzalez says, but he is choking up. He reaches up and wipes away a tear with his thumb, then edges forward in his chair and locks his eyes on mine. “I absolutely promise you that he will never, ever hurt you again. I will personally guarantee it. You’re going to be okay now.”
“I am?” I whisper. It doesn’t feel like I’m going to be okay. It feels like everything around me is shattering. I expected it all to be over, but I didn’t expect to still be alive to witness it.
“You are,” Officer Gonzalez confirms with a steady nod. He holds out his hand to me, but he knows I can’t shake it, so he gently pats the bandage on my hand instead and gives me a tiny smile. It’s full of remorse and sadness, but also hope and reassurance, and I decide that I am going to believe him.
I’m going to be okay. No one will ever hurt me again.
The door bursts open and the silence is disrupted when Mom flies into the room, her heels clicking against the floor, flanked by Officer Johnson, who is trying to reach for her elbow to pull her back. She stops dead in her tracks when she lays eyes on me. Horror floods her features and a sickening gasp escapes her lips. Her hands fly to her mouth, her jaw hung open wide.
I don’t even have to look at myself to know that I am in a bad state. The pain I am feeling already tells me that.
“What happened?!” Mom screams as she dives toward me, pushing past Officer Gonzalez. She is about to reach for my hand, but she stops herself when she sees just how badly beaten up I am, and she erupts into tears, shaking her head fast, her hand still over her mouth. She has just come from work. She’s still in her skirt and blouse, but strands of her hair have escaped from her clasp, falling around her face. I hate that s
he’s crying. I want her to stop, to tell her that it’s okay now, that it’s over. I’m safe now. She doesn’t need to cry.
“Ella,” Officer Gonzalez says as he rises from the chair, “can we do this outside?” He steps in between Mom and me, placing a firm hand on her shoulder. He lowers his voice and leans in closer to her, but I still hear him murmur, “Not in front of Tyler. Please.”
She is still crying as he leads her out of the room and into the hallway. Officer Johnson goes with them. Paul and Janice enter the room, closing the door behind them, their eyes never leaving me. There is silence again.
I close my eye, returning to the darkness. Are they telling Mom the truth? Are they about to break her heart? I don’t know if I can bear it. I am waiting, listening, staring into the dark. My heart is beating slow and heavy in my chest. My breathing is even slower.
And then I hear it: The explosion of Mom’s agonizing cries. Her distraught sobbing echoes all throughout the hallways, ringing in my ears, growing louder and louder, laced with the pain that I never wanted her to ever go through. She is screaming, a strangled cry that captures all of the air around me, suffocating both of us.
I never wanted to break her like this.
Mom bursts through the door of my room as she wails. Officer Gonzalez and Officer Johnson scramble in behind her, but I can’t look at them. Mom is the only thing I can focus on. Hot tears are streaming down her face and her hands are pressed to her chest, clutching her heart as though to catch all of its broken pieces. Her frantic, pained eyes meet mine, and I break inside too. It’s like four years’ worth of fear finally comes to a head and the relief is overwhelming, and so I burst into tears too.
“Mom,” I whisper. I want her to pull me into her arms, to hold me close against her and promise me that everything will be okay from now on. That she’ll be here to protect me. That Dad won’t hurt me ever again.
“Tyler,” she sobs, and she is shaking her head fast, like No no no this can’t be real. She pushes her way to me, outstretching her arms, but Janice steps in front of her, holding out a hand.
“Mrs. Grayson, please, he’s in a lot of pain. Don’t touch hi—”
“Let her,” Officer Gonzalez orders, and I don’t hear what he says next, but all four of them leave the room. The police officers and the social workers. They’re gone, leaving only Mom and me.
Before the door has even clicked shut behind them, Mom drops to her knees on the floor by my bedside. Her lips are quivering as her mascara runs down her cheeks, her wide eyes swollen and red as she looks up at me. “I’m here, baby, I’m here now,” she cries, and she gently takes my hand in her own and buries her face into our interlocked hands, weeping against my skin. Her shoulders are heaving and her breathing is ragged, and I wish I could take her pain away the same way she wishes she could take away mine.
I squeeze my hand tightly around hers.
She’s here now.
60
PRESENT DAY
It’s Friday, five days later, and I still haven’t heard from Mom yet. I’ve been waiting for her to call, or at least send me a text, but she never does check in with me. Does she even know where I’m staying? Does she even know if I’m alright? I figure she’s still upset with me. It’s not like Mom to cut me off like this; she’s constantly checking in on me, making sure I’m okay, letting me know that she’s always there for me. On Sunday, I’ll make the first move. I’ll try to talk to her.
I didn’t hear from Eden for the first couple days, either. She has every right to be furious at me, so I expected the silence. On Wednesday, I was surprised to see her name flash across my phone. It was a simple message: Was I okay? But even though I knew the answer, I couldn’t admit that no, I’m not. I didn’t reply, and I haven’t replied to any of her other messages, either. She invited me to meet her for coffee at the Refinery yesterday. Asked if I was staying at Dean’s. Warned me to stay away from Declan. Then, she asked if I even remember what happened between us last weekend. I still couldn’t reply to her.
Of course I remember what happened on Saturday. It’s been on my mind the entire week. She’s been on my mind. I wish things could have turned out differently. It felt like everything was finally working out. I was going to fix everything, I was going to be with her and only her. But now it seems like I’ve lost all of that now. I’m suddenly on a different path, and I don’t know where Eden fits in my life anymore.
“So you really weren’t kidding when you said there’d be no beer, huh?” I hear Jake mutter, and I tear my gaze away from the rain pummeling against the window to look at him. He’s sprawled out across the couch opposite me, his head resting on his propped-up arm. He isn’t talking to me, but rather, Tiffani.
She’s invited our friends over to hang out, but so far, it’s pretty damn awkward. Maybe it’s because only Jake and Dean have arrived. Meghan is grounded, Rachael hasn’t turned up, and Eden isn’t invited. It’s torrential rain outside too, which is only bringing the general mood down further. The skies are grey, the rain is endless.
“Why can’t we just hang out without getting wasted for once?” Tiffani says from beside me, and I can just sense the dramatic eye roll. She’s sitting crossed-legged by my side, her head resting on my bicep, her hand on my thigh. She tosses the TV remote over to Jake, nearly hurling it straight off his damn head. “Find something good to watch.”
My gaze travels to Dean, but he’s already staring back across the living room at me with his eyebrows furrowed. He’s sitting on the other end of the couch from Jake, but he’s bolt upright and clearly uncomfortable. He gives Tiffani’s hand on my thigh a pointed glance, then shakes his head in disapproval.
“Can someone text Rachael and ask her where the hell she is?” Tiffani asks, then heaves a sigh as she sits up and pushes herself away from me, getting to her feet. “I’ll get us some food,” she says over her shoulder, crossing over to the kitchen.
As soon as she is out of earshot, Dean seizes his opportunity to ask me the question that he has clearly been dying to ask. “So . . . You’re broken up?” he asks, skeptically raising an eyebrow. “Because it sure doesn’t look that way.”
“Sort of,” I admit. I don’t really know what Tiffani and I are right now, but we definitely aren’t officially back together or anything. I slump back against the cushions, eyeing Dean suspiciously. “Where’d you hear that from anyway?”
“Who do you think? Rachael,” Dean says, but I guess I could have figured that out by myself. Tiffani was with Rachael last night, and they’re best friends. Of course she’ll have brought Rachael up to date on everything that has happened this past week . . . Did she tell her that I was working for Declan Portwood? Did she tell her about my relationship with Eden? That I’ve been kicked out of my own house? That she’s pregnant? Do our friends know everything?
Suddenly, I shoot upright, and I can’t help but narrow my eyes at Dean. “What else did you hear?” I ask, my tone threatening. I have too many secrets, and I want to keep them that way.
“God, you’re so fucking problematic,” Jake remarks as he’s flicking through TV channels. He doesn’t even look over at me, but he’s probably hoping that my temper will snap. He loves it when I make a fool out of myself. “We heard you broke up with Tiff, but yet you’re pretty much living here. Clearly, you two are still a thing. Shocker,” he dramatically gasps. He sets down the remote and finally turns his head to look at me. “End of story,” he says, and he doesn’t know it, but his words fill me with relief. So they don’t know that there is so much more to the story than just that.
Tiffani cheerily calls my name from the kitchen, so I grit my teeth and let this conversation go. I head over to the kitchen to join her as she’s filling a bowl of tortilla chips. There’s popcorn popping in the microwave, and I lean back against the countertop as I watch Tiffani closely. She’s wearing a smile that is almost too happy, a smile that is so forced and so fake. Sometimes, I seriously wonder if she may just be a better actor than I am.
How can she act so calm? How can she act like we have everything under control when we don’t? I’ve been on edge the entire week, I’m barely sleeping, I feel sick every time I think about our situation. How can she pretend that everything is fine?
The microwave beeps and she spins around to grab the bowl of popcorn, but it burns her hands and she laughs out loud as she quickly drops the bowl onto the countertop. She looks up at me from beneath her eyelashes, blushing. I just can’t keep up with this whole performance, but I try my best to at least offer her a smile. Even place my hand over hers.
“Rachael!” she suddenly exclaims as her gaze drifts over my shoulder. She grabs the bowl of popcorn and nudges me out the way. I pinch the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. But then I hear Tiffani say, “Eden?”
Immediately, I spin around, my heartbeat rocketing . . . And she’s really there. Standing at the door by Rachael’s side is Eden, and it is the first time I have seen her since Sunday.
“It took you long enough to notice us!” Rachael says as she wanders into the house.
“Sorry,” Tiffani says, but her entire tone has changed. So has her demeanor. Her body has tensed up next to me, and she remains glued to the spot as she stares at Eden.
But Eden is only looking at me. Our eyes meet, and the hazel of hers only makes me fall in love with her all over again. God, I miss her. What is she doing here, though? She is anxious, I can see it in her expression, in all of her perfect features. Have I ruined everything between us? Does she still care about me? I want to run to her, pull her into my arms and tell her that I’m sorry. That I want to be with her. That I love her.