Chapter 34
Present Day
Monday is a bad day. It’s the afternoon, but I’m still in bed. Staring at my ceiling. Listening to the silence. Overthinking.
After I got home from Tiffani’s last night, I went straight to my room and climbed into bed.
I’m still grateful that neither Mom nor Dave came upstairs to question my whereabouts over the weekend.
They know by now that if I don’t come home, it’s usually because I’m staying at Tiffani’s place.
Tiffani, my girlfriend, who is currently blackmailing me.
I can’t stop thinking about it. I was stupid to promise her that I wouldn’t get involved with Declan Portwood and his crew, because now that I have, she is using it against me.
If I even so much as talk about breaking up again, she will completely ruin me.
She’s done things like this before. It’s how she gets her way, how she keeps me in check, so I don’t even know why I’m so surprised by it.
I groan and roll out of bed. It’s too hot to lie there any longer. I begin to pace instead, pulling at my hair while I try to piece my thoughts together.
Everything has just gotten so much worse in one damn week. I thought my life was a mess before, but now it’s falling apart. I’m working for Declan Portwood. My girlfriend is blackmailing me. I kissed my stepsister.
For a split second when I woke up this morning, I wondered if I had dreamed it.
It was two days ago and I haven’t seen Eden since the party.
I reach up and brush my fingertips over my lips.
It wasn’t a dream though. I can still feel her mouth against mine.
It was real. We need to talk about it, but what is there to say?
It was wrong, but I…I don’t know. It didn’t feel all that wrong when my lips were capturing hers.
Do I really like the girl or was I just impulsive in the heat of the moment?
I sigh and head into my bathroom, careful not to lock myself in.
I busted the lock once when I punched the door, and now I can’t close it unless I want to trap myself in.
I grab my antidepressants and take two. Today, I do need them. I am feeling low.
Sometimes, I wonder just how different everything would have been if Dad hadn’t put me through the pain that he did.
Our family would still be together. There would be no Dave, no Eden.
We would still be living in our old house, most likely, a couple streets away from where we are now.
Dad would probably talk to me about girls and tell me not to drink anything more than a beer or two whenever I go to a party.
We’d watch football together, and he’d help me with my college applications, and he’d give me advice when I needed it.
And Mom would still be smiling her wide, dazzling grin that I grew up adoring, but she never smiles like that anymore.
And what about me? How different would I have been if things had taken a different path?
If my own father hadn’t turned on me? I would be happier; I would be better.
I wouldn’t need to resort to alcohol and drugs.
I wouldn’t have such a short temper or so much anger inside of me.
I wouldn’t have to put on a performance every damn day to hide all of my secrets.
I wouldn’t be so reckless, so careless. I wouldn’t be on antidepressants.
I wouldn’t be the Tyler Bruce that I pretend to be.
I would just be me, just Tyler, a guy who is happy and living life to the fullest, with friends who actually like him, and a girlfriend who isn’t Tiffani.
But Dad took all of that away from me. Dad has ruined me.
I need Mom right now. She always makes me feel better.
No matter how much I let her down, no matter how upset I make her, she is always there for me.
She understands me more than anyone else ever could, and when I get myself into these dark moods, I rely on her.
I don’t think even she realizes just how badly I need her sometimes.
I leave my room and head downstairs in search of her.
I’m not sure if she’s even in the house right now, so it is a relief when I find her tidying up in the kitchen.
She hears me walk in. “You’re awake,” Mom says, spinning around to face me.
She gives me a small smile. She is always so hopeful, always smiling at me, always wishing that maybe I will be okay that day. “Happy Fourth of July.”
“Mom…” I whisper as I meet her gaze, but my voice cracks and tears pool in my eyes. My lips tremble, my shoulders sink. I am defeated.
“Oh, Tyler,” Mom says as she rushes over.
She knows me so well. She can see the pain in my eyes, the same way I can suddenly see it in hers too.
It was always there, but now she’s not trying to hide it behind a brave face.
She immediately wraps her arms around me, pulling me in close, surrounding me with her warmth and love.
“I can’t…I can’t do this anymore,” I tell her, but my voice is too weak and too fragile and too broken.
The words cut my throat. I bury my face into her shoulder as she clings onto me even tighter, and I’m not even trying to fight back the tears.
I break down every couple months, but it never gets any easier.
Mom holds me. She is crying too. I can feel her chest heaving against me as she sniffs.
She doesn’t say anything for a while, but I don’t need her to.
Just hugging her is enough. Sometimes, I think the only reason I’m still here is because I’m trying my best to stay strong for her.
I can’t break her more than I already have.
“I get it,” she finally murmurs, but her voice is full of heartache. She has to force the words out, one by one. “You’re allowed to feel like this, Tyler. You have every right to,” she says, and she buries her face further into the crook of my neck. “It can all become too much sometimes.”
Suddenly, I hear the echo of the front door closing, and Dave is cheerily calling down the hall, “Guess whose work let out early?”
It’s almost a reflex to immediately pull away from Mom despite how tightly she’s holding onto me.
She is the only one I will ever allow myself to be vulnerable around.
Quickly, I wipe away the tears from my eyes as I walk across the kitchen, taking a deep breath, filling my lungs.
I can feel Mom staring after me, but she knows I can’t stick around.
I pull open the patio door and step out into the backyard.
I collapse down onto the grass by the pool, squeezing my eyes shut and burying my face into my hands as I cry.
···
Hours later, I am crammed into the backseat of Mom’s Range Rover.
We’re heading to Culver City to watch their Fourth of July fireworks display, but I am in no mood to celebrate the occasion.
And it gets worse: Eden is pressed up against me.
I can’t bring myself to look at her. Not after what happened on Saturday.
I stare out of the window instead, ignoring the feeling of her arm against mine, trying to tune out her touch.
I think she is trying to ignore me too. Even before we got in the car, we pivoted around one another and kept our heads down.
“I didn’t know you wore Converse,” I hear her quietly note halfway through the drive.
Mom and Dave are talking up front, but neither of us is partaking in that conversation. I’m surprised to even hear Eden speak.
I angle my head away from the window and glance sideways at her, meeting her warm, curious gaze. She looks nice today, but I guess she always does. My eyes fall to her lips for only a split second, and I have to swallow the lump in my throat in order to force out a quick, “Yeah.”
I turn back to the window, and I don’t even know why, but my pulse has sped up.
I try to focus on slowing it back down again, but it’s hard.
I keep thinking about her, about the way she looked at me on Saturday night, about the way her mouth felt, about the way she tasted, about her hands on my body.
I even close my eyes, squeezing them tightly shut and fighting to force her out of my mind, but it’s impossible, especially when her skin is already touching mine.
I don’t even like Culver City, but I am so relieved when we finally pull up into the local high school’s parking lot.
The fireworks display is being held here.
Santa Monica hasn’t hosted its own display in years.
Apparently, it’s too dangerous to set them off by the pier or some other bullshit like that.
It means that every July Fourth, we have to head somewhere else.
This year, we are here in Culver City, and we are definitely not the only people with this idea.
There are crowds of people flooding through the parking lot, and as soon as Mom has put the car in park, my seatbelt is off and I am almost throwing myself out of the vehicle.
Being around Eden is too unbearable, and I think it will continue to be awkward until we actually talk about what went down between us over the weekend.
That’s why I walk slightly ahead of the “family” as we follow the crowds across the campus.
The fireworks, I think, are being held out beyond the football field, and access is only available by following a series of confusing signs through the school building.
“If any of your friends are here, you can go find them,” Mom says, glancing between Eden and me. Jamie and Chase aren’t old enough to disappear on their own yet. “We’ll call you at the end if we can’t find you again, okay?”
“And behave yourself,” Dave adds in quickly, fixing me with a stern look as though it’s even possible for me to somehow create trouble among this crowd. It’s just a damn fireworks display. How much damage is he expecting me to do?