Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Mira
Tyler pulls up to a small cabin a few blocks off of Stateline Boulevard, near the lake. I’ve been here before with Lewis, and today, several cars line the driveway.
Great. Just what I need, an audience to witness the hell that is my life.
I cradle my ribs, unlatch the seatbelt, and reach for the door handle, battening down the cracks that running into Tyler have made in my emotional armor.
I don’t know how he found me, but seeing his pale blue eyes peering down was like being thrown a lifeline. A déjà vu of the hero from my past.
All the feelings for Tyler that I keep locked away crept to the surface. He smelled so good, and his arms around me were like coming home. I couldn’t help myself. I pressed my nose to the crook of his neck to get closer.
And he snapped at me.
He thinks I didn’t care about him in high school, and that I used him. I didn’t, but like he said, it was a long time ago, and the past has a way of shaping people.
“This is my sister’s place,” he says, and wraps his large hand around my upper arm as we make our way to the front door. “We were hanging out when Lewis got the call from his dad that you were missing. We split up to search for you. I texted Lewis that I found you and would bring you here.”
I was supposed to swing by Lewis’s parents’ house after I got off work early tonight, but I received an emergency call from my mom.
She sounded frantic and asked me to meet her at the cabin with cash.
She wouldn’t explain to me over the phone why she needed it, but the last time this happened, her life was in danger. I couldn’t risk it. I went to her.
I thought I could make a quick trip to my mom’s, drop off the cash, and be back in time to meet Lewis’s parents.
A tad late, but not never-show-up late. Lewis’s parents would have worried when I didn’t arrive.
I’ve gotten into a few scrapes over the years because of my mom.
If I don’t show up after a couple of hours, John and Becky send out the search dogs.
I’ve been telling myself that this is it, no more money for my mom, but I haven’t stuck to that decision. After tonight, I can’t risk it anymore. One more scrape like the one in the woods, and…I don’t want to think about how bad things could have been.
Tyler pauses at the front door, his strong hand moving from my arm to my lower back. He’s been kind for someone who owes me nothing, and likes me even less. He turns the knob and nudges the sticky front door open with his shoulder.
Lewis is pacing the tiny living room like a restless bear. He stops as we enter.
“Mira.” He takes two long strides and embraces me in a hug that squeezes my sore ribs.
“Ouch,” I mumble into his ginormous chest.
Tyler is a tall, athletic guy, but Lewis—and Cali’s boyfriend, Jaeger, who’s a part of my audience tonight—is supersized.
Lewis looks down and gently brushes aside the hair at my temple, examining the bruise on my face, then the cut on my head and ear. His mouth compresses. “What happened? Where have you been?”
Everyone’s watching, waiting for my answer. Tyler, his sister Cali and her boyfriend, Lewis’s girlfriend Gen. I don’t want to discuss my personal life around all of them, but I have to say something. “A couple of men jumped me.”
Lewis’s eyes darken, more than they already are, turning the deep brown raven.
“Probably has something to do with—you know—that problem,” I murmur.
I hate lying to Lewis, but if he knew I owe the money because of my mom, I’m not sure what he’d do.
The life my mom leads drags both of us down.
Lewis has been pushing me to sever the tie with her.
I don’t like the stuff my mom pulls, but she’s my mom.
Lewis wants me healthy, but he’s scaring me with his conditions, driving every anxiety over abandonment I possess to the surface.
One of my worst fears is that Lewis will leave me if I can’t walk away from my mom. He’s been my family for years, but insecurities run deep. Which is why I haven’t told Lewis the real reason I owe the money.
The Sallees held an intervention and insisted I see a therapist when I told them I’d gambled away months of rent and borrowed from a loan shark.
Not the most ideal of excuses, considering I work in a casino, but it was the best I could come up with at the time.
I visit a therapist regularly per the Sallees’ request, but the therapist knows the real reason I’m in debt. She’s helping me with my mom issues.
The Sallees wanted me to quit my job at the casino, which is understandable, but it’s been my livelihood since I graduated.
It’s all I know. I promised to work through my problems with the therapist and never gamble again.
I also promised I’d stop going to my mom’s place because the people she hangs with aren’t safe.
Tyler caught me red-handed, on my way to my mom’s. Pretty soon, he’ll tell Lewis where I was, and Lewis will know I broke one of my promises.
Gen grabs my hand, and I start. Her brow furrows in concern, but she doesn’t let go. “It’s okay, Mira. I just want to look at your wounds.”
Gen and Cali lead me into the bathroom, and Cali locks the door behind us.
One person inside their closet of a bathroom barely fits. Three people leaves Cali straddling the edge of the tub, and me forced to sit on the toilet lid to make space.
Cali reaches across to the medicine cabinet—at the same time Gen rises from below the sink, knocking into her arm. “Quit it, Cali. I’m trying to get a towel.”
“Well, I’m trying to grab the first-aid kit,” Cali says.
They swat at each other for a second. Then Cali elbows Gen. Gen fakes a move, and reaches around Cali for the cabinet.
I’ve never had a sister, or close female friends. Watching Gen and Cali is like seeing inside a mysterious club. I’ve also never had friends, besides Lewis and Zach, worry over me.
There’s that warmth inside my chest again, like in the woods, when I thought my mom was calling for me. I press my arm to my ribs. All this therapy is making me soft.
“Got ’em,” Gen says triumphantly, holding up the first-aid kit along with the towel.
“Maybe we should take her to the ER, or Urgent Care?” Cali says, scanning me from head to toe.
Gen sets the towel across my lap and looks me over. “She’s moving okay, but yeah, the blood on her head doesn’t look good. What if her brain is swelling?”
My what?
“We’ll clean her up,” Cali says, “then get her to a doctor. I’ll grab clothes. Unless you think we should call nine-one-one? Should she stay in her clothes for the police? Do they need that for evidence?”
Okay, maybe these girls are insane. Funny, but insane. I’m beginning to feel sympathy for Lewis.
A knock sounds at the bathroom door.
“Just a minute,” Cali and Gen shout at the same time.
“No,” I answer their earlier question. “No nine-one-one. I’ll be fine. I don’t need a doctor.”
They exchange a look. “Clothes, then ER,” Cali says, and stumbles out the door, slamming it shut behind her. But not before heated voices from the other room drift in.
The guys are arguing?
Gen pulls out antiseptic and gently wipes the cuts on my palms, drawing my gaze from the door to the burning in my hands, which took a beating when the man tackled me to the ground.
I close my eyes against the frightening memory, sensing a tug as Gen eases off my jacket and lifts my shirt. She touches my ribs.
“Um, oww?”
“You were cradling your side a moment ago. This hurts?” She touches the spot again, more gently.
I nod. It hurts, but I was cradling my chest in part because of the warmth of their kindness.
Cali bursts into the bathroom, slamming the door against Gen’s back.
“Son of a bitch, Cali.” Gen glances over her shoulder, her face scrunched in annoyance.
“What?” Cali shrugs. “Sorry.”
Gen lowers my shirt. “Her ribs look bruised. She might have broken one.”
“And there’s a footprint on her back,” Cali adds dryly from her angle near the door.
Gen shakes her head, her lips compressed as she lets out a pained sigh through her nose. “Mira, who did this to you?”
I slip on my torn jacket and pull it around me. “I told you. Probably the man I owe money to.”
“For the gambling?”
I nod, hesitantly. I don’t like lying. It makes me feel dirty. Low. I don’t want to be that person.
Gen has been kind since I showed up tonight. Kinder than I deserve after I snarled at her the first couple of weeks she dated Lewis. It was a jerk thing to do and I’m ashamed of it. Lying to her makes me feel worse.
After I reluctantly agree to remove my jacket and shirt, Cali and Gen wipe more grime from my face and arms. Cali helps me pull on the clean sweatshirt she retrieved, because raising my arms is tantamount to torture with my ribs hurting the way they do. She bundles my torn clothes in a bag.
The next knock that comes is more insistent. “Mira? You okay?” Lewis asks, his voice gruff.
“I’m fine,” I call out.
“We’d better get her to the doctor,” Cali says, and opens the door.
“I don’t need a doctor,” I reply as we emerge into the living room. The guys’ heated voices die. Everyone’s attention turns to me.
Except for Tyler. He’s seated with his forehead propped on clasped hands, his gaze focused on the ground.
I swallow, my throat burning.
Tyler will never look at me the way he did before I ruined our friendship.
Here I am, my life dissolving before my eyes, proof that he and I come from two different worlds and were never meant to be together. That moment we shared six years ago, I stole out of selfishness because I wanted him. Now I’m paying the price for taking what was never meant to be mine.
Because the way I still feel for him and the way his eyes avoid me hurts worse than any physical injuries I suffered tonight.