Chapter 24
24
TYLER
“We should talk outside,” I say, as if my heart isn’t pummeling the inside of my chest.
I glance at Echo, waiting for her reaction. Will she be disgusted?
I deserve it.
So far, all I see in her wide eyes and parted lips is shock.
“Yeah, let’s go outside,” Soraya agrees, exiting the booth and hovering beside it.
I join her.
“Okay.” Echo seems distant as she stands and follows us out the door and onto the sidewalk. Hopefully, this isn’t the start of her inevitable brush-off.
Maybe I shouldn’t have approached them. I could have avoided this conversation, or at least put it off, but I had to make sure Soraya wasn’t pressuring Echo to give me another chance. I want her, but not like that.
“Are you stalking me?” Echo asks, turning to face me.
I wince. “No.” Not today, at least. “I was walking past and saw you both. I was worried Soraya might be pushing you into talking to me before you’re ready, so I stopped to check on you.”
That seems to soften her a bit.
“What were you saying about your father’s death?” she asks.
I look around, noticing a group of girls watching us with interest. “Walk with me.”
I start off along the sidewalk, purposefully slowing my pace so they can keep up.
“Tyler, you don’t have to—” Soraya begins.
“It needs to be said,” I interject. “Putting stuff off hasn’t gotten me anywhere. Echo, what I meant is that I was with Dad when he had the heart attack that killed him. He was yelling at me about one of my grades when he suddenly sat down and clutched his chest. I…”
I sneak a look at her to see if she’s figured out where my story is going, but she’s just watching me levelly, waiting for me to say my piece. There’s no judgment in her expression. How long will that last?
“I hesitated before I called the ambulance.” The confession pours from me on an exhale. “I don’t know how long. Maybe thirty seconds. Maybe a couple of minutes. It felt like fucking forever. I couldn’t help thinking that it seemed like the universe was handing me a solution to all my problems. If he was gone, everything would be better.”
“But you did call for help,” she says softly, with every confidence in my ability to be a good person. Misguided, but sweet.
“Yeah, but they couldn’t save him. If I’d been faster, he might still be alive.”
Soraya huffs. “It’s only a ‘might’. No one has ever actually said he’d definitely have survived if help arrived sooner. With a massive heart attack, it’s pretty much impossible to know for sure.”
“But he would have had more of a chance,” I say stubbornly.
“Or maybe if the ambulance driver had gone faster, or if the paramedics weren’t near the end of a long shift, he’d have survived, too. We can’t know.”
I pretend not to hear her. We’ve had this argument before, and no doubt we’ll have it again.
“You feel guilty anyway,” Echo says, and it’s only then that I realize she’s looking at me. Those hazel eyes can read me like a book.
I swallow past the lump lodged in my throat. “I was relieved when I heard he was dead. What kind of person does that make me?”
I wait for her to tell me to get lost, but the words don’t come.
“Human.” To my surprise, she takes my hand. “You had a very complicated relationship with him. I have no idea what that was like because I didn’t live it, but he hurt you and manipulated you, and it’s only human for you to think about how much easier your life might be without him.”
“She’s right,” Soraya says firmly.
Echo flashes her a look of gratitude. “Soraya, do you mind if Tyler and I go somewhere more private so we can give this conversation the attention it deserves?”
“Sure. No worries.” She fidgets with the hem of her top. “See you next time.”
“Bye.” Echo smiles at her and keeps her fingers intertwined with mine as Soraya strides away. “The gardens?”
“Sounds good.”
The botanical gardens are near campus, but with the trees and thick rosebushes, they’re surprisingly private. We walk together, but with each step, the relief in my gut eases and the dread increases.
Echo is still standing beside me, even after finding out that I could have played a part in my father’s death. Because of that, I owe her one last truth. It might break us. The guilt over my last secret has festered like a contaminated wound in the back of my mind for years.
Only a handful of people know. One is my therapist. One is dead. One is in prison, and I doubt the others would talk, but I can’t hold this in for any longer. If she decides she doesn’t want to see me again, I’ll accept that. I’ll leave her alone, no matter how difficult it may be.
I’m an asshole, not a monster.
As we stroll between the opening in the hedge and into the gardens, my pulse picks up and sweat slides down the back of my neck. I lead Echo to a garden bench that’s tucked away beneath a pergola that’s buried beneath an overgrown white rosebush, and we sit.
I release her hand. She might not want me touching her in another few seconds.
“So, about your dad…” She trails off, frowning. “Are you okay? You’ve gone pale.”
“There’s something else I need to tell you.” I look down at my hands. Big, calloused palms. Great for hockey. Bad for handling someone as delicate as Echo. “After this, I can’t think of any other secrets I’m keeping. I’m an open book. You can ask me anything.”
“What is it?” she whispers, nerves threading through her voice.
My jaw clenches involuntarily. “First, I just want to say I’m damn sorry for hiding this from you for so long. You should have known from the beginning.”
“Hiding what?”
Finally, I dare to look at her. She’s watching me steadily. I can’t bear to imagine how she’ll look at me once she’s heard my confession.
“You know how I was trying to push you away, to make it seem like I didn’t care about you, so my dad would get off my back?”
“Yes.” She’s clearly uncertain where this is going.
“One night, the guys from the team were over at my place after a game. We’d done well, so Dad had eased up on his rules about having people over. He stayed with us though. Didn’t trust us to be alone.”
I never knew exactly what he was afraid I’d do. Tell a bunch of teenage guys that my Dad hit me?
Not going to happen.
Even if I admitted that he hurt Mom and Soraya, they’d just want to know why I didn’t do something about it, and I had no way to make them understand.
“The guys all knew we’d had sex.”
My stomach curdles at the memory of how I’d announced that in the school corridor, calling it meaningless. It’s amazing she’s with me now. That she was generous enough to hear me out.
“Eric asked if you were done with me, and whether he could move in.”
Her face blanches.
“I said yes.” Shame threatens to swallow me whole. “Dad was listening, and so were the other guys, and I didn’t know what else to say.”
She looks at me as if she doesn’t know me at all. I clamber off the garden bench and drop to my knees, moisture from the grass soaking my jeans.
“I’m so sorry.” I reach for her hands, but she tucks them beneath herself. “I swear, I had no idea that he’d… That he’d rape you. I just thought he’d start coming onto you again, the way he used to, and that you’d shoot him down, like you always did.”
She lets out a forceful breath and kneads at her chest. “It doesn’t matter what you thought would happen. Even if we pretend Eric never laid a finger on me, it was still a crappy thing to do. You knew how much I hated his attention, and you promised me you’d put a stop to it, even before anything happened between us.”
“I…” I have no defense.
“You promised me, Tyler.” Her voice breaks, and the fragile trust between us snaps entirely.
I hang my head. “I was scared, and I reacted badly. I’ve regretted that every minute of every day since.”
But especially after I learned what she’d accused my former friend of. Not that most of our classmates believed her.
I had, though, and it had gutted me.
Echo draws in a ragged breath, and exhales sharply. She breathes in again, and I can tell she’s struggling for air. A chill races over my skin. Is she having a panic attack?
I wrack my mind for the advice my therapist gave me about helping someone through a panic attack. I asked after the last time I’d failed spectacularly at getting her through one.
“Breathe in with me,” I say, inhaling for the count of four. She can’t match me, and exhales part way through. “Try again.”
Eventually, her breathing is under control, but her pupils are pinpricks and it’s impossible to know how grounded she is in the present.
“Tell me three things you can see,” I tell her.
“You. Roses.” Her voice shakes. “Grass.”
“Good. Now, three things you can feel.”
“The bench beneath me.” Her eyelids flutter as she hesitates. “The warmth of the sun on the top of my head. The soles of my shoes against my feet.”
“Three things you can hear.”
“Your voice. Birds. A lawn mower.”
“Perfect. How are you?”
She focuses on me, her pupils back to a more normal size. “Better, thank you. But that doesn’t mean I forgive you.”
“I don’t expect you to.” My actions have been unforgivable. I hesitate, then add, “Would it bring you any comfort to know that Eric got the shit beaten out of him on his first day in prison, and that he was told it would be ten times worse if he ever tried to contact you?”
She shakes her head, although there’s something satisfied about the twist of her mouth. “This is too much at once. I can’t concentrate now. My mind is still spinning. I need to think.”
“Okay. Let me get you back to your dorm.”
But she shakes her head again. “Not you.”
Fuck. That shouldn’t hurt as much as it does.
I reach for her, then stop myself and curl my hands into fists.
Don’t touch. She doesn’t want that.
“If you never want to see me again, I get it, and I’ll disappear. That’s something I can do for you. But I want you to know that I don’t have any secrets from you now. I love you, and for me, there will never be anyone else.”
I’m hers, until I take my last breath.
She nods, the movement jerky. “I just…Do you want to know something I’ve never admitted to anyone?”
“Yes,” I say, although something in my tone warns me I might not like what I hear.
“The night it happened.” She draws in a deep breath. “The night Eric raped me. I’d been tutoring a junior in the school library after hours.”
“I know,” I whisper.
I forced myself to listen to her testimony in court. She doesn’t know I was there, but I had to hear it all for myself. I had to know how badly I’d failed her.
“I was crossing the car park when he attacked me from behind. I tried to fight back.”
I nod, my throat tight. I’ve seen the photographs of the cuts and bruises he gave her. The ring of finger-shaped smudges around her neck.
“I had no chance against him; especially after he knocked me unconscious. When I came to, he was already…”
A sob escapes her, and my fingernails embed themselves in my palms. I want so badly to reach for her.
“There was nothing I could do. But even as I lay there, I dreamed that you might turn up out of nowhere and save me. Now, to find out you egged him on—even if it wasn’t intentional… I don’t know how to deal with that.”
My heart is breaking for her, and I don’t even try to stop the tears that leak from the corners of my eyes. I hate to think of her so alone and scared, hoping for a hero when all I’ve ever been is her downfall.
“I’m sorry, Echo. So damn sorry.” It will never be enough.
She blinks rapidly. “I want to go home.”
“I’ll call Ryan and ask him to come and get you.” Since it’s clear she doesn’t want me taking her anywhere, and I don’t blame her.
“No.” She stiffens. “I’ll call Anita. But you don’t need to wait. I’ll be fine here.”
“Echo…”
“Go.”
With a heart weighed down by sorrow and regret, I stride away—but not far. I round a corner and duck behind a bush, shifting around until she’s back in view. She’s too vulnerable to be alone right now.
I wait in the shadows until her redheaded friend appears. She slings her arm around Echo’s shoulder and escorts her from the gardens. I watch her go, painfully aware that this might be the last time she walks away from me.
What will I do if she tells me to leave her alone for good?
Can I really do it? Can I sit back while she makes a family with someone else?
The future without her stretches before me, long and bleak. An eternity with no light to chase away the darkness. Maybe it will finally consume me.