Chapter Nine
SUNNY
I awake in a bed unfamiliar to my own, sweat plastering my face as I place a hand over my panting chest. My heart thrums wildly, pumping fear through my veins as a threat to my sleep. My hand moves around my neck, trying to shake the feeling of his hands gripping my throat.
It’s not real.
I sit up, looking around as realization settles on me. I’m in Tyler’s home. A night of too many drinks at family dinner resulted in a slumber party. Apparently not an uncommon theme with this group.
While it’s only my third family dinner, I’ve grown comfortable around them. Outside of that, I easily see them a few more times a week.
Gazing over at Sam and Macey, who are cuddled together, I’m thankful I didn’t wake them. Nights are hardest because I’m unable to distract my mind from uncovering the things I hide in the daylight.
A quick glance at the clock on the nightstand tells me it’s well after midnight. After trial and error, I learn it’s best to get out of bed and make use of my time instead of hashing out in the sheets, tossing and turning, to try and get sleep that won’t come.
Quietly, I slip out of the bed and explore the areas of Tyler’s townhome. Considering the amount of money they own, I was shocked to see their choices of places to live. Though it makes sense. They don’t want money to determine their lives, and I can respect that.
Bookshelves line the hallway, each meticulously placed and categorized. A smile pulls my cracked lips. Tyler is very much a type A personality. I decide to head downstairs for a glass of water and distraction.
When I make it down the open staircase, there he is. He’s sitting under the only light on in the living room, which creates an illusion of a spotlight on him, as he holds a book in his hand. The dying fireplace is the only other form of light in the darkness.
With his eyes intent on the words, I see the fatigue shadowed on his face, taunting him to go to sleep. The white t-shirt and gray sweatpants tell me he tried, but failed. Shadows seem to lurk around him no matter what, complementing his sharp features.
Hearing me approach, his head shoots up, his emeralds firing daggers of concern my way as he closes the book shut with a single thud.
I notice the scars lacing his arms, each so different. Threading as white, red, pink lines over the tanned skin. My eyes move to the single scar laced through the right corner of his lips.
Are they haunting your dreams, Tyler?
“Sunny,” he says, watching me stand on the last few steps of the staircase, shifting on my feet. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I just needed some water.” I motion for the kitchen, padding my way over.
“By the look on your face, I don’t think that’s true.” He watches me scour the kitchen for a cup.
If there's anything I learned about Tyler in the last few weeks is that he’s a trained observer. He watches and picks up on things when you think no one is.
He lifts himself off the couch and walks over. Opening a cabinet, he pulls a cup out and leans over the island, handing it to me.
“Thank you. Why are you awake?” I ask, filling the cup from the tap.
He runs a hand through his hair and then down his face. “Sleep just seems impossible some nights,” he admits.
“Why is that?” I pry, it’s my turn to ask questions.
The sound of his voice is calming, bringing me back to reality as its velvetiness coats my heart. I’m so glad you’re awake, too.
“What’s with the third degree?” He teases.
I scoff before taking a sip of my water. A comfortable silence settles until he finally asks, “So, why did you come here, Sunny?” His emerald eyes focus on me. The intensity tells me that if I don’t tell the truth, he will somehow find out on his own.
I swallow hard, trying to push away the panic wanting to settle in my veins. Tyler tilts his head, observing me as the shadows of the night show off all his best features.
I can’t like you, Tyler.
“I already told you.” I take another sip of water.
“So, are you going to tell me the truth?”
I feel something inside me. Inside my chest. Something so visceral that I won’t be able to stop, no matter the destruction and pain it may cause me.
Seating myself on the couch, I avoid answering him. His eyes track me as he walks over, sitting himself on the opposite end, leaving little room between us. I swallow hard at the small distance between us. Somehow, I want to make it smaller and bigger all at once.
“We all have our traumas, Sunny. And healing is never linear. I’m a perfect example of that. But just know that you don’t have to heal alone. You don’t have to be alone.”
And he’s right—healing is not linear. I wish it was, because I had this straight line. This plan that I’m determined to stick to. Yet I keep getting derailed.
“Being alone is the easiest way for no one to get hurt,” I say.
A small smile curves on his mouth as he lets out a soft chuckle. “A thought for a thought?” He suggests.
My silence is an indication that I need him to start.
Clearly we are two people who have a past. It’s why we are here right now.
It’s why he has scars on his arms and I have one on my neck.
They are just a preview to the ones that are inside.
We sit here together because anything after midnight is awfully heavy to handle alone.
“I think that a lot of people believe money creates freedom. When in reality it just creates a different kind of prison.” He toys with a loose thread on the couch.
“My whole life has been planned for me. The story was written before I was born. My wife had already been arranged for me. My career. The children I should have. The place to live. Everything.” His voice matches the night.
“And that prison was only made worse because of the man my father is. I couldn’t get us out, so I had to learn how to live in it. ”
“I understand that.”
“I know.” He meets my gaze, his eyes have a softness I’ve never seen on him before.
“My father loves his alcohol more than his family, even if it made him a violent man.” He bites the inside of his lip, formulating the words in his mind, contemplating how he’ll articulate this.
“One day, he came home, drunker than I’d seen him before and he tried to force himself on my mother. ”
My heart drops. Sam hadn’t given much insight on their parents except for the fact they are very old fashioned, cold people. I just didn’t think it was to this extent.
“I was eight years old. I was already in bed. Her screams rattled the house. I’ll never forget it.
It was the kind of scream that begged for help in a moment where no one would come.
I didn’t think twice before I jumped out of my bed, and I ran downstairs to him pinning her down.
I grabbed a kitchen knife and got in between them.
I tried to chop his dick off with a kitchen knife.
” He looks at nothing specifically as he lets out a small chuckle.
It isn’t humorous. It's the sad reality he had to face.
“He took his rage out on me. I’ll spare you the details.
But the initial one was snapping my wrist to get the knife out of my hand.
That’s what this scar is. I had to have surgery on it.
” He shows the line down his wrist. “I ended up in the hospital that night because of him, spending my ninth birthday there the next day.”
“Your birthday…” I whisper.
“But it was me, and not my mom, not Sam, so I could live with that. Of course, with money and the connections my father has, you can make anything go away. So, he did. He made it seem like I was never even admitted in the hospital. The records were gone. The only proof was the scars on my body.”
“So that’s why your last name is on the pediatric wing? He paid them off.” I realize out loud.
He nods. “After that night, something changed in him, in me, in our family dynamic. He learned what he can get away with, and he learned what I could handle. He learned what I was capable of.” He swallows hard. “He broke me so badly that nobody else could.”
I nod as tears threaten my eyes, because I understand that too. Tyler and I, we may not be so different after all. We share similar pain, in different variations.
“I spent the rest of my years in that house paying for it. Learning how to live in that prison while protecting the two things that mattered most to me.” He toys with his hands in his lap. There are scars there too, and I want to lay my hand over his. But I don’t.
“He would always get so frustrated with Sam.” His brows crease.
The only sign of emotion he’s shown tonight despite the painful words and memories he is reliving.
“I couldn’t let her experience what I did.
If anyone had to, it’d be me, never them.
I just, I couldn’t imagine doing that to my family, let alone my children, your little girl.
Sam says I have a savior complex, and maybe I do.
But all I know is it shielded them from him, even if I was the shield myself.
” He looks at his hands, peeling a callus on his palm.
I place a hand over his festering ones, feeling the calluses and scars because trembling hands need something stable, something secure to hold on to. His hands calm at my touch and his eyes meet mine.
“I’ve done some bad things, Sunny.” A warning, no doubt. “And it makes me wonder if that’s how he became the way he did. Because he was forced to do bad things, and in turn, it made him a bad person.”
With a sigh, he rubs his face with his free hand but never removes the other from mine. I don’t even realize until his thumb is swiping under my eye that I’m crying.
“Don’t cry, little fire. I’m okay.” His lips twitch to a smile.
I shake my head. “It’s not fair we have to learn to survive in order to get through life.”