Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
AYDA
Ihadn’t been to the principal’s office… ever.
Not in my years pounding these halls, and not since Tate had started here, but that was all changing.
The call I’d taken less than an hour ago had destroyed our perfect record, and one look at Tate’s face and he knew he was waist deep in a shit storm he wasn’t going to puppy dog eyes his way out of.
He could see it in the tension that made every muscle in my body rigid, and the slow jumping tap of my leg on the shitty high traffic carpet that lined the offices.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“I wasn’t.”
“Clearly.”
I had just been lectured by a man who was old enough to be my father about my erratic and negligent parenting techniques, and the exaggerated need for the correct sexual education of a boy Tate’s age, because the boy—Tate—had been caught fucking his older girlfriend in a shower stall in the gym.
I’d never been so mortified in my life.
“She came to apologize. We’ve been fighting, and—”
“Do not finish that fucking sentence, Tate. If you ever want to see the light of day again, you will keep your goddamn mouth shut and take your licks. I told you both last week: no more visits here at school. I told you to stay away from one another while you’re here, and now here we are.
You’re on academic probation, suspended from the team, and making me look like an irresponsible guardian.
” I took a breath and shook my head, opening my mouth to keep going and slamming it shut again when the door to the office opened, and the coach stepped out.
He’d been in there trying to reinstate Tate with the team because the suspension would have to take place next football season, and that would include the homecoming game.
I rose to my feet, trying my best not to slap the shit out of Tate as I forced him to stay seated.
“I tried, but the old man said he had to make an example of him. I’m sorry, Ayda.” He was addressing me because he, too, was at the end of his patience rope with Tate. He was pushing everyone to their limits these days, and this was a wake-up call for me.
I nodded as humbly as I could and smiled sadly. “Thanks for trying, coach.”
Throwing a look of disbelief at my little brother, the coach gave me one last parting smile before leaving the office.
“Get up,” I snapped.
“Ayda, I’m not a child—”
I stopped him in his tracks with one look and dug for the keys to the car I’d borrowed in my pocket, pushing past him as I followed the coach from the office and made my way from the empty school.
I’d forced Tate to leave his bike at The Hut when they’d called us in.
He was either getting in the goddamn car or walking home.
Tate followed me out, as I’d expected him to, his muscular body lurching as his long strides had him catching up with me effortlessly.
He didn’t speak to me, just held his silence, his shoulders curled in, and his hands balled at his sides.
He was brooding, not because he was sorry, but because he’d been caught.
People who were sorry wouldn’t go out and do it all over again, and I knew from experience that that’s exactly what would happen.
We both climbed into the car. The moment the doors closed, my anger died and my disappointment set in. I placed my hands on the steering wheel after I’d started the engine and the crisp air blew over us. I had to take another tactic with Tate before I lost him completely.
“I’m sorry, Tate.”
My kid brother looked over at me, his head snapping to the side hard enough that it made me wince.
I didn’t look at him, just stared straight out of the windshield at the school that held so many old and new memories for me.
I wasn’t sure I could look at him right now and not burst into tears from the sheer frustration.
“For what?” he asked, and I could see the frown on his young face from the corners of my eyes.
“For a lot of things. I forget how young you are, and because of that, I keep thinking that you’re capable of making mature decisions.
I think that you need me less. I believe that you don’t need someone to babysit you twenty-four-goddamn-seven.
Mostly, I’m sorry that I failed you, and that I stopped being a parent. ”
“Ayda...”
“So, here’s how it’s gonna go, kid. From here on in, you’re going to have to prove that I can trust you. You’re going to come home from school and check in with me, Drew, Deeks, or anyone else that agrees to be a check in for you.”
“What?”
“You heard me, Tate. You earn your privileges, and that includes your bike—”
“Oh, hell no! Fuck that.”
I snapped my head in his direction and narrowed my eyes, somehow managing to keep absolutely calm. I knew how disorientating that was and how intimidating it could be. If this kid wanted to play games, I was going to play, but he wasn’t going to like how far I took them.
“That was exactly the reaction I had when I was called in here because you were screwing your girlfriend on high school property.”
“You don’t understand—”
“I understand just fine. I have given you too much rope, and you’ve finally hung yourself with it.”
Tate pulled his arm back, fist balled, ready to punch the dash. He was already picking up momentum when my hand circled his wrist and diverted it from its trajectory.
“Not my car.”
“Fuck you.”
I tried my best not to recoil at the venom in his voice.
My sweet kid brother was nowhere in sight at the moment, and in his place was this bitter little shithead who looked as though he hated me.
I wasn’t sure how to respond to this, how to derail this confrontation that was inbound.
Slater had warned me this was coming, but I’d been so lost in what was going on in my life that I’d ignored the warning and given him a free pass because he was grieving.
Grief was evil and capable of so much pain and destruction, but this was too much.
“I love you, Tate. It’s okay that you hate me, but if you ever say fuck you to me again, I will have to rethink this whole life for you.”
“Whatever.”
I dropped his wrist and grabbed his chin, too big to belong to a teenager, and I turned his face to meet mine.
Our eyes met, the same color fusing together between us.
I needed him to see how deadly serious I was.
I needed him to understand that as much as I couldn’t leave Drew or this life now, I still loved the kid enough to think about an alternative until he was old enough to make his own choices.
He would hate me, and I would hate myself, but it was a necessary threat.
He needed to know I had choices, too. Ones I would follow through on if I were pushed.
“It was just sex,” he said, resignation in his tone.
“And you’re sixteen. I’ve given you so much freedom because I felt like you could handle it, Tate. Was I wrong?”
“Ayda, I’m fine.”
“You’re nowhere near fine.”
“Don’t do this.”
“I’m not doing anything but talking to you.”
“And I don’t want to talk.”
“But you need to. I’m so sick of this attitude you’ve got going. This isn’t who you are.”
Tate huffed out a laugh and knocked my hand away from his chin. The snide and sardonic smile that came over his lips made me feel ill. “Maybe it’s who I am now.”
“Then I need to make a change.”
“If you try anything, I’ll just take off. I’m not afraid of being alone.”
“You gonna walk?” I asked, putting the car into gear and reversing from the spot. “Because you’re not taking my bike.”
“Your bike?”
“It’s in my name, Tate.”
“Why are you doing this?” he asked, pulling his seatbelt on and twisting in his seat to look at me. “Can’t you accept that I’m doing what’s best for me, that I’m living my life the way I want to live it.”
“Have I given you a hard time about that?”
He waved his arms at me, indicating that it was exactly what I was doing right now.
“I think this is warranted. I told you the moment your schoolwork started to suffer that I was going to get involved. You promised me that our living at The Hut wouldn’t interrupt your school or your football. You swore you had it all under control.”
“But that was before everything changed!” he roared, rubbing his face with his hands.
He dragged his fingers down leaving pale marks against his anger-reddened skin.
His eyes, so familiar to mine, grew red as tears pooled over the bottom lid.
He desperately blinked, trying to rid himself of them, but it was too late.
I’d seen them. They were anger and sadness and frustration.
“Change happens, Tate. It’s inevitable. It doesn’t mean we have to like it.
It doesn’t mean we always deal with it well, but you’re out of control.
You’re pushing everyone away, even the girl you’re trying to hold onto.
You’re so stuck inside your own head that you can’t see that your behavior is touching everyone. ”
Tate moved a hand to his mouth. I’d known him all his life, and I knew he was trying to stuff all that emotion back down, not allow it to verbalize itself because once it was out there, he couldn’t take it back.
“I let myself get too close,” he muttered under his breath, shaking his head in denial.
It was those six words that led to my epiphany. I finally understood why he was pushing everyone away. This didn’t excuse his behavior, it didn’t lessen my anger at him, either, but it helped me see what I’d been missing. I threw the car back into park so I could look at him properly.
“People die, Tate. Whether you love them or not, people die. It sucks and hurts, and it can destroy you, but pushing people who are still alive away isn’t going to save you that pain.
It will just make you lonely. Mom and Dad didn’t choose to leave, and neither did Harry.
It was all just shitty timing and a bunch of assholes with a thorn in their paws.
People are going to come and go in your life, but that doesn’t mean you should stop loving the people who love you. ”
Fat tears rolled down Tate’s cheeks in perfect lines as he just stared at me.
He seemed like he was in disbelief that I could have figured it all out, that I could ever understand what he was feeling, but like most kids, he was self-involved with his own pain.
He hadn’t considered that I’d suffered those same losses and felt all those voids in my chest just as brutally as he did. We all did.
“I can’t go back to the way things were,” Tate said quietly, his voice thick and raw.
“I don’t expect you to,” I said, placing my hand on his cheek. “Just try directing your anger at the people who deserve it. Stop pushing away the people who love you, and for fuck’s sake, screw your girlfriend in more appropriate places.”
He let out a thick chuckle and leaned into my palm. “I will try and do better.”
“You also need to stop bottling this shit up. If you need to talk, I am always there. Always. I love you, Tater Tot.”
“Don’t call me that!”
“Tater Tot,” I said, dropping my hand and staring at him pointedly.
“Stop.”
“You know what I want, Tater Tot.”
“Oh, God.” He shook his head in exasperation. “I love you, too.”
I nodded in satisfaction and put the car into drive again. He was silent for a while, choosing to fall into thought rather than talk, but I was okay with that. The weird tension that seemed to hang around him most days was absent for now, the silence more companionable.
When I pulled onto the street that led to The Hut, he glanced over at me.
“What?” I asked.
“Does this mean I can keep my bike?”
I laughed once. “You can have it back in two weeks.”
“Fuck!”
I hid my smile as I turned into the yard. He was lucky it wasn’t indefinitely.