I close my eyes and take a deep breath. She knows. She fucking knows, and now that she does, she is going to fight against me. I love that she cares, that she challenges me, but right now, I really need her not to. I am desperate. “Just go to the fucking party already,” I hiss at her once I open my eyes again.
“No,” she says, her voice raised now. Her features sharpen with determination as she takes a step closer to me. “I’m not letting you go out to meet him.”
“Eden.” I say her name gently, firmly. Then, I step closer to her too, closing that distance between us. I lean down toward her, my face inches from hers, and I lock my eyes on hers. I fix her with the most threatening of glares I can possibly pull off, my eyes sharply narrowed, my anger held captive within them. “You can’t do anything about it.”
“You’re right,” she states, but her voice is laced with fury and exasperation. She shakes her head at me, her glossy hazel eyes a mixture of everything that I have learned to hate. Disappointment, worry, disapproval, and most of all, pity. She feels sorry for me, and that is the worst feeling in the world.
“I can’t do anything about it, because you don’t care. You don’t care about the fact that I’m worried that you’re going to overdose one night or have a bad reaction or end up dead. You don’t care about the fact that you’re seventeen and hooked on coke. You don’t, do you?” She pauses for a second, but I’m not giving her an answer, because she already knows that she’s right. “You only care about looking cool at parties, trying to impress people with this whole badass image you’re trying to pull off. It’s pathetic.”
There’s that word again. It’s true though. Iampathetic. She’s right about that, but she isn’t right about everything. I’m not trying to impress anyone. I’m only trying to cope; I’m only trying to survive. “That’s not why I do it,” I tell her quietly, shaking my head.
“Then why?” she desperately pleads. She’s so close to me that the only thing I can focus on is that fucking pity in her gaze, and I can feel the weight of it pressing down on me. “Is it because you’re trying to fit in with those loser friends of yo—”
“Because it’s a distraction!” I yell at her, cutting her off. Fuck, I said it. I close my eyes so that I don’t have to look at her, so that I don’t have to see that pity for a guy who depends on distractions in order to liveanother day. I take a minute to console myself, breathing deeply. “It’s a fucking distraction,” I murmur under my breath. I feel like sometimes I have to admit it to myself too.
Slowly, I open my eyes again and find Eden watching me silently. I’m furious now. Not just at her, but also at myself. I’m mad at myself for being such an idiot, and I’m mad that she knows it. I’m mad that she sees straight through me. I’m mad that my facade doesn’t work around her. I’m mad that, for a split second, I see understanding in her hazel eyes.
“And right now,” I admit, “I could really do with a goddamn distraction.”
Suddenly, Eden’s hands are reaching out for my jaw as she slams her body into mine. Her lips crash down against mine so fast that I become paralyzed from the shock. I can feel the warmth of her and all of her energy radiating between us, and I close my eyes, absorbing the sensation of her mouth on mine. That fire in my chest fades away, replaced by something new that I can’t quite comprehend. Relief? No, it can’t be. But suddenly I am not thinking about anything else but her. I’m kissing those lips. Those plump, pouty lips that have weakened me for weeks now. I didn’t realize why they had such an effect on me, but I do now—it’s because I wanted to feel those lips against mine. I am just about to reach out to touch her face, toreallykiss her, when slowly I feel her pulling away from me.
My eyes flicker open and meet hers. I stare at her, bewildered, as she retreats away from me. Her gaze has flooded with fear and alarm, and I can see her hands trembling. Did she really just do that? Did she really just kiss me?
Something changes then. A realization hits me hard.
Itisrelief I felt. I have spent weeks asking myself what it is about Eden that gets to me so much, asking myself why I like the fact shecares, asking myself why I can’t just be Tyler Bruce around her like I can with everyone else. And now I finally understand. It’s because Ilikethe damn girl. I like that she gets under my skin. I like that she makes me uncomfortable, that she tests me, that she pushes my boundaries. I like that she cares when no one else does. I like that I don’t have to put on an act around her even though the real me is pathetic and tragic. And I like her husky voice and her full lips and her hazel eyes.
“That wasn’t me. I don’t—I don’t know what that was,” she begins to babble, her voice fragile and husky, just the way I like it as she splutters her words. It’s like shewantsto give me an explanation, but she doesn’t have one. I’m staring at her mouth in a daze as her lips move. I am craving their touch again. “I—I don’t—I’m—I’m sorry. I was trying to—to distract you—I—”
It’s me who reaches out this time. I step forward and cup her face with both hands, pressing my lips down against hers. I’m so desperate to feel them again, and I kiss her as hard as I can, weaving my fingers into her thick hair. My body is against hers again, and I don’t realize I’m pushing into her until we hit my bedroom wall. I kiss her for real this time, properly, like the way I should have a second ago. Deeply and intensely, quickly and desperately. She is kissing me back. Our lips are capturing one another’s, her hands are on my chest, she is quivering. I drop my hand to the small of her back and bring her even closer against me, fighting for more, but then I freeze.
Eden is my stepsister. I’m kissing my stepsister.
Quickly, I break off the kiss and as much as I don’t want to, I force myself to pull away from her. I stop touching her body. I step back. We both stare at each other with the same exact look in our eyes as we breathe heavily through the silence. It’s a look of despair, of guilt.
She’s realized it too. We are stepsiblings.
31
Five Years Earlier
I know something is wrong from the moment I wake up the next morning. My wrist is swollen and throbbing, and I’m flinching in pain every time I so much as flex a finger. I’m in agony as I get dressed, and I feel sick at the thought of heading downstairs for breakfast. There is no possible way to hide the Band-Aid on my forehead from Mom, so as I force my battered body down the stairs one step at a time, I begin to rack my brain for a new excuse, one that I’ve never used before. I can’t tell her I fell down the stairs again, because there’s no way I’mthatclumsy.
My teeth chatter as I stand in the hall, not because it’s cold, but because I’m scared to walk into the kitchen. I can hear Dad’s voice now, gentle and soft as he talks to Mom. Chase is laughing. Why do they all get to be so happy?
With bated breath, I muster up the courage to enter the kitchen. Mom has her back to me, raiding the silverware drawer, and my brothers and Dad are sitting at the table. None of them knew how angry he was last night, how uncontrollable he was. He’s so calm now, slouched back in his chair with a content smile on his lips and a cup of coffee in his hand. When I walk in, his verdant eyes flash over to meet mine, andthat smile disappears. I stop breathing as he runs his eyes over me, and as he looks at that Band-Aid on my forehead, I can see the muscle in his jaw twitch. His eyes pool with guilt, and he drops his gaze to his lap.
“What have you done now, Tyler?” Mom asks as she turns around. I glance over at her, my breath still caught in my throat, and she is frowning with a hand on her hip as she points a spoon at my forehead.
“I slipped getting out of the shower last night,” I tell her. I’m lying straight through my teeth, and I’ve learned that I’m an incredible actor, because even my own mom can’t tell. “I hit my head on the sink. No big deal,” I mumble. Dad still has his head down, his eyes on the floor. I sit down at the table next to Jamie.
“I’ve never known anyone to have such bad luck as you do, Tyler,” Mom comments with the hopeless roll of her eyes. She sets some toast down on the table and runs her hand through my hair. She always does that.
“When did your wrist get so fat?” Jamie asks. I glance sideways at him, and he’s staring wide-eyed at my swollen wrist with morbid curiosity.
Dad’s eyes flicker up to look at me. His expression slowly floods with horror, and he sits up in his chair. I’m just about to hide my wrist under the table when Mom grabs my shoulder, leaning over me.
“Oh my God!” she gasps, her lips parting. She stares down at my wrist in alarm, and her eyes dilate with worry. “What have you done?”
