“Are you hungry?” Tiffani asks as she walks into her room, a smile on her face. She’s been checking in on me every half an hour, waltzing into her room in a pair of silk shorts and a tank top. At 8:00 a.m., she woke me up to yell at me for embarrassing her last night, for getting too drunk, for acting like a loser. At noon, she was being passive aggressive. By 4:00 p.m., she was acting relatively normal. And now, she is being nice. Too nice.
“No,” I say. I think I’ll throw up if I eat.
“How are you feeling?” she asks with a sympathetic frown as she joins me on her bed. She sits down next to me on her knees and reaches forward, placing her cool palm to my forehead. Her frown deepens. “Are you feeling better?”
“Not really,” I admit. Her cool skin feels nice against my face, so I press my forehead harder into her hand. I’m burning up.
“I bet I could make you feel better,” she murmurs, and she drops her hand to my chest as she leans in closer to me, pressing her lips to the corner of my jaw. She kisses the corner of my mouth too. Then my neck. Her lips trail along my skin, planting a row of soft, light kisses. She even climbs on top of me, sitting on my stomach with her legs cradling my hips and her hands pressed to my bare chest. She is kissing my collarbone now, and shit, it feels nice.
“Your…your mom, Tiffani,” I mumble, my eyes closed, my hands on her waist. I throw my head back into the pillows, enjoying the sensation of her mouth exploring my body. There are not many things I love about Tiffani, but this is an exception. She always knows exactly where to kiss me.
“She just left,” Tiffani says, and she moves her lips to mine. I wrap one of my hands into her hair, holding her closer to me, and I kiss her deeply and fast, biting her lower lip. Tiffani and I never do slow or gentle. We are always fast, always rough, probably because we don’t actually care about one another. It’s exhilarating though. We are fighting for dominance, and as I am kissing her, she is grinding against my hips. She tears away from me for only a brief second to pull off her tank top, then her mouth is immediately back on mine. She is kissing me faster now, her fingers intertwining through my hair. My hands are roaming down her body, her breasts, her waist, her hips, her ass. She kisses a path down my chest, all the way down to the waistband of my boxers. She glances up at me and runs her tongue along her lower lip. But then I remember something.
Yesterday was a blackout. I can’t remember anything from the party, apart from making Kyle Harrison sick, but I remembereverythingthat came before it.
I remember Eden. I remember arguing with her in the house. Iremember admitting that I rely on distractions. I remember her lips against mine.
“Tiffani,” I say abruptly, snapping back into the current moment. I grab her wrists, firmly holding them away from my body. I am breathing heavily, and my eyes are wide with panic. “I can’t do this right now.”
“Are you kidding me?” Tiffani says in disbelief, parting her lips. She aggressively yanks her hands free from mine and climbs off me. She is glaring at me with sharp, narrow eyes. “Wefinallyget a free house and you’re telling menot right now? Fuck you, Tyler. Go home.” She grits her teeth and slides off the bed, turning her back on me as she pulls her tank top back on. She heads for the door, muttering something under her breath, probably calling me an asshole.
“Tiffani,” I say quietly, sitting up. I pull the sheets up to my waist and stare at her in silence as she turns around. I am looking at my girlfriend, but I am not looking at a girl I even remotely like, let alone love. When I kiss her, I don’t feel that same adrenaline rush that I felt last night when I kissed Eden. “What is this? Us,” I clarify. “What is it?”
“What the hell, Tyler?” Tiffani says as her expression twists, full of confusion. She looks taken aback that I’ve even asked.
“Just tell me,” I plead desperately. It’s always been at the back of my mind, I guess. “What are we doing? Because I have no idea. We don’t even…” I inhale, shaking my head.We don’t even like each other. I can’t say it out loud though, because it sounds almost cruel. “Why are we together?”
I know why. We are together because it benefits us both, because I get the hot, popular girlfriend to make Tyler Bruce’s life look pretty nice, and she gets the guy who she knows will do anything she asks of him. A guy whose every move she can control. She must know that deep downI’m weak. That’s why it’s so easy for her. I’m just a prop in her life, the same way she is in mine. But we are bad for each other. Weshouldn’tbe together. “We’re not talking about this,” Tiffani states. She is clenching her jaw, and I know I’m taking a huge risk here. Tiffani doesn’t like it when I step out of line and do something that goes against her wishes. Shealwaysretaliates. “Don’t bring it up again.”
“Maybe we should…I don’t know.” I shrug. “You know as well as I do that this is stupid. Maybe we should just take a break or something.”
“How’s selling weed going?” she cuts in quickly, her voice seething. She folds her arms across her chest and raises an eyebrow at me, her eyes piercing straight into mine.
My heart stops for a second. “What?” I say, feigning surprise as though I have no idea what she’s talking about.How does she know?
“You thought I wouldn’t find out? You think I’m that stupid?” she says, rolling her eyes, but her tone is venomous, and she is becoming the Tiffani I really, really don’t like. The one that is devious and controlling. “Last night, while you were too drunk to function, Greg asked me if I knew where you were, because he was justdyingfor a smoke.” Slowly, she walks back over to the bed, a twisted smile on her face. Sheknowsshe’s caught me. “Rumor has it, you can hook people up these days.”
“Tiffani…”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. You’re a liar.” She sits down on the bed, crosses her legs, and then grins at me. She is loving the power she has over me right now. It’s almost sadistic. “So, new plan,” she says, her voice sickeningly sweet. “We’re not discussingusagain until graduation. Or, you know, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to keep your secret.” She gives me a small shrug and a frown, then she leans in close and presses her lips to mine again. “I love you, Ty. And you love me too. Rememberthat.” I am paralyzed as I watch her leave the room, swinging her hips and humming. I feel sick, but it’s not because of the amount of alcohol I consumed last night. No, it’s a reason much worse than that.
Tiffani is blackmailing me.
33
Five Years Earlier
“Broken,” Dr. Coleman says as he angles his computer screen around to face us. I stare at the X-ray of my hand as he points out a bone. “It’s the lunate again,” he explains with a frown. “Of course, it was already weak, so it’s no surprise it has fractured so easily again.” He turns the screen back around and pushes his glasses up on the bridge of his nose as he begins to type something up.
The small office goes quiet. My wrist is throbbing in my lap. Dad is sitting on the edge of his seat next to me, fumbling with his hands, his foot anxiously tapping against the floor. It’s late morning, and instead of being at school and at work, we are here.
“It’ll heal though, right?” Dad asks Dr. Coleman. Even his breathing is shallow.
“Luckily, it’s not severe,” Dr. Coleman says, glancing up from his screen. “Back into a cast for three weeks, but there’s a lot of swelling right now, so we’ll stick to a splint over the weekend. Bring him back on Monday, and we’ll get a cast on. Expect it to take a couple of months to fully heal.” He flashes me a teasing smile, but I can tell there’s a seriousness to his words as he says, “That’s if you don’t break it again first, Tyler!”
Dad looks at the ground again. He feels real bad today, way more than usual. Is it because he can’t ignore the pain he’s inflicted this time? Is it because he has to look at me and see the Band-Aid on my forehead and the swelling of my wrist?
“Peter,” Dr. Coleman says as he continues to type away at his computer, glancing sideways at Dad, “how’s your father doing these days? I haven’t seen him around lately.”
