I hate Dad. I fucking hate him.
I can hear the commotion around me. I can feel my friends pulling at me, touching all of those bruises hidden beneath my clothes, yanking at my arms, screaming my name. Blake hits me back, his fist hurling straight into my mouth as he tries to shove me off him, but I don’t even feel it. I am numb to pain. I am used to pain.
“Hey!” a deep male voice yells out, and suddenly a new set of hands are around me, firm ones that remind me of Dad’s, and in one swift tug, I am pulled straight off Blake. I stumble back, falling into the man behind me, and when I open my eyes, I see Blake on the floor. I see the cafeteria surrounding us in a tight circle, people pushing through one another to get a better view. I see my friends, Dean mostly, staring at me with their mouths hung wide open, their expressions pale with disbelief. And when I crane my neck to see who is behind me, to see who is holding me firmly and dragging me away, my heart pounds even faster than it already is when I discover that it’s our campus police officer.
46
Present Day
I pace back and forth across the hall for the entire hour that Eden is gone. I have the house to myself, and it is so very tempting to hurl my fist into the wall, but I manage to keep both my temperandthe house in order. Something is up, I know it. Tiffani is angry at me and I need to fix it. I have tried calling her numerous times, but it keeps going straight to her voice mail. I doubt she’ll reply to any of my texts either. The longer I am pacing, the more panicked I’m growing. I should have made more effort with her the past couple days. I can’t afford to upset her right now. Not when she has every control over me.
That’s why, when the front door slowly creaks open and Eden steps foot inside the house, I am desperately begging for information from her. I march straight over to her with my fists already clenched.
“What’d she say?” I ask, my voice demanding. I don’t mean to talk to Eden in such a bitter tone, but I can’t help it right now. Tiffani brings out the worst in me, and I hate it. “What did you say?”
There is no color in Eden’s face. She is white, her gaze dominated by fear, and she shakes her head as she steals a glance into the living room. “Where’s your mom?”
“Picking up Chase,” I answer quickly. I just need to know what is going on. “Now what the hell happened?”
Eden is quiet as she deeply inhales, locking her terrified eyes on mine. “Someone saw us last night,” she says, and her lower lip quivers as she glances down at the ground. “Austin Cameron… He told Tiffani.”
God, no. Austin can’t have seen us. My windows are tinted for a fucking reason. “Are you kidding me?” Who the hell does Austin think he is? Now I understand why Tiffani is so livid at me, and she most definitely won’t let this go easily. Is that why she took Eden with her? To confront her? I feel sick at the thought of just how quickly this news will spread.Tyler Bruce and his stepsister… I throw a punch now, but only at my own palm. What has Austin done? “I will floor that motherfu—”
“They don’t know it was me,” Eden interrupts, offering at leastsomesort of reassurance. So Tiffani knows I was with another girl last night, but she doesn’t knowwho.That’s if the guilt in Eden’s eyes hasn’t already given the game away. “She’s devastated, Tyler,” she says quietly.
I fall silent as I think. This has happened before. I have kissed other girls, and Tiffani has heard the rumors, but she has never really believed them. This time…I don’t know. She seems to believe it, and the weight of the situation feels much heavier. Those other girls before… Those kisses were meaningless. This time is different, and I know that if Tiffani discovers this information, then she will make my life hell.
“I’ll fix this,” I finally tell Eden. My gaze meets hers, and I really hate how uncomfortable and worried she looks right now. With Tiffani in my life, I should have known that I would inevitably drag Eden into a situation like this. “Look, she’s pissed off. I get it, but I can make it up to her. I’ll tell her I made a mistake, I’ll buy her something nice, and then she’ll forget about it and everything will be fine again,” I say. Atleast that’s how Iusuallywin Tiffani’s forgiveness. “And then we can figure the rest out.”
Suddenly, Eden’s entire demeanor changes and now she is furious at me too. “Everything won’t be fine,” she spits, glaring back up at me as though this is allmyfault now. I guess it is. “Nothing is fine, Tyler! This needs to stop.”
I furrow my eyebrows at her. “What needs to stop?”
“This.” She throws up her hands and motions back and forth between the two of us. She looks exasperated as she exhales and weaves her fingers into her hair. “You have a girlfriend, Tyler. I refuse to be a cheater.”
“You won’t be,” I reassure her. If anything, the only cheater here is me. I like that Eden is the kind of girl to be concerned about this though. The kind of girl who wants to do the right thing. The kind of girl who doesn’t want to hurt anyone. It’s so attractive to me, and I can’t help but step closer to her, reaching out to touch her elbow. When she raises her voice at me, when she narrows her hazel eyes at me like that, she becomes irresistible. I pull her toward me, leaning in closer, desperate to press my lips to hers.
But before I get there, she pulls her arm free and jerks away from me. My eyes flash open and she is retreating from me, her hands on her hips as she stares at me in disbelief. I figure that, okay, sure, maybe it was bad timing. But oh my God, the things she does to me.
“Are you serious?” she asks. “Now really isn’t the time. Even if you could completely guarantee that she wouldn’t find out—which she will—I still wouldn’t do this anyway.” She takes yet another step back, increasing the distance between us, shaking her head at me. “I am not doing this,” she states firmly.
“C’mon,” I murmur, smoldering my eyes at her in an attempt towin her over. It’s such a Tyler Bruce thing to do, and I hate myself for doing it, because she can clearly see straight through me. She wrinkles her nose at me and then storms upstairs. I turn around and watch her, but before she can disappear out of sight, I tell her, “We can figure this out.” I’m being serious. Iwillfigure this out.
“How, Tyler?” she asks, her voice laced with skepticism as she promptly spins back around, stopping halfway up the stairs. She stares back down at me, her hands resting on the banister. “We only have two options.”
“Only two?”
“Two,” she says, and presses her lips into a firm line. “You have to break up with her.”
“No,” I say quickly, shaking my head. “I can’t.” Tiffani plays too big a role in my life. She’s toxic and controlling, but she’s also my safety net. It’s reassuring to know that she isn’t going anywhere, that she’ll always be there to keep my mind occupied when life gets a little too hard. I guess I just like that security, even though I know being with Tiffani is wrong. I think maybe Icouldsurvive without her, but breaking up with her isn’t an option. Not when she is using my involvement with Declan to blackmail me. Right now, I’m just not in a strong enough mental state to challenge that.
“Why not?” Eden questions.
Do I tell her? I don’t think I can, at least not without explaining that I am more involved with Declan Portwood than everyone thinks I am, and it is a long, long story anyway. My relationship with Tiffani is a three-year-long mess. “Because it’s more complicated than you think it is, alright? Tiffani’s… Look, don’t push it.” I narrow my eyes at her, something I always do when I need someone to realize that I am beingdeadly serious, then I sigh. “What’s the other option?”
“We ignore whatever we have between us,” Eden answers, and her shoulders sink. I hate the sound of that option, and I think she does too. She is coming from the right place though, and her honesty makes me want her even more.
“So basically,” I say, leaning back against the wall and crossing my arms over my chest, “I get to be with you if I break up with Tiffani? It’s you or her, right?” I look softly up at Eden on the stairs, wishing she was closer to me. I hate that we’re having this conversation. This situationsucks. I am being blackmailed to stay in a toxic relationship that Idoactually enjoy being in sometimes, but I also really think there’s something different about Eden that I want to explore.
