“What the fuck were you thinking, Tyler?” Dad yells, his voice a rumbling growl, and he throws me against his car. There go those bruises again. A sharp pain flares up where my body bashes against the metal. He grabs me, both hands pulling at my hoodie, dragging me closer toward him. “You just got suspended! Suspended!” He shakes, throws me back against the car again. I can see the veins in his forehead, defined and popping, his eyes engulfed by the fury that he can’t control. “You beat up a kid!”
“You do that too,” I whisper.
And I shouldn’t have said it. I shouldn’t have challenged him, because a new anger explodes inside of him as his glare becomes venomous. He stares at me in silence for a few seconds, registering my words, his chest heaving.
“Get in the car, Tyler,” he orders, his voice low and seething. He barges me out of the way as he walks around the car to the driver’s side,and as he opens the door and steps one foot inside, his glare sharpens across the roof of the vehicle at me when he realizes I haven’t moved yet. “Get in the fucking car!” he yells.
I’ve accepted my fate at this point. It is too late now to change the outcome. There is no going back from this, no calming Dad’s rage. Not after fighting, not after getting suspended, not after that remark. As I swallow hard and slide into the passenger seat, I am already trying to focus on something else. I am willing the numbness to set in, to save me, but it doesn’t arrive soon enough.
As soon as I pull the car door shut, Dad’s fist pummels my face, and I feel every ounce of pain that comes with it.
48
Present Day
In the confines of my bathroom, Eden and I are staring back at one another in silence. I can’t quite process what she has just done. I am trapped, and I know she has done this on purpose. It’s almost brave of her, and if I wasn’t so desperate for a high right now, then I would most likely appreciate the effort. This morning, I would have loved nothing more than to be locked in here alone with her, but right now, in this frame of mind, I just can’t see the positive side.
“Are you kidding me?” I splutter, narrowing my eyes at her. Ineeda distraction, and she has stolen that chance from me. I glance around the room, but there is no way out. I almost reach into my pocket for my phone, but it’s in my room.
“No,” Eden says. There is a smug sort of smile pulling at her lips, a challenging, devious one. One that says she doesn’t give a shit that we are trapped. She knows she has gotten the better of me right now, and she can’t even begin to hide her satisfaction. I step around her, nudging her out of the way so that I can at least attempt to escape. I grab the handle and I shake it, pushing and pulling, even pressing my weight against the door, begging for it to open. The lock has been broken forover a year now, and I once got locked in here last summer and had to wait it out for four hours until Dave got home to get me the hell out.
“Just give up,” Eden says. She is watching me as I fight for my freedom, and I groan under my breath and step back from the door. It’s not going to open.
I can feel my heart racing from the panic arising at the thought ofnotmeeting Declan. It pounds in my chest and my body feels tense and rigid. My mouth feels too dry. I place my hands behind my head and tilt my face up to the ceiling. I need to accept that I am stuck here, that I will not be getting the buzz I so desperately need. I close my eyes, breathing deeply, exhaling all of my negative energy. Or at least some of it. I open my eyes again and fix them on Eden. I still can’t believe she has done this.
“I’m sorry that I actually care,” she says, folding her arms across her chest. She isn’t backing down today. “You’re just going to have to find another way to distract yourself. An alternative. One that won’t kill you.”
My eyes are darting all over the room, and they finally settle on my reflection in the cabinet mirror. I hate how furious I look, so I drop my gaze to the floor instead. I don’t want to get angry at Eden. She is only trying to help me, and that is a lot more than anyone else has ever done. Shedoescare, and I love that, despite how aggravating it can be. Today can be written off as a complete disaster, and the only reason I am craving something stronger than just alcohol right now is because my head is such a mess from the thought of Eden cutting me off. “You were becoming my distraction,” I admit, lowering my voice. I can’t look at her. “But apparently I can’t have you.”
Eden doesn’t say anything at first. She is quiet as she registers this new information, and I hear her inhale a breath of air. “Why am I a distraction?” she quietly asks.
I look up from the floor to meet her curious gaze. Eden doesn’t know it, but I don’t have to be Tyler Bruce around her, and that’s something so new and refreshing that it is almost addictive to me. “Because you make things a little easier,” I finally tell her. This is the truth, and the truth is not something I am usually great at dealing with. “Because I get to focus on you instead of everything else.”
“Then don’t stop,” Eden says, but her voice is laced with nerves now. Slowly, she moves a step closer to me and I stare at her, my gaze never leaving hers. I am trying so hard not to think about a nice clean line of coke right now, but it’s still there in the back of my mind, still calling for me. Eden reaches up and places her hand on my jaw, her skin cool. “Focus on me,” she whispers.
“Then distract me,” I say. I reach for her hand on my jaw and move it away. I need distracting right now more than ever, but something more than Eden’s touch.
“We can talk. We’ve never once just talked,” she says quietly, her voice almost a whisper. A new silence has formed around us in this tiny bathroom, and we are afraid to break it.
“Okay. Let’s talk,” I say. I move around her and lean back against my shower door, sliding down the glass until I’m sitting on the cold floor. I stretch my legs out in front of me and then close my eyes, still focusing on my erratic breathing. I don’t really do the talking thing, but with Eden, I’m willing to give it a chance. I like listening to her voice. It’s soothing to me.
“Can we talk about Tiffani?” I hear Eden gently ask, as though she’s afraid to mention her name. “Calmly this time.”
My eyes flash open to look at her again. She is still hovering by the sink, looking down at me with a wary gaze. Tiffani is thelastperson I want to talk about right now. Reluctantly, I mutter, “Fine.”
Eden steps around my body and sits down on the floor next to me, hugging her knees to her chest and leaning back against the door. She frowns. “Why won’t you break up with her? You don’t even like her. You said so yourself.”
My eyes roam Eden’s body, searching her eyes first, then her lips, then her hands. She wants an answer, but I don’t know what to tell her. She wouldn’t understand. “I can’t break up with her,” I tell her again for the second time today. Breaking up with Tiffani just isn’t going to happen.
“But why?”
I shake my head, ready to object to answering, but then I realize that Eden will most likely only continue to press me about the matter. I cover my face with my hand and rub at my eyes while I consider what exactly I will say. It is such a long, complicated story and the thought of having to explain it all is enough to make me groan out loud. I decide to simplify it. “Tiffani’s really good at acting like she’s the nicest girl around. But she’s not,” I tell Eden. “The second you do something wrong to her, she turns into a psychopath. She knows too much about me. I can’t risk it. At least not right now.”
“Psychopath?” Eden repeats. She seems surprised, which only means that Tiffanidoesdo a good job at acting. We are almost as bad as each other when it comes to putting up a front. “What does she know?”
“It’s…” I don’t even know what to say. There are so many things Tiffani has done over the years, so I shift on the floor, getting more comfortable. “Okay. Example: back in January, she heard I’d been hanging out with this girl during lunch period every Tuesday, which I totally hadn’t, and she went crazy. I slaved over an essay for English lit for two weeks straight because I had to get my grades up, and she told my teacher that she wrote it. My entire grade dropped, and I gotsuspended for cheating, which is so dumb. The same day she used her mom’s email to email my mom, telling her that she was concerned for my well-being because I was smoking joints in the school basement. That part is true, and Tiffani’s the only one who knew. Mom didn’t talk to me for almost a month. I would have dumped Tiffani back then, but she made it clear that I shouldn’t ever go there. So I never have. Breaking up isn’t an option. There are so many more things she can do, because she has the upper hand in all of this.” I’m nearly out of breath by the time I finish.
Eden listens carefully to each word I say, and she stays quiet as she slowly absorbs them. “What else does she know, Tyler?” I should just tell her the truth, or at leastsomeof it, and I definitely can’t look at her while I do. I don’t want to see her look disappointed in me.
