“Just me,” I say. I wouldn’t have been able to cope if it had been any other way.
“Tyler, I…” Her voice cracks and grows huskier as she keeps her hand on my chest, reminding me that she is here with me. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers.
There it is:sympathy. I don’t need that.
“I do a pretty good job of keeping it a secret,” I mutter as I open my eyes again. Eden is pale, and her eyes are wide and brimming with tears, but this is exactly what I didn’t want. I step back from her and she drops her hand. “No one knows. Not Tiffani, not Dean, not anyone.”
“Why haven’t you told them?”
“Because I don’t want pity,” I snap. My anger is returning and I can feel it rising all the way up through my chest, tightening around my heart. I walk away from Eden and grab onto the edge of the bedside table for support. “Pity is for pussies. I don’t wanna look weak. I’m done with being weak.” I hate Dad so much.Why did he do this to me? Why did he ruin my life? My rage comes to an explosive head andI throw a punch, slamming my fist straight into the bedside table. My knuckles should ache, but I don’t feel pain that much anymore. “That’s all I ever fucking was. Weak.”
“You weren’t weak,” Eden says, shaking her head at me. “You were a kid.”
She’s wrong. Iwasweak. I should have been stronger, I should have stood up to him, I should have told someone. I storm across the room and lean back against the wall, sliding down onto the floor and inhaling. “You know, I didn’t really get it for a while,” I admit after a moment, after the anger has subsided. I need to tell her more. I need to open up for once, even if it is only a little. I can’t tell her everything, but I can tell her enough. “I never understood what I did wrong.”
Eden sits down on the carpet in front of me, crossing her legs and remaining silent. She is listening, and I realize that right now, that’s all I really need. Maybe Mom is right. Maybe talking to someonecanhelp.
“My mom and my dad…” I begin, but I’m struggling to find the right words. It’s a complicated story. It’s tough to tell. “They were just teenagers when they had me, so I get that they probably had no clue what they were doing. They both got a little obsessed with building careers. Dad had his dumb company, the one I told you about.”
“Grayson’s,” Eden says quietly. She remembers.
“Grayson’s,” I confirm. This is going to take some time to explain, so I clear my throat and lean forward, folding my arms over my knees. My heart is still pounding. “It was great to start with. The business really took off for a few years, but when I was, like, eight, some deal fell through. Dad had a shit temper. He came home one night and Mom was at the office working late, and he was super pissed off and he took it out on me. I kind of let that one slide. I thought it was a one-off. But then his employees were all quitting and it stressed him out and hetook it out on me again. It kept happening more often. It went from once a week to every single night. He’d tell me I couldn’t do anything I wanted to do, because I needed to focus on school instead. Said he wanted me to get into an Ivy League college so that I didn’t end up fucking up my career the same way he was. But the truth was, I didn’t want to have a big-shot career or get into an Ivy League school, yet I spent every single night locked in my room trying to study so that he wouldn’t get mad at me. I thought, I’m trying, right? That’s enough, isn’t it? But it wasn’t. Every night, he still came upstairs and threw me around.” For a second, I feel as though I can’t breathe. Talking about this is so hard. Memories of Dad are flashing in front of me. The way he used to look at me, the way he used to grab me, the way he used to tell me he was sorry. “Every single night,” I whisper. “Four years.”
“I’m sorry,” Eden says again, still choked up. She doesn’t need to apologize.
“Mom was so busy, she seriously had no idea,” I continue. “She blames herself for it now. She tries to ground me, but it just doesn’t work because she never reinforces it. I think she’s terrified of trying to be strict, you know? It’s not her fault though. She did notice sometimes. She’d be like, ‘Tyler, what have you done to your face this time?’ And I just made up some weak excuse each time. I would tell her my face was busted because I was playing football during gym class or that my wrist was broken because I fell down the stairs. When really, I broke my wrist three times one year because Dad just loved to see how far he could bend it back.”
“Why didn’t you tell someone?” Eden whispers, and it’s a reasonable question. Mom has asked me that same question so many times. “Does my dad know?”
“Because I was fucking scared of him,” I admit. My voice is sostrained. I don’t sound like myself. “There was no way I could tell. The only person who doesn’t know is Chase. He was too young. Mom didn’t want to scare him. The rest of the family hates Dad now.”
“When did it stop?”
“When I was twelve,” I say. Five years ago. Five years ago, it all ended. Or at least it should have. These past five years have been hell, and my rage returns. Dad’s actions have caused a ripple effect through my life. “Jamie came upstairs one night and saw Dad hitting me,” I explain as I push myself up from the floor. “Called the cops, even at his age. Dad was arrested that night. It didn’t go to trial because he pleaded guilty, so it was never publicized. I got to keep it a secret. I get to pretend that I’m fine.”But I’m not fine.
I begin to pace around the bedroom, trying to keep my anger at bay before it can manifest even more than it already has. “I really fucking hate him,” I spit. “Really, really hate him. After a year or something, I started to believe that there must have been a reason for it all. I thought I deserved it for being a worthless piece of crap. I still do. I can’t even move on from it, because it’s impossible to forget, which sounds so pathetic, but it’s true. I’m supposed to be on antidepressants, but I don’t take them because I want to drink and get high instead, and you can’t do both. And you know what, Eden? You’re right. I’m lost. I’m totally fucking lost in this mess.”
Eden gets up from the floor too. She stands still, watching me while I pace, unsure what exactly to say to me. There is nothing anyonecansay. At this point in my life, I have accepted what happened. My past is a part of me. It has shaped me into who I am today; it has made me the mess that I am. That doesn’t mean that I think what happened was okay. It wasn’t, and I’m furious.
“I depend on distractions!” I yell across the room to Eden, eventhough she is only a few feet away. “They make coping easier, because in the hours that I’m drunk or high or both, I forget that my dad fucking hates me!”
I need to release the fury that’s running through me, and so I stop pacing and grab the empty glass, hurling it at the wall. I love smashing things. It’s satisfying to me, it keeps me calm, and I watch as broken pieces of glass shatter onto the carpet, breathing heavily. Eden gasps.
All of my energy seems to leave my body. I hate what Dad has done to me. I feel so lifeless, so empty. I sink down onto the bed behind me as my pulse continues to race, and I lock my eyes on the dark sky outside. The moon is full and bright. “I hate him,” I growl, swallowing hard.I hate him so much.
Eden walks over, stepping in front of me. I tilt my head back to look up at her, to meet her eyes, which are full of warmth and reassurance.
Delicately, she reaches out and presses both her hands to my jaw, cupping my face. Her gaze never leaves mine as she sits down on my lap, our bodies pressed together, her skin warm. My breath catches in my throat. She is so close. She brushes her thumbs over my cheeks, then leans forward, moving her lips toward mine. They don’t touch though. I don’t need them to. It’s amazing just having her next to me, feeling her breath on my skin, knowing that in this moment, she is completely mine. I close my eyes, and we remain huddled together like this for a long time. I don’t want her to ever let go.
Finally, she breaks the silence, her gorgeous voice whispering, “Thank you for trusting me.” Then she kisses me.
And right now, she is everything that I need. She is the only thing I want. My desire to kiss her is overwhelming and I bask in the feeling of her mouth against mine as a new fire rises within me. I have just let her into the darkest parts of my soul, and she is still here with me. Shehas seen me at my weakest and my most vulnerable. She has seenme. And she’s still here. She’s in front of me, she’s kissing me, she’s holding me, and I am completely in love with her.
I kiss her desperately as a single tear breaks free from my closed eyes, and I run my hands up her thighs, under her ass. As she presses her chest into mine, I sit up and tighten my hold on her, lifting her up. I never tear my lips from hers, and she is still grasping my jaw in her hands as I lay her down on the bed. I hover over her, kissing her faster, deeper. I need more of her. She is kissing me back with just as much energy and adrenaline, and from beneath me, she manages to shrug off her sweater. Her hands move to my T-shirt, tugging at the material, trying to pull it off. She is struggling, and the only reason the kiss breaks is because I can’t hold back my soft laughter.
I sit back, pull off my shirt, and toss it onto the floor while she smiles sheepishly back at me. We are in the dark, but she radiates brightness, color. She takes her lower lip between her teeth as she runs her eyes down my chest, but I can’t keep my hands off her for long. I’m back above her, kissing my way along her collarbone. My hand is clasping her waist; the other is traveling up her thigh, under her skirt. She is running her hands through my hair, resting her chin on top of my head. She is trembling a little, but so am I. Maybe I’m nervous too.
I’m exploring her body, touching every inch of her. She is pulling on my hair now, and my face is buried into the crook of her neck as she writhes beneath me, arching her back, grinding her body into mine. She is breathing heavily into my hair, and I can’t get enough of her. I place a hand on her cheek, feeling the flushed warmth of her skin.
