Ty shrugs again. Winces again.
“I aimed the gun. Sawyer pulled the trigger.”
My stomach plummets to the floor.
Good grief.
Those are the mechanics of what happened, but he isn’t providing context whatsoever.
“Ty…”
More tears leak from my eyes as I sniffle.
“Come here.” He grips one of the legs of my chair and pulls until it’s flush against his seat. Then he loops one arm around my hips and pulls gently, encouraging me up.
“Wait, I don’t want to hurt—”
“Just get over here,” he huffs. “Let me hold you while I try to get through this.”
Bewilderment washes over me. In all my wildest dreams, I never thought Ty would willingly and openly talk about this. He and I don’t ever talk about it. Not even Atty knows the whole truth.
Trembling, I climb into his lap, taking care not to lean back or put too much weight on his chest.
Once I’m settled, he hooks his chin over my shoulder. “Okay?” he murmurs, the word quiet and timid, like he knows this is all extremely risky.
What he said rings true: we’ve kept this secret for long enough and neither of us has fared all that well with it. Maybe it’s time to try a different way forward.
I nod, then rest my head against his. We sit like that for a few breaths. For the final seconds before we aren’t the only people who know the details of that fateful day. We never told Atty the mechanics of who did what and how everything happened. I’ve never shared my narrative of the events with anyone, ever. Once we open up to Mercer and Noah, everything will change.
As if he can read my mind, Ty brings his lips to my ear. “It’s okay, mon ange. We’re okay.”
It’s a lie we’ve been telling each other for years.
It’s a lie I desperately wish could be true.
I nod and sit up in his lap, encouraging him to go on.
“My father killed Sawyer’s parents,” he says. “Both of them. They were my legal guardians. The Davvies family took me in when I was eleven. They were the only adults who ever saw me as a human. I wasn’t a case number, or a troublemaker. I wasn’t ahockey player or another mouth to feed. To them, in their house, I was just a kid.”
Ty’s voice trembles on the last few words.
A deep, noxious ache twists my insides. He loved them so much, and they loved him.
He drags his hand over my hip and settles it on my stomach, holding me steady.
“My father murdered them. In their own home. It happened a few days before my eighteenth birthday. Money is the only motive that ever made sense. But we’ll never know for sure why he did it.”
I hold my breath and dig deep for the strength to get through this. Or at least to dissociate while he does.
“We found them,” he chokes out. “Sawyer’s parents were both dead by the time we got home, but my father wasn’t. He was hurt and drunk, but he was very much alive.”
Inside, I’m frozen. Hollow. Detached. Successfully checked out of the conversation. I pick up my mug of coffee, letting the heat from the ceramic seep into my fingertips and warm me from the outside.
“My father was just coming to when we found him in the study. He was on the floor. He and Mr. Davvies had clearly been in a struggle.”
Atty and Ty had gone into the room long before I arrived on the scene. Snapshots of my mother and chocolate frosting and glistening pools of blood dominate my memories from that day. It’s rare I think about anything except my mom, the hallway outside my dad’s office, and that last part of the night. When I wrapped my arms around Ty and pulled the trigger.
Ty’s body is rigid as he says, “My father was trying to get up when we found him. Then he threatened Sawyer.”
