“What?”
I finally meet his emerald eyes. “Ryan said he'd find me.”
“No, he won’t,” he says with finality.
“You don’t know that.”
“If he is alive, he’s on the run too, Sunny.”
“Maybe,” I sigh. “But how sad do I have to be before it stops hurting?” My voice catches and a tear escapes my pain in a salt tendril down my face.
In one moment we are apart and in the next, his arms are around me. Tyler presses my head to the soft white t-shirt on his chest. Pain manifests in many ways, and unfortunately for me, it’s a tear streaked face and bitten down nails.
Vulnerability is a scary thing, yet here we are, two people exposing the most brutally beaten parts of our hearts. I may as well have cracked my chest open and given him my heart, because now we know parts of one another nobody else does. All without a hazed lens of who we were in comparison to who we are now. There’s no expectations.
We are simply just Tyler and Sunny.
Safe hasn’t been a familiar thing to me in awhile. But sitting right here, I finally feel it with him. Even when he presses his lips into my hair or when he takes in an inhale of me and gives it back. Even when I feel his heartbeat somehow sync with my own. All of these things should scare me, but they simply bring me a familiar comfort I didn’t understand I need.
Amidst the tears, I smile.
All of a sudden, I don’t feel like the lonely girl anymore.
CHAPTER TEN
TYLER
A few daysafter family dinner, I find myself sitting in my parents’ house for the family dinner I really could care less about.
Ryan.
It echoes in my mind. One name that slipped from her mouth has granted me access to a series of possibilities. That one name is simply all I need.
Straining laughter brings my attention back to the reality in front of me. These family dinners are unfortunately my way of keeping tabs on my mother. Getting eyes on her to ensure she doesn’t have any marks or change in her behavior. I may be good at hiding things, but she certainly is better.
While I’d hope Mitchell knew better by now, he’s unpredictable in this house. So much time outside of here is spent being precise, meticulous, with every move planned and designed for success.
In here, he’s able to bleed into his natural state, staining all of us in his wake. Mitchell is one of the most rationally irrational people I know. Drinking only makes it worse.
Sam sits next to me with a spine of steel and white knucklesaround her drink. A total contrast to the mouth full of sass and vulgar gestures she normally has when it’s just our mother. Everything about her is unnaturally still, save for the small bounce of her foot as it hangs from her crossed legs.
I keep my calm demeanor, my body lax to show Mitchell he is simply not a threat. He gets off on power and fuels it with fear. The silence is unbearably loud until my mother finally cuts the quiet with her amber eyes longing for interaction.
I’m sorry this is all you get.
“So, Sam, how is that paint shop?” Her eyes are practically pleading the silence away at this point. The frown lines around her mouth and between her dark brows seem to crevice deeper when her husband is around.
I hacked the cameras in their house to keep tabs on her. Notifications pour through if voices get too loud or movement gets too swift. Facial recognition also alerts me as soon as Mitchell comes home for the day. All so I can know when to keep close watch of the footage. He only ever yells—the hitting stopped because he knows the consequences now.
“It’s an art studio,” Sam corrects her through clenched teeth.
“Right, the art studio. Do you get a lot of business?” Our mother continues, desperate for interaction.
I feel bad for her but I also don’t. I tried to give her an out and she wouldn’t take it. As a child, I begged her to leave him numerous times and well into adulthood, too. The conversation always stayed the same.
Now I sit here every other week, checking on my frail, soft spoken mother. Hoping when I finally see her, she isn’t hiding any physical evidence from me that I wasn’t able to see on the cameras.
“It brings enough. I –” Sam is cut off by Mitchell.
