“Tyler,” I whisper. I try to draw his eyes back to mine through the quiet force of his name, but he doesn’t quite turn around. He only gives me a quick glance over his shoulder. “Trust me. Please.”
He’s still staring down at the carpet, but now he’s shaking his head, slowly, like it hurts to give in. With his eyes squeezed shut, he exhales. “Don’t make me tell you.”
I edge my body in front of him very carefully, stepping between him and the window. Not that it matters; he’s no longer looking out into the night as it carries on without us. I swallow the lump in my throat and press a delicate hand to his chest. “Please,” I whisper.
His eyes open agonizingly slowly and I’m waiting for the emerald within them to hit me, and when they finally meet mine, my breath catches in my throat. They’re so dilated and so soft and so pained, and I have never once witnessed such emotion pool over him before. I’ve seen furious and I’ve seen sadistic and I’ve seen vulnerable, but this goes beyond vulnerability. I see helplessness.
“My dad’s an asshole,” he whispers, his lips barely moving. “I told everyone he’s in jail for grand theft auto. That’s not true.” His jaw tightens and he turns his face to the side. I watch him physically build up the courage to keep going, his nostrils flaring, and he never turns back. And then he dares to utter words that have never once crossed my mind. “He’s in jail for child abuse.”
Those two words cause my blood to run cold, and a shiver surges down my spine. The words are painful to hear. They’re two words that should never be said together, because child abuse shouldn’t exist, shouldn’t be a thing, shouldn’t be real. Bile accumulates in my throat and my lips part, my mouth gaping in disbelief as Tyler closes his eyes again. I’m only now realizing how hard it was for him to say what he just said.
“You?” I whisper.
He nods.
Every single detail I have collected up until now suddenly clicks together all at once, and it’s so overwhelming that I feel paralyzed, unable to move. I can only think. Now I understand why he looked unhappy in that picture in Dean’s garage. Of course he was unhappy. Now I understand why he has suffered broken wrists before. Of course he got mad when I brought it up. Now I understand why so many photos were missing from his photo album. Of course he got rid of them. Now I understand why he needs distractions. Of course.
Of course, of course, of course.
It’s so obvious now.
I let out a breath and force myself to ask, “Jamie and Chase?”
“Just me,” he says.
“Tyler, I…” Something inside me is shattering at the thought of Tyler going through something so horrific and so cruel. My voice cracks and I have to stop for a second to compose myself. My hand is still on his chest and I can feel his heart beating, slow and loud. “I’m so sorry.”
“I do a pretty good job of keeping it a secret,” he mutters as he steps back from me, and the devastation in his eyes is gone now. It has been replaced with a bubbling anger that is fueled by the pain within him. “No one knows. Not Tiffani, not Dean, not anyone.”
“Why haven’t you told them?”
“Because I don’t want pity,” he shoots back sharply, but I can hear the strain in his voice. With a shrug, he turns away from me and walks across the room to the other side of the bed, gripping the edge of the bedside table. “Pity is for pussies. I don’t wanna look weak. I’m done with being weak.” There’s a thunderous slam as he hurls his fist into the top of the table and spins back around, livid. “That’s all I ever fucking was. Weak.”
Everything is starting to make sense to me. I glance away from him, out the window to the deep dark blue of the sky outside. The Pacific Wheel is still turning, people still partying on the sand. I look back at him. “You weren’t weak. You were a kid.”
He vigorously shakes his head as he marches back across the small room, his hands curled into fists again as he presses his back against the wall and slides down to the floor. He looks completely defeated. Again, he has shifted from anger to vulnerability. He fixes his eyes on a spot on the wall opposite him and his voice softens up again. “You know, I didn’t really get it for a while,” he says quietly. “I never understood what I did wrong.”
I know he wants me to listen, to just shut up and hear him out, so I hold back my questions and sit down in front of him. I cross my legs on the carpet and just listen to his words, all while watching his lips as he speaks.
“My mom and my dad…” he starts, but he talks very slowly, like he’s thinking of how to word everything as he goes along. “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.”