“Grayson’s.”
“Grayson’s,” he echoes. Clearing his throat, he leans forward and folds his arms across his knees. “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 he took 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 the Ivy League 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.” He pauses for a long moment, and when he speaks again, his voice has been reduced to nothing more than a whisper. “Every single night. Four years.”
“I’m sorry,” I murmur once more. I really am. No one deserves to be treated like that, especially by a parent, the person you’re supposed to be loved and protected by. I feel sick to my stomach.
Tyler just shrugs. “Mom was so busy, she seriously had no idea. 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 lame 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?” I’m whispering now. The silence is so fragile that I’m terrified of breaking it. “Does my dad know?”
“Because I was fucking scared of him,” Tyler admits, his tone harsh, voice cold. When he lifts his hands and runs them back through his hair, I notice how his eyes darken as his temper heats up. “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 all hate Dad now.”
“When did it stop?”
“When I was twelve,” he says, but he pushes himself up from the floor at the same time. He’s still clenching his jaw as he speaks. “Jamie came upstairs one night and saw Dad hitting me. 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.” A heavy sigh escapes his lips as he walks away from me once more and begins to pace back and forth across the room. “I really fucking hate him. 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.”
From my position on the floor, I press my hands down on the carpet and push my body up. Once I’m on my feet, I try to analyze the emotions flickering within his eyes. There’s everything at once, shifting from one emotion to another so fast that I can barely keep up.
I hear him inhale sharply right before he yells, “I depend on distractions! They make coping easier, because in the hours that I’m drunk or high or both, I forget that my dad fucking hates me!” And then, almost as quickly as the wave of anger washed over him, adrenaline kicks in. He stops pacing and reaches for the glass on the bedside table, snatching it and then hurling it across the room.
I jump a step back, startled when the glass shatters against the far wall. There’s an awful sound, and it pierces through me for a second. The pieces of glass all drop to the floor in a ragged pile, and Tyler just stands there, staring, breathing. Satisfied, he collapses onto the bed.