When I make my way through to the kitchen, Tyler is hovering by the trash can, tipping a tray of glass into it. I glance over the countertop and into the living room, where sunshine is streaming in through the huge windows and casting light over everything. I take note of how everything has been tidied to the point where the place looks immaculate, like we were never here. He must have cleaned up all the shards from the glass that he smashed last night while I was still sleeping.
With a sigh, he shoves the tray into a cupboard and turns to me, rubbing his hands together. “I called us a cab,” he tells me. He steals a glance at his watch and nods to the door. “I know it’s weird, but I can’t exactly ask someone for a ride without having them wonder what the hell we’ve been doing. We can’t look suspicious, remember? The cab driver won’t know us. It should be here any second.”
I give him a weak nod. “Where are my shoes?” The carpet keeps my bare feet warm, but I realize I’m not exactly sure where my Converse have ended up. I quickly scan the living room for them.
“I don’t know,” Tyler says, and his eyes also join in the search. “But we need to get outta here.”
“But my shoes—” I try to protest, upset that I’ve lost them. My favorite pair of Chucks too: the ones with my favorite lyrics written along the side. The ones that I pull on to go to school, to go grocery shopping for my mom, to wear to beach parties when I’m drunk and want to kiss my stepbrother.
“I’ll buy you a new pair. Now come on,” Tyler urges, growing slightly impatient. He furrows his eyebrows as he heads over to the door, opening it up and standing out in the lobby, waiting for me to join him. When I do, he locks up and slides the key under the doormat.
The polished tiles beneath my feet feel cold, and I dash across the lobby and into the elevator before Tyler even has a chance to turn around, but when he does, he smirks before joining me inside right before the doors close.
He looks at me hard as the elevator begins to move, his expression stern, but he’s struggling to suppress the smirk. “I don’t think we should mention last night to our parents.”
“I don’t think we should mention last night to anyone,” I correct, but even though we’re only joking around, I tense up. I just want to sigh endlessly. That’s all this is, one huge sigh, because we have no idea what we’re doing.
Tyler must notice the worry in my eyes, because he reaches over and gently grasps my hand the same way he did last night when he was looking after me. I stare at our hands for a moment, taking in the way they look when they’re interlocked together. I like it. When I glance up at him, he only smiles and tightens his fingers around mine.
There’s a thought lingering in my head, that perhaps we’ll never be able to tell anyone, and that we’ll constantly be whispering, “Shhh, this is a secret,” to each other. Keeping this a secret is hard, but telling is harder. We can never win.
When the elevator doors open, Tyler leads me through the lobby to the main entrance, and through the glass doors, we can see a cab parked by the sidewalk. I’m hesitant about walking outside barefoot, but I quickly get over it and follow Tyler down the steps and into the vehicle. A middle-aged woman greets us, hungover smile on her lips.
It takes us almost twenty minutes to get back to the house, which is surprising considering it’s Sunday morning and the traffic is minimal. I think the cab driver is taking advantage of the fact that we’re young, assuming that therefore we must be naive and completely blind. She takes at least five wrong turns, murmuring, “Oops, not this one!” each time. I’m glaring at her from the backseat as she drives, noticing the way she’s purposely riding up the fare and prolonging the time I have to sit in silence overthinking everything about last night. It’s making me feel nauseous, but Tyler only shrugs at me when I point to the meter with a scowl on my face. He doesn’t bother to argue about it, just hands the driver twenty bucks and yanks me out of the car, which promptly zooms off the second I’ve shut the door.
“Where did you tell them you were going last night?” Tyler asks as we linger outside the house for a moment, not quite sure how we’re going to handle our parents. I look like trash and my shoes are gone and I most likely smell of booze.
“The movies,” I say.
Tyler lets out a breath and shakes his head down at me. “The movies? Where’s your originality?”
“What was your excuse?” I fire at him.
“They didn’t get one. I left before they could notice.”
“Well,” I say, “that doesn’t surprise me.”
He chuckles, but he still appears slightly anxious when he glances back at the house. We have no choice but to go inside—we’ll have to eventually. I wish I could stay away from it, away from Dad and away from Ella, hidden somewhere with Tyler while he tells me more about his life. That would be perfect.