“Tyler,” Ella says loudly yet slowly. “Please tell me I misheard that.” Her hands are on her chest as she steps outside, Dad close by her side. “Please, please tell me you’re not.”
I’m holding my breath as I look at Tyler, waiting to see if he’ll deny it. He’s just standing there again, like he’s so overwhelmed by everything that he’s ended up paralyzed. There are probably a million and one thoughts flying around his head right now.
He lowers his head, drops his eyes to the grass, and murmurs, “I wish I wasn’t.”
Ella clasps her hands to her mouth, muffling her horrified gasp, her eyes flooding with tears. Everything is going wrong today. She turns to Dad and buries her face in his chest, and surprisingly he wraps his arms around her and doesn’t say a word. By now, I’d expect him to be arguing. He might be silent as he comforts her, but it doesn’t stop him from glaring.
When Tyler looks up, I can see the pained expression in his eyes again, the same one as last night. The guilt is almost dripping from him. “Mom,” he says, his voice choked, “don’t cry. I’m not, like, addicted or anything. I just—well, it helps.”
Through her tears and through my dad’s shirt, Ella mumbles something, but it’s so muffled that I can barely make out what she’s saying. Tyler doesn’t either.
“Mom, breathe for a sec,” he says, and cautiously he begins to walk toward her. Even though my dad has her wrapped comfortably in his arms, Tyler reaches over to place a hand on her shoulder, but she shakes it off and lifts her head.
“I said,” she whispers, “get out.”
Tyler’s eyebrows knit together. “What?”
“Get out of this house.”
We all freeze. We’re all stunned. Dad’s eyebrows shoot up even higher, like he can’t believe that Ella is really kicking her son out of the house, and Tyler is speechless, his lips moving but not speaking. I really, really want to cry now. He can’t get kicked out. It’s the last thing he needs, especially after Tiffani’s bombshell.
“Are you serious?” His voice is so soft, so weak.
Ella doesn’t say anything, just steps back from Dad and dabs at her eyes, sniffing. She looks devastated. “Tyler, please,” she pleads gently and immediately bursts into tears again. “Just leave. I can’t handle this anymore.”
Tyler and I exchange shocked glances as Dad hugs Ella to his chest again. Neither of us was expecting all of this to happen. It’s a Sunday. Sundays are supposed to be boring. I shouldn’t be watching Tyler get kicked out of the house.
Tilting his head down to face the ground, he stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jeans and walks past our parents. He moves in such a defeated manner, with his shoulders low and his steps slow. Like it’s second nature by now, I break out of my rooted spot on the lawn and go after him. I ignore Dad’s eyes as they follow me, because I’m beyond the point of caring about what he has to say.
Tyler’s already sprinted up the staircase by the time I catch up to him, and Jamie and Chase are standing on the landing, their eyes wide and curious. It makes me wonder if they’ve heard the entire thing, from Tyler being hooked on coke to getting kicked out. They quickly move to the side as Tyler and I push past them and into his room. He slams the door shut behind us.
I stand by the side of his bed and watch as he reaches into his closet and pulls down a navy duffel bag from the shelf. Dean’s varsity jacket comes with it, falling to the floor before Tyler kicks it out of the way. For a few minutes, he rummages around his room, pulling out shirts and jeans and piling them all into the bag without saying a single word. The stress shows on his face.
“Where are you going to go?” I ask, breaking the silence. I can’t imagine not having him in the house and hearing him argue about the bacon each morning. I can’t imagine the room next to mine being empty. I can’t imagine not seeing him smile at me when we pass on the stairs.
He glances up as he slides the strap of the bag onto his shoulder, but our eyes don’t meet for long before he looks away again. “I have no idea,” he says quietly, turning his back on me and heading across to his bathroom. I follow behind him. “Dean’s. Maybe. I don’t know. My head’s a mess.”
I pause at the bathroom door. My eyes are heavy, but it doesn’t stop me from keeping them trained on Tyler. I take a deep breath. “You’ve started dealing?”
Immediately he stops moving and just stands there, the only sound him exhaling slowly. He lowers his head and stares at the tiled flooring. “Only recently.”
Disappointment floods through me. I thought it was serious before, but now I’m even more concerned, knowing just how deeply involved he is with the criminal underworld. “Why?”