I divert my eyes back to the window as I stand there, staring through the blinds and fixing my eyes on Rachael’s car, which is parked in her driveway. She should be out any second. It’s pouring rain, the dark sky casting a permanent shadow over the city, and I have to squint through the drops on the windows in order to see properly. “Movie night with my friends,” I answer without turning back to Ella.
There’s a silence, and I can hear her shifting across the room to leave, but then she stops walking and takes a deep breath. “Do you know if…” she murmurs quietly. “Do you know if Tyler will be there?”
“He’ll be there,” I say immediately. That’s another reason I’ve agreed to go tonight: Tyler. If the only way to see him is by turning up at his crazy ex-girlfriend’s house, then I’m willing to go through the anxiety of the whole thing. I just want to see if he’s okay. Spinning back around, I meet Ella’s sad gaze. “Are you missing him?”
I don’t think she quite knows the answer, because she has to think about it for a second. After Tyler left on Sunday, she spent the entire night bursting into tears every half hour, and part of me wondered if she was crying over more than just the drugs. “I am,” she says, finally, and then moves back into the center of the living room to sit down on the couch. She picks up a cushion and holds it in her lap, gripping it tightly. “The house feels empty without him, and I know that sounds weird, because he was never here half the time anyway, but there’s just something odd.”
I know what she’s talking about. She’s talking about the way the house is quiet and the way the vegetarian food in the refrigerator hasn’t been touched, she’s talking about the fact that there’s an empty seat at the table each morning, and she’s talking about the fact that her son is no longer stumbling home in the middle of the night, even more lost than he was the night before.
“Yeah,” I say. “I get it.”
“I’m just worried about him,” she admits, and I like the way she’s being honest with me, just like she has been the entire summer. Ella’s not that bad for a stepmom, despite my first impression of her when she paraded me around the backyard at the barbecue introducing me to every single neighbor. She felt too obnoxious, too loud. Only now does it occur to me that perhaps it was fake, nothing more than a brave front, the same way her son has built up a facade to make him seem like he’s fine…but they’re not fine.
It feels like I’ve spent the whole summer being blind. Everything is so obvious now, and I just wish I’d been able to piece it all together weeks ago. I should have figured Tyler out a long time ago; I should have tried to better understand his aggression toward his father. It feels the same way with Ella. I was so adamant that I’d dislike her that to begin with I never understood anything about her. But now I’m starting to appreciate her for her vulnerability. Now I understand her.
Tears threaten to fall, so I turn back to the window and blink them away before Ella notices, but I think she already has. Rachael still hasn’t come out of her house yet, so I glance down at my feet and swallow back the lump in my throat. “Tyler told me about his dad,” I say quietly.
I hear Ella take a sharp breath, and I’m almost afraid to turn around in case she’s furious at me for bringing it up, but I’m alone in the house with her and it feels like the right time to talk about it. Dad’s taking Jamie to get his wrist checked out, and Chase has gone along for the ride. And Tyler…well. He’s still gone.
“He told you?”
I crane my neck to look at her, taking in her wide eyes and furrowed brows and parted lips, and then I make my way over to the couch and sit down beside her. She stares at me in surprise. “Last weekend,” I tell her, but I talk slowly to ensure nothing slips out, like the fact that I ended up sleeping with Tyler too. “He told me everything.”
“He actually told you?” Ella’s just blinking at me now, and when I nod, she hugs the cushion to her chest and looks away. “I can’t believe he told you. He doesn’t like to talk about it. I’m…” She tapers off and just shakes her head, still a little shocked. “I just want him to be okay. That’s all I want.” Her voice sounds delicate and hushed, her eyes shifting between me and the wall. “Not a 4.0 GPA or a tidy room or to wash the dishes, just okay, and he’s not even that.”
Hearing her talk like this makes my eyes well up again, so I can’t even bring myself to reply. If I open my mouth, my voice will sound choked, and if my voice sounds choked, the tears will escape. So I just sit there, holding my breath and biting down hard on my lower lip, because I really don’t want her to see me crying.
“I’ve been in discussion with some people…” she says slowly, which thankfully saves me from having to speak, and I wait for what she’s about to tell me. “They run events throughout the East Coast. Awareness events for…” She takes a deep breath and starts again. “They raise awareness of different kinds of abuse.” Turning her head away from me, she draws her lips into her mouth and composes herself before glancing back over. “The organizers want Tyler to be a speaker.”