Tyler quickly flinches away from me as I approach, pivoting around me and walking back toward the door again. As his back is turned to me, his rasping voice dares to tell me, “I don’t know if I want to do this anymore.”
And right then, everything inside of me shatters. My heart stands still. My lungs collapse. My blood thins. My throat hurts. Everything, absolutely everything, suddenly hurts. From the way my head suddenly feels way too heavy to the way my knees slowly buckle beneath me, I have to press a hand to the wall to stabilize myself. My breathing has quickened, and I’m almost hyperventilating as I try to understand what’s going on. “You didn’t just say that,” I croak.
“I’m sorry,” Tyler blurts quickly, spinning around to look at me. His eyes are dull, far from furious, looking more damaged than anything else, yet his apology doesn’t sound sincere at all. He doesn’t sound sorry. “Look, I gotta go.” He pulls out his car keys from the pocket of his jeans and reaches for the door.
Although I feel paralyzed, I force my legs to move and I rush over to him, sliding my body between his and the door. I press my back against the wood, pushing it closed as I block his only exit. “No! You don’t get to just walk out like this!” I yell, exasperated with the abruptness of the situation and the reasoning behind it. At the moment, Tyler hasn’t given me a reason for his sudden change of mind, and it’s making this all hurt even more than it would if he was just honest with me. “What happened to this, huh?” Pushing Tyler a step back from me, I throw up my arm and force my wrist toward his face, my hand clenched so tight that my veins are visible beneath my tattoo. “You said as long as I didn’t give up, you wouldn’t either!” I don’t care if I wake Mom and Jack. Right now, they’re the last thing on my mind. “And I haven’t given up, so why the hell have you?”
Tyler pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and his forefinger, closing his eyes and refusing to look at his very own words, the words that are etched upon my skin. It’s clear now that he no longer believes in them, and it’s even clearer that I’m an idiot for believing that he did. As I drop my hand back down, my chest heaves, and I think I might just hurl, so I clasp a hand over my mouth. I shouldn’t, though, because Tyler sees it as a prime opportunity to grasp my shoulders and quickly move me to the side. That’s exactly what he does, finally throwing open the door and making his lame departure.
But we appear to have woken Gucci, because she’s sitting out in the hall on the other side of my door, her eyes glistening, and Tyler promptly trips straight over her as though he hasn’t even noticed that she’s there. Gucci lets out a sharp cry, darting away.
“Tyler!”
“Fuck,” Tyler mutters, steadying himself. He pauses in the darkness of the hall, frowning, and then heads toward the living room. Of course, I rush after him, racking my mind for something, anything, I could say to him that might make him stay or at least reconsider what he’s doing. As he grabs his bag from the couch, I say the only words I can think of.
“Please, please, please,” I beg, my throat so dry that it’s starting to hurt when I talk. I step in front of him again, but it’s hard to get him to meet my eyes, and so I press my hands to his chest instead. “Please don’t. You’re just upset about everything that’s happened, so you’re being irrational. That’s all this is, Tyler,” I whisper as tears threaten to fall, my voice cracking. “You don’t even have a real reason for why you’re leaving like this. If you really want to get out of Santa Monica, then just come to Chicago with me. And don’t repeat yourself by saying you don’t want to be with me anymore, because I don’t believe you. How can everything be going great—I mean, we finally told everyone, Tyler! The hard part is over!—and then you suddenly decide this?”
Tyler has closed his eyes again, because it seems to be the easiest way for him to avoid looking at me. I don’t think he’s been able to look me straight in the eye since the moment he woke me up. Parting his lips, he exhales. And then he slowly shakes his head. That’s all. No reply. No further explanation. Just the weak shake of his head that makes it clear that no matter what I say, he’s still going to leave.
Reaching for my hands on his chest, he squeezes them tight and lowers them back to my sides, and I’m trying so hard not to cry that I can’t even bring myself to attempt to stop him. That’s why when he turns and walks through the dark living room toward the front door, I don’t do anything. I don’t go after him. I don’t even turn around. I only stare at the wall, my lips trembling as the tears break free anyway. I touch my throat and swallow hard, fighting back the urge to sniff. I don’t want Tyler to hear me crying, but when I hear him unlock the front door, one final wave of anger washes over me, so I’m forced to turn around.