Releasing his grip on me, Tyler strides straight across the living room and into the kitchen, unscrewing the jar and reaching in to grasp the two remaining bags. With all three in his hand, he pushes open the bathroom door and glances over his shoulder at me.
“Look,” he says, frustration in his voice. Unwillingly, I force myself to walk over to join him, and I fold my arms across my chest and glare at him from the bathroom door. “Fucking watch,” he mutters.
He opens up the first bag and promptly tips its contents into the toilet bowl, shaking the bag vigorously before tossing it to the ground. He does the exact same with the other two while I watch with wide eyes, and once he’s flushed it all away, still breathing heavily, he turns to me with a rather deflated look in his eyes.
“You wanna know why I wasn’t fine, huh?” he snaps suddenly. “I wasn’t fine because I wasn’t with you, alright? That’s why. It was because of you.”
Perplexed, I stare at him as I try to absorb his words, but they don’t sink in at all. “What?”
“Look, I thought when I moved here I’d be able to get over you, but I didn’t,” he admits, voice soft again. He sounds almost broken. Running a hand through his hair, he closes the toilet lid and sits down, hanging his head low. “I couldn’t get you out of my fucking head and I had to distract myself.”
I blink, overcome by disbelief again. Why are we having this conversation again? Why are we talking about distractions again? This was supposed to have ended years ago. “You’re blaming me?” I ask, incredulous.
“Yeah, I’m blaming you,” he says sharply as his head jerks up. He looks at me hard and indignantly. “I’m blaming you for making me believe that I had no chance with you.”
“Are you ever going to let that go? Are you forever going to make me feel guilty for what I did?” I yell, stepping forward and bending down in front of him so that I can look up into his eyes as sincerely as I can. “I’ve already told you I’m sorry,” I say slowly. “I never said I didn’t want to be with you. I told you that I couldn’t. There’s a difference.”
When Tyler doesn’t reply, it all becomes too much for me. My fury fizzles out and all I’m left with is disappointment and confusion. It’s not just the weed and us fighting, it’s everything. All at once, I’m hit with the way we’re betraying Dean, the reality that we’ve spent the last three weeks sneaking around because it seems to be the only thing we’re good at, the realization that soon we have to tell Dean and our parents the truth, the fact that Tyler’s been lying to me about being okay. It’s all been building up since the moment I arrived in New York and now it’s surfacing all at once. I can’t deal with it.
Tears well in my eyes and break free only moments later, and I sink against the floor as I press my hands to my face, trying my best to hold back my sniffling. My attempt is useless, however, and soon I’m sobbing on the floor by Tyler’s feet. I hear him breathing as I weep, but other than that, there’s silence.
After a while, Tyler gently calls my name. I don’t look up, though, I only cry harder at the sound of his voice, feeble and weak. Seconds after, I feel his hands on my body. Carefully, he wraps his arms around me and pulls me up with him as he gets to his feet. He doesn’t let go. He pulls my body close against his, squeezing me tight as I bury my face into his flannel shirt. He just stands there holding me, and that’s enough.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, resting his chin on the top of my head. “I should have told you.”
I don’t reply. I feel too hurt to even attempt to. I don’t know what more I can say to him. I can only hope that he sincerely is sorry for doing this again, for resorting to the one thing we were all convinced he would never go back to.
Tyler suddenly moves his hand to my face, tilting my chin up with his thumb as he looks down into my swollen eyes, his expression utterly sincere. He even looks pained as he whispers more firmly, “I’m sorry.”
He holds my face there, tilted up to his, and I can see the way his eyes rest on my lips. I don’t move. I wait. He does, too. He’s trying to sense whether I’m going to pull away or not, but when I don’t, he closes his eyes and brushes his lips against mine.