I turn around, unable to look at her, and walk out of the kitchen. I have no idea what time I’m supposed to be heading out to meet Tiffani and the rest of the crew tonight, but I refuse to stick around here, so I decide to leave early. I have my eye on the front door, my hand already reaching into my pocket for my car keys, when lo and behold, I spot her again.
There Eden is, standing in the corner of the hall with her back pressed against the wall. She stares at me, frozen, and even though I’m wondering what the hell she’s doing, I’ve remembered something. “I’ve gotta give you a ride, right?”
Eden hesitates for a while, looking uncomfortable yet again. Am I really that intimidating? “I think so,” she finally mumbles. She still doesn’t look all that keen, but her uncertainty is sort of cute.
“I’m leaving right now,” I tell her, “so either come or stay here.” I’m not waiting around any longer, and certainly not while Eden makes up her mind, so I turn back around again and continue toward the front door.
“Tyler! Please don’t leave again!” I hear Mom’s voice bounce from the kitchen, but even though I can hear how hurt she is, I can’t bring myself to stay.
I keep on walking, my head down, out the front door and across the lawn. At first, I assume Eden isn’t coming, but then I hear the front door open again behind me, and a husky voice calls out, “Wait up!”
And, honestly, I’m glad to hear it.
17
FIVE YEARS EARLIER
By third period on Wednesday, I’ve run out of energy to even listen during history class. I didn’t get much sleep last night. Dad was mad again, and I still don’t know what about. I can barely stay awake and my eyelids keep drooping every five minutes until I shake myself in an effort to become more alert, but it’s no use.
To stop myself from constantly drifting into another world, I turn my worksheet over and begin to trace one big circle, around and around and around . . . My eyes close again, and I flinch, blinking fast. I sit up, hoping that maybe if I don’t slouch so much, that’ll help. But it doesn’t. I glance to my left, looking across the class at Dean’s desk. He’s already staring back at me with a smirk.
“Wake up,” he mouths. Is it that obvious?
I bury my face into my hands, rubbing hard at my eyes until I see stars, and just as my sight is coming back to me, I see Mrs. Palmer putting down the phone at her desk. Her eyes flicker up and she looks straight at me, swiveling around in her chair to face me more directly.
“Tyler,” she says gently with a small smile, “Mr. Hayes would like to see you in his office.”
Mr. Hayes wants to see me in his office? Why does the school counselor want to see me? Jake said he was called to his office last week to talk about his grades because they suck, but my grades are fine. I’m fine.
I was falling asleep a second ago, but now I’m wide awake. I swallow hard and set my pen down, getting to my feet. Half the class are working on the worksheets, the other half are watching me closely. As I weave through the desks, I glance back over my shoulder at Dean. He raises his eyebrows at me, curious as to why I’ve been called to Mr. Hayes’ office, and honestly, I have no idea, so I just give him a small shrug and turn back around. I keep my head down as I walk out of class.
I’ve only ever been in Mr. Hayes’ office once before, and that was last year when everyone was called up one by one to talk about what our plans for the future are, as though we’re supposed to know the answer to that in middle school. I told him I wasn’t sure, but that I’d probably end up working for Dad. That’s what I’m expected to do, at least.
When I reach Mr. Hayes’ office, I take a deep breath and zip up my hoodie to cover the band-aid on my neck. Then, I knock on the door and I wait.
A few seconds later, the door swings open and Mr. Hayes smiles down at me. “Ah, Tyler. Thanks for coming,” he says. He steps back from the door and motions for me to come inside, which I do. He closes the door behind me again. “Sit down, please.”
I stuff my hands into the pockets of my hoodie and sit down on the edge of the seat in front of his big old desk. I can’t relax. My foot is tapping against the floor as Mr. Hayes sinks down into his chair across from me. He’s young, Mr. Hayes. Younger than Dad, with thick stubble, a crooked nose, and dark eyes that are studying me closely.
“You’ve just come from History, right?” he asks gently as his way of initiating a conversation, interlocking his hands together on the table in front of him. His smile never falters.
“Right,” I agree. Why am I here? I ball my hands into fists inside my pockets, feeling even more anxious than I did a minute ago.
“Relax, Tyler,” Mr. Hayes says with a small laugh, reading my expression. He can probably sense my nerves. “You’re not in trouble. I’ve only called you down here to talk. I just want to check in and see how you’re doing.”
“Check in and see how I’m doing?” I repeat, confused. Why does he need to check up on me? It’s not like it’s some mandatory thing. Have I done something wrong?
Mr. Hayes’ smile tightens into what I think is a frown and he leans back in his chair, his gaze never leaving mine. “Several of your teachers have said you’ve been acting up lately,” he finally tells me. “And skipping gym class?” He arches a brow.
Uh oh. My hands are sweating now, so I pull them out of my pockets and twiddle my thumbs instead. “I haven’t . . . I haven’t been acting up,” I lie, my words sticking in my throat.
“Hmm.” Mr. Hayes cranes his neck and looks at the screen of his computer for a few moments. “Not listening. Talking back to your teachers. Not finishing work during class.” He looks at me again and cocks his head to one side. “Any reason for the change in attitude? Your grades are still perfect, so what’s going on, Tyler?”
“I don’t know,” I say bluntly. I lock my eyes on a random spot on his desk, refusing to meet his gaze. I know exactly what’s going on. The cut on my neck stings again.
“Who are your friends?” Mr. Hayes questions.
“Dean Carter and Jake Maxwell,” I mumble. Why does it matter who my friends are? I still can’t look at him, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still feel his eyes boring into me.
“Alright, so you’re not hanging around with the wrong people,” Mr. Hayes muses to himself. He goes quiet for a second, as though he’s considering other possibilities, and then he asks, “Are there any people in this school you dislike? Any people you should let me know about?”
I look up at him, gritting my teeth. Why is he questioning me like this? Why does he care? “I’m not being bullied, Mr. Hayes,” I state clearly and slowly. I’m fine. I am fine. “Can I go back to class now? Like you said, my grades are perfect. I can’t be missing out on class.” I begin to stand, prepared to walk straight out of this office.
“Tyler,” Mr. Hayes says firmly. He folds his arms across his chest and narrows his eyes up at me, but not in anger. Concern. “You’re giving me attitude, and yet you say you’re not acting up.” He stands up too and leans back against the window, his hands in the pockets of his pants, his eyes still analyzing me. I’m afraid if I stick around any longer, he’ll figure me out. “Is everything okay at home?” he asks.
My heart skips a beat in my chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I mutter, glaring across the desk at him. I’m angry now. Does he know? No, he can’t possibly know. No one does.
“Well,” he says, “maybe your parents have been fighting? Anything going on that may be affecting you?”
“No, they love each other,” I spit. I’m clenching my jaw so tight I think it may shatter. They both love me too. Dad loses control too easily, but it’s because he’s stressed. He wants the best from me. He wants me to succeed. He doesn’t mean to hurt me; he just can’t help it. I want it to stop, I do, but I also don’t want anyone to take him away from us. From my brothers. From Mom. “I’m going back to class, Mr. Hayes.” This time, I really do turn to leave. I storm toward the door and reach for the handle.
“Tyler,” Mr. Hayes says one last time. I hesitate at the door, but I don’t turn around. I stare at the door handle instead, breathing heavily, listening. “If you figure out why you’re acting like this, then please come and talk to me. I’m here to help you, remember,” he says gently, his voice quiet. “Okay?”
I squeeze my eyes shut as I pull open the door, refusing to answer him and stepping out into the hallway. Aggressively, I slam the door shut behind me, because he’s a liar. He can’t help me. No one can.
18
PRESENT DAY
I pull open my car door and then turn around. Eden comes rushing across the lawn toward me, like she’s terrified I’ll leave without her, and I study her as she approaches. Her hair is wavy, her lips are glossy and there are weird black ticks next to her eyes. The past couple days, we’ve only been awkwardly passing each other around the house, but neither of us have been willing to speak first. On Sunday, she was calling me pathetic. She’s right, though I don’t want her to be. That’s why, although I’m annoyed, I know I have to put on my game face. I have to switch back to being the cocky asshole that everyone knows as Tyler Bruce.
“What?” Eden asks. I realize that I’m staring too hard.
“Well?” I ask. I nod to my car because it’s the first thing I think of. This is the first time I’m giving her a ride, but I’m pretty sure she’ll have noticed it by now. It usually grabs attention pretty quickly, though Eden’s expression is indifferent. “Do you even know what car this is?”
She walks around the car, looking over the bodywork, and then finally says, “An Audi?” once she spots the badge. She looks entirely disinterested and almost perplexed as to why I’m asking about it.
“An Audi R8,” I correct, expecting more of a reaction.
“Okay. Do you want me to applaud you or something?” Eden deadpans, staring back at me with her arms folded across her chest. I guess it makes sense. She’s from Portland, where I’m pretty sure everyone is a hippy that rides a bike, so I’m not even surprised that she doesn’t know a nice car when she sees one.
“Girls are clueless,” I say with a laugh. “You’d probably pass out if you saw the figures on this thing.”
Mom almost passed out too when I first told her I wanted it a year ago. At first, she said there was absolutely no chance that she was letting me blow half my trust fund on a damn sports car, but she caved within a few days. She thought a nice car would make me happier, and it did for a while, especially because our trust funds are mostly made up of the money from Dad’s shitty company, and it felt nice spending all his hard-earned cash on something so meaningless. Now I couldn’t care too much about the car, and what most people don’t know is that it’s, like, four years old with a whack gear lever and brake pads that need replacing almost constantly. But at least it makes me look like I’ve got my life figured out.
“Get over yourself,” Eden tells me, and then climbs into my passenger seat. I blink a few times. Who actually is this girl, honestly? I need to step up my game, because so far I really haven’t done a good job of intimidating her.
I heave a sigh and join her inside the car, and as I get the engine growling to life, I toss her my phone. “Call Tiffani,” I order.
“You mean your girlfriend who you like to either be all over or completely ignore?”
Damn, so she really has been watching me. I haven’t just been imagining it. For someone who apparently doesn’t like me, she sure does seem interested in what I get up to, which is sort of amusing to me, but also slightly terrifying. I don’t like it when people focus on my life too much. They’ll see the cracks if they look too hard.
“You’re an ass,” she mutters under her breath, turning away. I didn’t realize I’ve smiled in reply to her question. She tries way too hard to stare out of the window, as though she’s letting me know that she doesn’t want to speak to me anymore. She’s still holding my phone.
“Call her,” I say again as I step on the gas a little too hard, sending us flying down the street a little too rapidly. “I have no idea where we’re going.”
Eden dramatically sighs, as though I’m asking her to give me a kidney, and she sits up and looks at my screen. “Passcode?”
“4355,” I tell her without hesitation. Besides some raunchy pictures from Tiffani and some pretty incriminating evidence in my messages with Declan Portwood, my phone is pretty clean. I do watch my screen out of the corner of my eye as Eden unlocks it, though, just to make sure she doesn’t do any snooping.
“Is that your favorite number or does it stand for a word or—”
“It spells out hell,” I cut in sharply. Hell, because my life is hell, because I feel like hell, because I’m going to hell. I did create that passcode on one of my low nights. I hope she doesn’t ask why, because I don’t have the energy to explain. “Call her.”
Eden frowns and scrolls through my list of contacts, past Declan and Kaleb, past Mom and Dave, past all of the hundreds of names in between, and all the way down to Tiffani. She calls her and presses my phone to her ear.
“It’s Eden. Tyler’s driving,” Eden explains once Tiffani picks up. “Where are we all going tonight? Has it been decided yet?”
I watch her again as she listens, biting down on her lower lip. She nods as Tiffani speaks, and I don’t know if she realizes just how focused she looks. “Yeah,” she says, and then listens some more. I’m so distracted by watching her that I almost drive straight into the curb, and Eden fires me a sideways look when I swerve back. She lowers my phone, puts it on speaker, and then holds it up by my shoulder.
“Yeah?” I ask. Of course Tiffani was going to ask to talk to me. I steal a glance down at the screen, and then I have to slam hard on the brakes at a stop sign. I’m usually not such a distracted driver, but I also usually don’t have strangers riding with me, so I guess I could say it’s actually Eden’s fault.
“I haven’t spoken to you all day!” Tiffani says through my phone, and her voice is high-pitched and overly sweet, a total act. It’s only because she knows Eden can hear us, and I really do have to roll my eyes at how pathetic we both are. Why do we try so hard to convince everyone that we are this perfect, happy, dream couple when we are the exact opposite? We are toxic, trapped by each other, hating one another but also being unable to let go because of how dependent we’ve both become. “Did your mom let you out of the house?” she asks.
Stuck at the stop sign, I pull up my parking brake and look at Eden. I’m pretty sure she was eavesdropping on the conversation with Mom and Dave in the kitchen, which means she knows exactly where I was this afternoon. And with Tiffani on speaker, I can’t afford for Eden to be blurting out the truth. I sharpen my gaze at her and shake my head slowly, letting her know not to dare say a word. “No, I was stuck inside all day,” I finally tell Tiffani. Again. For like the fifth time today. I swear she never pays attention to a word I say, but that’s a good thing, because everything I tell her is usually a lie anyway.
“That sucks,” she says. And then her voice hits that high octave again as she adds, “I can’t wait to see you! We won’t be too long. Just wait for us by the Sunset Ranch.”
Okay, so we’re heading to the Hollywood sign then. That’s okay with me. I like it up there. It gets you away from everything for a while. “Sure.”
“Love you,” Tiffani says to finish the call, but again, it’s all just so fucking fake. She doesn’t love me. She just wants everyone to think she does.
That’s why I only say “Yeah” and hang up. I refuse to say it back.
As I toss my phone down into the center console, I run a hand through my hair and lean back in my seat, getting comfortable. It’s not exactly a short drive over to the Hollywood sign.
“You’re unbelievable,” Eden says in disbelief. “Stuck inside all day?”
I don’t even look at her. I try to just stay focused on the road as I cross the intersection. “That’s what I’m going with.”
“You’re really goin
g to lie to her like that?” she questions, and I think, Here we go again. What is with Eden interrogating me as though she’s my mom? I glance at her to see if she’s actually mad at me or not, and she does look disgusted. “You were at the beach gambling and fighting and you’re going to act like you were inside all day? I feel so bad for her.”
I laugh out loud, hard. She feels bad for Tiffani? Incredible. It’s funny the way things can appear to the people on the outside looking in. Behind closed doors, everything is so different. “Yeah, you’re definitely Dave’s daughter,” I say. It must be a Munro thing to hate me as soon as they meet me, to question everything I do, to be repulsed by me. “You gotta learn to mind your own business, kid.”
“Stop calling me kid,” Eden orders, and she’s serious. It’s settled: I definitely don’t intimidate her. “You’re only a year older than me and you’ve got fewer brain cells.”
“Alright, kid,” I say again, smiling to let her know I’m not doing it out of malice. I’m only messing with her. “Your dad’s an asshole.”
“At least that’s one thing we can agree on.” We both go quiet, and the only sound is my car engine rumbling and Eden sighing as she stares wistfully out of the window. “I don’t even know what his problem is,” she says after a while. “I get that you must be super annoying to live with, but it’s like he looks for reasons to yell at you.”
I drum my fingers against my steering wheel. “Tell me about it.”
“My mom’s better off without him,” she comments, but then her eyes go wide as she glances at me, panicking over her words. “Not that it’s unfortunate for your mom or anything like that,” she babbles too fast. “What about you? Where’s your dad?”