“Come on, Ariel,” he said as he pulled me along behind him and out of the twins room. “I have promises to keep, and I know you have lots of questions you’re dying to ask me. When we’re safe behind my locked door, I’m all yours.”
There were parts there I liked. Like finally getting my answers. But I didn’t think I needed to see the inside of another bedroom in this house. What I needed was to extract myself from this situation and eject myself from this damn house. What I didn’t need to do was think about how much I liked the thought of him being all mine.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tyson and I walked down the hallway hand in hand. We passed the two closed doors and moved through the weirdly empty room at the top of the stairs. We walked towards the other hallway I’d noticed earlier. It was oddly the same as the other hallway, only opposite. Where the hallway that had led to the twin’s room had one door on the right and two doors on the left, this hallway had one door on the left and two doors on the right. All three doors were closed like they had been in the other hallway.
Tyson stopped us in front of the last door on the right. For the twins, it had been the only door on the right. Tyson put his empty hand on the knob, twisted and pushed the door open.
Tyson’s bedroom was what looked to be the exact same size as the twin’s bedroom. I shook my head as I looked around his bedroom. What did one person need with all this space? What did two people need with all this space?
The size, and the doors I presumed lead to the bathroom and the closet were where the similarities of the two rooms ended.
Tyson’s bed was a huge, four-poster, gothic monstrosity that pushed up against the wall between the two doors I’d guessed about. The bed frame itself and the posts were wood and stained a deep, dark wine red. Long, gauzy, see-through black curtains hung down on each side of the bed. Each curtain was pushed open so the unmade bed could be seen. Black, shiny sheets beckoned from within those curtains like a silky heaven. A deep burgundy comforter lay in a crumpled heap at the foot of the bed. A massive pile of black and burgundy pillows sat at the head of the bed. The pillows, like the sheet, shined in the light and looked like pure silk. My mother would have approved of Tyson’s expensive taste.
Even unmade, Tyson’s bed was lush. I wanted a bed just like it. Or, better yet, maybe I could just sleep in here with him every night. Yeah, that’d work just fine for me.
The walls were painted the same deep, rich burgundy as the comforter and half the massive pile of pillows. The plush carpet on the floor was black, looked to be brand new, and felt like walking on foam.
A circular shaped rug lay underneath his massive bed. It was a reddish orange in color, thin and had what looked like words and shapes written in white chalk all over it. The rug appeared worn in places and very old. I liked the color, but the chalk seemed strange to me. An energy seemed to come off of the rug. Not a bad energy, just something otherworldly. Something not entirely natural, something other, different. And I could feel strange heat coming off of it. Almost like the heat I had felt when a Tyson and the twins had touched me. The rug sort of pulsed with its own energy. I didn’t want to touch it, but at the same time I knew it wouldn’t hurt me if I did. I didn’t understand it and I didn’t try to.
On either side of the bed between the doors sat a black nightstand. Burgundy candles sat atop those nightstands with no candleholders to be seen. Wax dripped down the sides, pooling around the candle on the nightstand.
Silver framed pictures graced the tops of those nightstands, intermingling with the candles. I couldn’t see the pictures from where I stood, but I wanted to see what they held, desperately so. I wanted that little peek into Tyson’s life before I’d come into it.
I would wait until he either turned his back or left the room to get an up close and personal look at his photos. They had to be pictures of people who meant something to him if he cared enough to have them framed and put them on his nightstand, a place where he’d be able to see them before he fell asleep at night and first thing he saw when he opened his eyes in the morning and looked over. That’s where I’d put pictures that were special to me if I had any.
A black trunk sat at the foot of his bed. The trunk, like the rug, looked to be very old. It wasn’t one of those trunks that had a vintage look to them but was really brand spanking new and only made to look vintage because people thought it looked cool. This was the real deal, something that looked like it had once belonged to some high born noble back in the day.
The top of the trunk was covered with what I thought at first glance to be a furry blanket or rug, but when I moved closer I realized I was wrong. I ran the tips of my fingers over the black fur and turned my head, looking for Tyson. I found him off to the side, watching my every move like a hawk.
He must have seen the question on my face because he said, “Bear,” without my having to ask.
Bear.
A goddamn bear. Like the beautiful but sad looking ones at the zoo.
I pulled my hand back immediately. All that luscious black fur was attached to skin, skin that used to cover an animal. An animal I’d once seen at the zoo.
Tyson laughed. “Your face, you look so horrified. I don’t understand. I know you’re not a vegetarian, I’ve seen you eat meat. What gives?”
I shook my head, I didn’t know how to explain it to him without sounding stupid.
“Ariel,” he asked gently as he ran his fingertips down my arm. He’d moved closer without my noticing. “You can tell me anything. I know you don’t get it yet, but I’m here for you, for whatever you need, whatever you want. We all are. Even my panty stealing wayward Uncle.”
“It’s stupid,” I said. “My mother has never wanted anything to do with me unless it made her look good, or she got something out of it. But sometimes the men who blew through her life took interest in me. It wasn’t always good. In fact, it was mostly awful. But there was this one I remember who was awesome, and I think he stuck around longer than most because of me. At least that’s what my mother said when he left and she took it out on me because she had liked him more than she had most of the others.”
I had to stop speaking suddenly to swallow down the bitter bile rising in my throat. These weren’t things I ever planned on talking about with anyone and now here I was, giving pieces of myself away so freely. It took me longer than I was proud of before I could control my voice enough to speak again without sounding like I was going to burst into heart wrenching, body wracking sobs.
“I was eight and his name was Thomas. She’d always get drunk and call him Tommy Boy in her high, whiny voice and he’d get mad, so mad he’d yell at her not to call him that. She’d laugh and sometimes he’d hit her. No matter how mean he was to her he was never anything but nice to me. She worked nights dancing and would leave me home by myself. When he knew she wasn’t going to be there he would bring me something to eat for dinner, pizza or fast food. If it weren’t for him I would have eaten stale crackers and ramen for dinner. He also bought me pretty headbands for my hair once and a pair of new shoes just because. When he left her, my mother made me throw them away and I cried because before then I’d never owned a pair of shoes that hadn’t been worn by someone else before me.”
He squeezed my hand and I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see pity on his face. It was my life and I’d done the best I could with it. Also, the things I’d gone through had helped shape me into the person I was today and I had no problem with who I was. It could have been a lot worse, that’s for sure.
“The day before he left
my mother was one of the best days I can remember from my childhood, but also one of the worst. It was my birthday and she had completely forgotten. Thomas knew because I had told him. He asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I told him. The only thing I wanted was something I had never allowed myself to want until he asked for fear of being disappointed when I didn’t get it.”
Tyson squeezed my hand almost to the point of pain. “What did you want that badly, sweetheart?” He asked, his voice thick with an emotion I was better off not knowing.