“Fine. Where do you want me to take you?”
I hesitate and then stare at my hands in my lap. I don’t have an answer for him. No way in hell am I letting him learn that I really am homeless, and I especially don’t want him to know where it is that I’m staying either.
Tyler shrugs. “I love to drive around.”
“Even in the rain.”
He laughs a bit. “Especially in the rain.”
And that's exactly what he does, just drives around, talking about stupid stuff that almost makes me laugh, only I don't want to encourage him.
Then, there’s a slight pause. We’re at a stop sign, and Tyler looks at me for so long that I finally cave and meet his gaze. His expression is deadly serious, and I swear there’s concern and even worry in his dark eyes. His longish hair falls across his forehead, and my fingers itch to brush it away. I don’t of course.
“You should drive,” I whisper, hating the intensity in his look.
“Not until you answer one question. Will you answer?”
“I take it that isn’t the question that counts.”
He narrows his eyes slightly.
"Depends on the question." I swallow hard. He's going to ask about where I live again, and I won't tell him the truth. I can't. That I haven't found myself a place to live yet haunts me. I feel like a failure, one giant screw-up. Ever since I ran away, my life has gone to shit.
But I’m alive. There’s that at least.
“Are you being abused?” he asks me.
I scoff a laugh. Is he fucking serious? He thinks I’m being abused? What? At home?
“Yes, I’m being abused,” I snap, “by you and your dumbass friends, you jackass.”
He winces. “I mean physically.”
"Oh, because emotional abuse is justfine,” I say, “although Brett gets a bit hand’s on. I’m not sure if you know all of the shit he’s done, if you condone it, but that’s… that’s physical.”
Tyler grips the wheels with both hands. His knuckles are white, and he floors the gas and pulls into the next alley and parks.
Without a word, he unbuttons his shirt. What the hell? What the fuck does he think he is doing? I am not going to fool around with him or any of the Mutineers. If Brett tries to kiss me, I’ll knee him. I’ll kick him in the groin. It’s not fucking happening again. None of it.
What the hell? What the…
Tyler balls up his shirt and throws it into the backseat. “I know all about physical abuse,” he says.
My hands flew to my mouth when I saw the first of the massive bruises on his body. My hands tremble as I reach over and… No, I don’t touch his bruises, but they’re huge, all over his ribcage.
And then I see the inside of his bicep, near his armpit.
“Is that a burn mark?” I shriek. “Who the fuck did this to you?”
“Your mom,” he says with a wry smile. “You could focus on my massive chest instead of the rest of it.”
I gape at him. He did not just make ayour momjoke to me. What the fuck? How twisted is that? Of course he doesn’t know what happened to my mom, but still, to joke after showing signs of his being physically abused is twisted.
“Come on. What do you think of my physique?” he asks, making a muscle.
He's acting like he's not in pain at all. Are those bruises old? They aren't fading away, so if they are a few days old, which is the oldest they could be, they're massive and huge and deep to be so dark yet.
Is making jokes a coping mechanism for him? If that's the case, he must have been loving our verbal spars in English, all of those puns.