Small Town Sinners

by Melissa Walker

  “What is?” I ask.

  “The image that you have of Ty Davis, the sweet little boy who’s into trains,” he says, a rueful smile playing on his lips.

  “Is that an illusion?” I ask.

  “It’s an outdated perception,” he says.

  “Ty, what did happen?” I ask.

  “What did you hear?” he asks.

  “Just that you got arrested for driving under the influence,” I say. “That you were in an accident.”

  “That’s right,” he says.

  “It doesn’t seem like you,” I say.

  “Who does it seem like?” he asks. “Geoff Parsons?”

  “Maybe,” I say too quickly, thinking of Geoff’s dad. “Anyway, it doesn’t seem like you.”

  “Well, I’m not really the person you think I am,” Ty says.

  “Isn’t that exactly what you said to me the last time I saw you?” I ask. “That I’m not the person you thought I was?”

  “Could be I was projecting,” Ty says, smiling a little. “Ever since I got here I’ve been trying to be someone else, to forget what happened.”

  “That’s why you came back?” I ask.

  “My parents thought that if I moved in with Aunt Vivian, here where things were safe and good, that I’d be able to leave the ‘bad influences’ behind,” he says.

  “Bad influences? That sounds intense,” I say.

  “Yeah, well, that’s my dad’s term but DUIs are intense,” says Ty. He picks at the corner of the throw pillow he’s holding. He looks like a lost little boy.

  “Ty, what happened?” I ask again.

  “It’s a boring story,” he says, but I don’t believe him for a second.

  I stay quiet, wanting him to continue. I know he will. This is what he wanted to tell me when he brought me over to his house the day we found out Tessa was pregnant, what he’s been trying to tell me all those evenings at Ulster Park. He’s been listening to my thoughts and feelings, pushing back and challenging me gently, but I haven’t been listening hard enough to him. I didn’t know there was something he needed to say.

  But I know now, and I’m not going to talk around it. I’m just going to listen.

  “There was a party,” he says after a while, leaning back into the arm of the couch. He runs his hand through his mussed-up hair. I almost wish I were lying with him in his arms. Maybe that would make it easier to tell. But I stay still.

  “It was pretty normal for everyone to be drinking,” he continues. “I thought I was fine to drive home. I’d done it before.”

  I nod, consciously keeping any judgment off of my face.

  “This time I wasn’t okay,” he says. “There was a sharp curve on the road, and I lost control of the car. We spun out and hit a tree. Totaled my dad’s Lexus.”

  “We?” I ask.

  “My ex-girlfriend was in the passenger seat,” he says.

  “And everyone was okay?” I ask, pushing down the jealousy that flares up at the word “girlfriend.” Of course he would have had a girlfriend before. It’s normal. Nothing wrong with that.

  He closes his eyes, and I feel my own start to fill with tears.

  “She’s okay,” he says quietly. “She had a broken leg, but she’s fine now. I saw her last week.”

  “That’s good,” I say, feeling relief at the well-being of the ex-girlfriend I’d been jealous of thirty seconds ago.

  “Yup,” he says. And I see his mouth shut in that way that guys close their lips when they don’t want to say any more. I can see some sort of pain on his face, but I don’t understand what it is, and I need to.

  “Ty, it’s okay,” I say. “I’m still here. I’m still your … friend. I know you’re sorry. I know God’s forgiven you.”

  I think about the scene I just saw in Hell House with Zack Robbins—the one I was originally cast in. Pastor Frist told Zack to play his character, the drunk driver, like an oblivious jerk. A sinner who doesn’t care that he has his friends, his girlfriend, in the car. That character isn’t meant to be forgiven—he gets dragged into Hell by demons during the show. But that’s not who Ty is. The truth is much more complicated than that.

  “I didn’t mean to,” Ty says. “I knew better.”

  It’s like he’s not talking to me now. He’s looking somewhere to my right, out the big windows and into the woods.

  I see a tear slip down his face and I have no idea what to do. I’ve never seen a guy cry like this before. It’s quiet and still. It’s terrifying. But I want to be strong. So I sit and wait for him to keep talking or to start crying harder or something. I don’t move, I don’t let myself think. If I think, I might want to run away, and I need to stay, because my dad’s always told me that being there is sometimes the most powerful thing you can do for someone. And I want to be there for Ty.

  “Afterward, it was like I had taken a baseball bat to her leg myself,” he finally says. He wipes away the few tears that slipped out. “These guys—my former friends—threatened me. The girls stared at me like I’d intentionally hurt her.”

  He looks over at me and I can see a mix of sadness and raw anger on his face. He snorts a little now, a choked laugh. “Lacey, all of them had done the same thing every weekend,” he says. “They’d just never gotten caught.”

  He looks back out toward the woods. “I can’t take the double standard,” he says. “I can’t stand the hypocrisy. I did something wrong, and I’m being punished for it. I can take that. But why just me? Why do some people get to go on with their lives like nothing happened?”

  I stand up, not sure where I’m going or what to do, but I head to the kitchen and pour myself a glass of water. Watching him in so much pain, feeling so much confusion myself, makes me feel weak. My shoulders start to shake and, on impulse, I drop to my knees by the refrigerator.

  “God, please help me get through this moment. Please help me to understand Ty, and what happened, and how to move forward and how to do the right thing. God, please help me to act in your image, to know what that is and to believe in it fully. To—”

  I fall silent. The relief I’m looking for isn’t coming. My own words are scaring me. So I stop praying and I stand up.

  I turn around and walk back to the living room, heading straight for Ty. I put my arms around him and he doesn’t push me away. I lean against him, holding him close to me. We’re both letting tears fall.

  We stay there for a long time, hardly moving except for the rhythm of our breath.

  Later, I sit with Ty and hold his hand. I want to tell him that everything is okay, that he’s forgiven and he can move on. But I’m not sure what the rules are in this situation. So I tell him the one thing I know for sure. “I’m still here,” I say.

  It’s two a.m. by the time I leave. Ty drives me home in his aunt’s car so we won’t wake my dad, but I already know that I’m in trouble. I have twelve missed calls.

  Sure enough, the living room light is on.

  “Do you want me to go in with you?” Ty asks. “I could explain or—”

  “No,” I say. “I’ll handle it.”

  I walk up the front steps feeling empty, hollowed out by the emotional wallop I experienced tonight.

  When I sit across from my dad in the living room, he puts down his book slowly and takes off his reading glasses.

  “I was at—” I start.

  “I know where you were,” Dad says. “So don’t bother telling me you were with Starla Joy.”

  “I wasn’t going to, Dad,” I say. “I was at Ty’s.”

  “Well, that’s an honest beginning,” says Dad.

  “How did you know?” I ask.

  “Vivian called around ten thirty,” he says. “She wanted me to know you were okay.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Well, I’m not sure that I am.”

  “She also updated me on Ty’s … situation,” he says. “And she told me that you were counseling him through some of his grief about his transgressions.”

  “I was being a good fr
iend,” I say. Then I look in my father’s eyes. “A good Christian.”

  “I know you were, Lacey,” Dad says. “You should have called—you know that—but I was proud to hear that you were helping Ty tonight.”

  My heart softens a little and I smile at my father. “I learned it from you,” I say.

  He smiles back, but it’s a tight-lipped version of his usually wide-open grin.

  “Well, now I’m going to have to say something to you that you won’t want to hear,” he says.

  “What?” I ask, my spine straightening.

  “I don’t want you spending time with Ty Davis anymore,” he says.

  My mouth opens in objection, but Dad holds his hand up and silences me with a motion, just like he does with rowdy kids in Sunday school.

  “I know that you two have become close,” he continues. “I don’t object to a friendship.”

  “Then what do you object to?” I ask, my skin prickling a little.

  “Lacey, I know you’ve been out late at night with Ty,” he says.

  I look down at the carpet.

  “You’ve been deceiving your mother and me,” he adds. “I don’t know what else has been going on, but that’s enough evidence to tell me that you’re getting too close to a boy who has a history of problems.”

  “A history?” I ask. “Dad, he made a mistake! He’s asked for forgiveness, Dad. And you should see how sorry he is.”

  The words tumble out of my mouth and even I’m not sure how I feel about them. I find myself wishing I could talk to my dad, be open with him about the confusion I’ve felt, which is only getting bigger instead of smaller.

  “That’s between Ty and God,” Dad says. “I’m glad he’s seeking forgiveness, and I will happily be there for him should he need my counsel.”

  “So why can’t I be there for him?” I ask. “What if he needs my counsel?”

  “I’m sorry, Lacey,” Dad says. “But you’ve changed in these past few months. My little girl would never sneak out like you have, she would come to me with problems and talk to me about things that are going on in her life. You’ve become a mystery to your mom and me. You’ve been deceptive. And it all started with Ty’s arrival.”

  “I’m sixteen,” I say. “I’m finding my way.”

  And when I voice that, I know it’s true. And then it’s like I’m channeling the words to say to my father.

  “You’ve raised me with God and the church and a huge network of community support: good people who saw me grow up, friends I’ve known since I could crawl, a safe small town to explore,” I say. “But you’ve also shown me the way all along—your way.”

  Dad starts to interrupt me, but I use his hand trick and it works.

  “It might be my way too,” I say, “but it might not be. I can’t go on being protected and sheltered from life. People I care about are in pain. I have to be able to make my own choices about how to respond and who to help. You should trust me to do that.”

  Dad pauses, lost for words for a moment, and I think I’ve gotten to him.

  “You’re very eloquent, Lacey,” he says.

  “That’s from you too,” I say, chancing another smile.

  He frowns. “Unfortunately, you’re also sixteen, you’ve been lying to us, and you’re just not emotionally equipped to deal with some of these things right now.”

  I feel my heart cramp. He doesn’t hear me. He doesn’t trust me. I find myself wishing I hadn’t snuck out, wishing I’d just been honest with my parents all along. But they wouldn’t have let me spend time with Ty. I know they wouldn’t have. And I don’t regret that. It’s like I can’t win.

  I’m so tired tonight, so emotionally drained. When Dad stands up and holds out his hand to me I take it, and join him on the walk upstairs.

  “Good night, sweet daughter,” he says to me when we reach the landing. He kisses the top of my forehead. “We’ll let tonight go, okay?”

  I look at him, and I realize he thinks he’s giving me a great gift. A pass. He won’t punish me for being out late with Ty, but he’s also banning me from being near him. Dad thinks it’s a fair trade.

  “Good night,” I say.

  I walk into my room and close the door. Then I lean against it and sink to the floor. What I said to Dad tonight may not have gotten through to him, but it rang very true within me. And I won’t abandon my friends when they need me.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  The next day at school, I’m relieved to see Ty in a Carolina blue polo shirt, smiling and laughing as he walks down the hall. The news has spread, slowly and then rapidly, like a fire racing through a forest, by now—everyone knows about his accident. But I know he’s sorry. I know better than anyone.

  I just hope Dean and Starla Joy can understand.

  “So?” Dean says when I sit down in the courtyard for lunch. “Last night?”

  Starla Joy stares at me intently.

  I try to think of how I want to describe it, how I can convey the sympathy that I felt without sounding like a pushover. But I also don’t want to tell them everything—I don’t think Ty would like the crying part to get around.

  “He was at a party, drinking,” I say. “His judgment was impaired and he drove his ex-girlfriend home. They hit a tree and she was hurt—a broken leg.”

  Starla Joy shifts in her seat, but I ignore her.

  “She’s okay now,” I continue. “Everything’s fine.”

  The three of us are outside having lunch on campus. Dean’s mom packed a bag of carrot sticks and a Fiber One bar, so Starla Joy hands him half of her sandwich.

  “You’re not upset that he kept that from us?” Starla Joy asks. “From you?”

  “Of course I am,” I say. “But he’s asked for forgiveness and he’s here to start over—or start from the beginning again. He’s trying to do the right thing and be the person he really is.”

  “I don’t get it,” Dean says. “You’re the girl who gets upset when I say ‘shit’ but you’re going to let Ty off the hook for keeping this secret?”

  “Dean, don’t curse,” I say.

  “I was making a point,” he says. “And I think you just made it even stronger.”

  “Truthfully, Dean, did you know?” I ask him.

  “Me?” Dean asks. “No! Ty and I hang out sometimes, but we don’t really talk or anything. I mean, not about serious stuff like this.”

  “More about how to get to the next level of World of Warcraft?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” says Dean, laughing.

  “Well, now we all know,” I say. “And if someone really wants to be forgiven, and is truly sorry, how can you deny them that?”

  “Are you giving us the WWJD talk?” Dean asks. He laughs again and swats Starla Joy’s arm. And that’s when I notice she’s looking down, her face drawn.

  “You’re right, Lace,” says Starla Joy. “He’s trying to find himself again, back here, where his past lives. When bad things happen, I think people want to go back to before … like with Tessa.”

  Dean and I both look up at the sound of Tessa’s name. Starla Joy’s eyes sparkle a little, wet with tears that aren’t falling.

  I reach out for Starla Joy’s hand. She pulls away as she grabs a napkin from her lunch bag and dabs at the corner of her eye.

  Dean and I are still silent.

  “She wants to pretend it never happened,” Starla Joy says. “I can tell when I see her. She talks about school; she wants to hear gossip and find out what’s going on with the winter basketball season and whether prom planning has started yet.”

  “Isn’t that a good sign?” Dean asks. “She’ll come back to normal here, and it’ll all be okay.”

  “She’s not acknowledging reality or being honest about what’s happened,” I say, understanding. “Just like Ty wasn’t.”

  “Maybe she just doesn’t want to talk about everything out loud,” Dean says. “Did you guys think of that? Maybe she wants to have a normal conversation with her mom and her sister without
being surrounded by reminders that she’s different, that she’s somehow tainted. I’m sure she gets enough of that just being at Saint Angeles!”

  I’m surprised at how worked up Dean is getting. From across the field, Laura Bergen waves at us. I’m the only one who waves back, but it breaks the tension a little bit.

  “We should go see her,” Dean says.

  “I go every weekend,” says Starla Joy. “It doesn’t help.”

  “You have to go,” I say. “You’re her sister. But Dean’s right—we should all go. We can let her know that she’s okay, that this is okay.”

  “Right,” Dean says. “She’s still Tessa to us—not some slut or sinner or whatever dumb thing people are saying.”

  Starla Joy looks down.

  “Not that they’re saying that,” I say hurriedly, throwing a look at Dean.

  He shrugs. “It’s just the truth,” he says. “We all get called stuff.”

  “It’s okay, I hear it too,” says Starla Joy. She tears at the napkin in her hands and we let her think for a minute.

  “Please, Starla Joy,” I say after a while. “Let us go see her. We can go on Saturday before the evening Hell House rehearsal.”

  “Okay,” she says. “I think she’d like that.”

  I nod. This is important.

  “Let’s invite Ty,” I say. “He’d want to come, I bet.”

  “Yes,” Starla Joy says instantly.

  “Cool,” Dean says.

  And I feel a surge of affection for my friends. They’re forgiving, they’re understanding, they’re caring. And we all understand that Ty is Ty is Ty. And he’s our friend.

  “I’ll talk to him,” I say.

  I don’t see Ty for the rest of the day. I figure he avoided us at lunch because he wanted to give us space—time for me to help Starla Joy and Dean understand.

  I call him as soon as I get home. It rings and rings, but voice mail picks up. I don’t leave a message, I just wait ten minutes and then call again. This time, when I hear his simple, “Hi, it’s Ty. Talk to me,” I don’t hang up. I don’t want to seem crazy by letting him see multiple missed calls from me, so I just say, “Hey, it’s Lacey. Starla Joy and Dean and I want to go see Tessa on Saturday. Are you in? Call me back.”