Did I Mention I Love You?

by Estelle Maskame

  I let out a laugh and then finally give in. He’s right, after all. I really do need to get some sleep. Grabbing the sheets, I slide down onto my back and get comfy, burying my head into the pillow as I fluff it up a little. I’m just about to close my eyes when I notice that Tyler’s lingering by the door, a little unsure of himself, like he doesn’t know whether he should leave the room or stay.

  I lift my head up a few inches so that I can look at him properly. I’m not laughing anymore. “Are you going back to the party?”

  “I don’t know,” he says quietly. His eyes fall to the carpet as he shrugs, but he doesn’t glance back up again. “I mean, Tiffani’s probably looking everywhere for me.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ll let you sleep,” he says, his eyes gradually meeting mine. And then he smiles again, and it’s another one of those smiles of his that I adore. A genuine smile. Sincere. Gentle and reassuring.

  I lay my head back down on the pillow and roll over onto my side, squeezing my eyes shut as he leaves the room. As I’m left in the silence, all of me craves for him to come back and stay. I want him to be lying next to me, just like the other night when he crawled into my bed in the middle of the night. I just want to know that he’s here with me. I want to feel his warmth and his touch. That’s all I need. It’s all I’m missing.

  I think that’s the moment I realize I’m in love with him.

  * * *

  A few hours later, I’m stirring awake. The heat in the room is suddenly unbearable, and I wake up almost sweating, my face flushed. Immediately I reach for my water on the bedside table through the darkness as I sit up. It’s warm by now, but I gulp it down nonetheless.

  “How are you feeling?”

  I immediately stop drinking, almost spluttering the water all over myself, and fire my eyes over to the corner of the room, right next to the window. It’s dark, but I can still make out Tyler’s outline, not to mention the vividness of his eyes. The more I focus on him, the clearer he becomes. Soon I can almost see his entire face.

  “Better,” I say. This is true. The room is no longer spinning and my thoughts are logical again. Now my only problem is that I’m just too hot and extremely thirsty. “What time is it?”

  “Three,” Tyler says. He darts his eyes to the window and laughs so quietly that it’s almost inaudible. I notice that the curtains are open again, and from my position on the bed, all I can see is the dark sky and the moon. There’s still the faint lull of music echoing from the beach. “The party’s still going strong.”

  I look back over to him and my eyebrows furrow in confusion. “Didn’t you go back?”

  “No,” he murmurs. His voice falls even quieter than it already is, almost on the verge of becoming a whisper. “I was worried that you’d throw up or something. Plus, it was probably best that I just stayed away from it all.”

  He chews on his lower lip and suddenly he appears sad, uncomfortable. It wasn’t that he looked super happy before or anything, but there’s this sort of shift in his expression that makes him look vulnerable in that moment. He appears worn out, deflated even.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, the glass of water clutched tightly in my hands. It’s warm against my skin.

  “Nothing,” he says. Leaning forward, he rests his elbows on his knees and interlocks his hands, staring at nothing in particular.

  “I know there’s something wrong.” I take another sip of my water, but my gaze never leaves his face. I’m scared I’ll miss something, like a flash of emotion in his eyes or a sense of aggravation, but so far he’s doing a good job at remaining pretty aloof. “What’s wrong, Tyler?” I ask again.

  He lifts his head up and glances sideways at me. With a mighty sigh, his shoulders sink. “It’s just…”

  “Just what?”

  “This time last year,” he says slowly, but then his words taper off and he looks away again.

  “You passed out,” I finish. His eyes flash back up to mine, and he looks confused. “Rachael told me. You passed out because of the drugs.”

  “Just drink your water,” he mumbles under his breath, and he gets to his feet. His face is dark, a shadow cast over it.

  I do as he commands, finishing up the remainder of the water in my hand, and then I set the glass down on the bedside table. I push the sheets off me and shift my body off the bed, getting to my feet and edging my way toward him. My legs feel stiff. “Why do you do it?”

  Out of nowhere, he throws his hands up in despair, and I quickly take a step back, wary that I’ll end up angering him. “Why are you asking me about this again?”

  “Because I want the truth.”

  “I already gave you the goddamn truth,” he snaps. His cheeks are tinted with a red hue as fury builds up inside him. Tyler hates the truth; Tyler hides the truth. “I do what I do to distract myself.”

  “From what?” I almost scream the words at him, because I just want to uncover the truth about him already, because I’m fed up knowing absolutely nothing about him. “That’s what I want to know, Tyler. I want to know why you need all these bullshit distractions.”

  People like Tyler have a reason. No one ever acts the way he does simply to distract themselves. No one. I need to know what it is that makes him act the way he does and what makes him say the things he says.

  “Distractions make everything easier,” he eventually hisses. His eyes are sharp, eyebrows so furrowed that lines appear across his forehead.

  “Makes what easier?”

  He grits his teeth together and balls his hands into fists by his sides, the veins under his skin straining from the pressure. I can almost see the gears in his mind shifting as he falls silent for the longest of moments. His voice is quiet yet threatening when he speaks again. “Stop, Eden.”

  “Stop what?” I take a step closer to him, and I try to stare back evenly, willing myself not to back down like I have before. This time I’m determined to get the truth, and no amount of glaring on his part will throw me off.

  “Stop trying to figure me out.” He says each word so slowly, so firmly, that I can hear each syllable as they roll off his tongue. Because he’s taller than me, he’s glowering down into my face with a sort of heavy look in his eyes, and it suddenly reminds me of the photograph in Dean’s garage. The photograph of him before the 49ers game. The one with his dad at the opposite end.

  “Tyler,” I say. I think of him like a puzzle with a million pieces that gradually need to be pieced together to get the full image. One piece of the truth at a time, that’s all it takes. “49ers or Chargers?”

  “What kind of a dumb question is that?” he retorts, clearly agitated. He scrunches his face up as though he can’t believe I’ve changed the subject so easily. It’s almost like he’s thinking, Did she really just go from a pain in the butt to a football fanatic? “49ers,” he says.

  My lips part as I stare at him, my face blank. Inside, my mind is swirling as I try to comprehend his answer. It’s inconsistent with the photograph in the garage.

  “I saw a photo in Dean’s house,” I tell him as I cautiously approach the subject, “of you and him and your dad before a 49ers game. If you’re a fan, how come you looked like you didn’t want to be there?”

  He just stares at me and blinks a few times. “Dean was supposed to take that down.”

  “Answer the question,” I demand. I’m growing impatient, and everything feels so peculiar all of a sudden. I’m overwhelmed with nerves as I find myself gradually figuring everything thing out. “What was wrong that day?”

  Tyler walks away from me then. Reaching out, he scoops up my glass from the bedside table and his hand tightens around it, his knuckles paling from the pressure he’s applying. I think the glass might shatter beneath his touch, but it doesn’t. He moves over to the window and just stands there, the only sound the faint lull of the music and his heavy breathing.

  The pier lights are on now and they glow from behind the palm trees that line the avenue, the Pacific Whee
l going around and around and around. I don’t know why. It’s the middle of the night. Tyler’s head lowers.

  “What is it with you, Eden?” he asks quietly, but his back is turned and he’s staring out the window at the ground below. “You’re not supposed to figure me out. No one is.”

  The atmosphere has shifted, and I can sense his mood in the stillness of the moment. His shoulders are dropped low as he traces the rim of the glass with his middle finger. I don’t want to speak again. I want silence so that I can just study him and all his features and all his flaws. I want to look at his face again and I want to catch his gaze and I want to smile and for him to mirror it. I want to see him clench his jaw as he thinks; I want him to trust me enough to tell me what his thoughts are. I want to see through him, to understand him, to accept him.

  I want him.

  “Tyler,” I whisper. I try to draw his eyes back to mine through the quiet force of his name, but he doesn’t quite turn around. He only gives me a quick glance over his shoulder. “Trust me. Please.”

  He’s still staring down at the carpet, but now he’s shaking his head, slowly, like it hurts to give in. With his eyes squeezed shut, he exhales. “Don’t make me tell you.”

  I edge my body in front of him very carefully, stepping between him and the window. Not that it matters; he’s no longer looking out into the night as it carries on without us. I swallow the lump in my throat and press a delicate hand to his chest. “Please,” I whisper.

  His eyes open agonizingly slowly and I’m waiting for the emerald within them to hit me, and when they finally meet mine, my breath catches in my throat. They’re so dilated and so soft and so pained, and I have never once witnessed such emotion pool over him before. I’ve seen furious and I’ve seen sadistic and I’ve seen vulnerable, but this goes beyond vulnerability. I see helplessness.

  “My dad’s an asshole,” he whispers, his lips barely moving. “I told everyone he’s in jail for grand theft auto. That’s not true.” His jaw tightens and he turns his face to the side. I watch him physically build up the courage to keep going, his nostrils flaring, and he never turns back. And then he dares to utter words that have never once crossed my mind. “He’s in jail for child abuse.”

  Those two words cause my blood to run cold, and a shiver surges down my spine. The words are painful to hear. They’re two words that should never be said together, because child abuse shouldn’t exist, shouldn’t be a thing, shouldn’t be real. Bile accumulates in my throat and my lips part, my mouth gaping in disbelief as Tyler closes his eyes again. I’m only now realizing how hard it was for him to say what he just said.

  “You?” I whisper.

  He nods.

  Every single detail I have collected up until now suddenly clicks together all at once, and it’s so overwhelming that I feel paralyzed, unable to move. I can only think. Now I understand why he looked unhappy in that picture in Dean’s garage. Of course he was unhappy. Now I understand why he has suffered broken wrists before. Of course he got mad when I brought it up. Now I understand why so many photos were missing from his photo album. Of course he got rid of them. Now I understand why he needs distractions. Of course.

  Of course, of course, of course.

  It’s so obvious now.

  I let out a breath and force myself to ask, “Jamie and Chase?”

  “Just me,” he says.

  “Tyler, I…” Something inside me is shattering at the thought of Tyler going through something so horrific and so cruel. My voice cracks and I have to stop for a second to compose myself. My hand is still on his chest and I can feel his heart beating, slow and loud. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I do a pretty good job of keeping it a secret,” he mutters as he steps back from me, and the devastation in his eyes is gone now. It has been replaced with a bubbling anger that is fueled by the pain within him. “No one knows. Not Tiffani, not Dean, not anyone.”

  “Why haven’t you told them?”

  “Because I don’t want pity,” he shoots back sharply, but I can hear the strain in his voice. With a shrug, he turns away from me and walks across the room to the other side of the bed, gripping the edge of the bedside table. “Pity is for pussies. I don’t wanna look weak. I’m done with being weak.” There’s a thunderous slam as he hurls his fist into the top of the table and spins back around, livid. “That’s all I ever fucking was. Weak.”

  Everything is starting to make sense to me. I glance away from him, out the window to the deep dark blue of the sky outside. The Pacific Wheel is still turning, people still partying on the sand. I look back at him. “You weren’t weak. You were a kid.”

  He vigorously shakes his head as he marches back across the small room, his hands curled into fists again as he presses his back against the wall and slides down to the floor. He looks completely defeated. Again, he has shifted from anger to vulnerability. He fixes his eyes on a spot on the wall opposite him and his voice softens up again. “You know, I didn’t really get it for a while,” he says quietly. “I never understood what I did wrong.”

  I know he wants me to listen, to just shut up and hear him out, so I hold back my questions and sit down in front of him. I cross my legs on the carpet and just listen to his words, all while watching his lips as he speaks.

  “My mom and my dad…” he starts, but he talks very slowly, like he’s thinking of how to word everything as he goes along. “They were just teenagers when they had me, so I get that they probably had no clue what they were doing. They both got a little obsessed with building careers. Dad had his dumb company, the one I told you about.”

  “Grayson’s.”

  “Grayson’s,” he echoes. Clearing his throat, he leans forward and folds his arms across his knees. “It was great to start with. The business really took off for a few years, but when I was, like, eight, some deal fell through. Dad had a shit temper. He came home one night and Mom was at the office working late and he was super pissed off and he took it out on me. I kind of let that one slide. I thought it was a one-off. But then his employees were all quitting and it stressed him out and he took it out on me again. It kept happening more often. It went from once a week to every single night. He’d tell me I couldn’t do anything I wanted to do, because I needed to focus on school instead. Said he wanted me to get into the Ivy League so that I didn’t end up fucking up my career the same way he was. But the truth was, I didn’t want to have a big-shot career or get into an Ivy League school, yet I spent every single night locked in my room trying to study so that he wouldn’t get mad at me. I thought, I’m trying, right? That’s enough, isn’t it? But it wasn’t. Every night, he still came upstairs and threw me around.” He pauses for a long moment, and when he speaks again, his voice has been reduced to nothing more than a whisper. “Every single night. Four years.”

  “I’m sorry,” I murmur once more. I really am. No one deserves to be treated like that, especially by a parent, the person you’re supposed to be loved and protected by. I feel sick to my stomach.

  Tyler just shrugs. “Mom was so busy, she seriously had no idea. She blames herself for it now. She tries to ground me, but it just doesn’t work, because she never reinforces it. I think she’s terrified of trying to be strict, you know? It’s not her fault though. She did notice sometimes. She’d be like, ‘Tyler, what have you done to your face this time?’ And I just made up some lame excuse each time. I would tell her my face was busted because I was playing football during gym class or that my wrist was broken because I fell down the stairs. When really I broke my wrist three times one year, because Dad just loved to see how far he could bend it back.”

  “Why didn’t you tell someone?” I’m whispering now. The silence is so fragile that I’m terrified of breaking it. “Does my dad know?”

  “Because I was fucking scared of him,” Tyler admits, his tone harsh, voice cold. When he lifts his hands and runs them back through his hair, I notice how his eyes darken as his temper heats up. “There was no way I could tell. T
he only person who doesn’t know is Chase. He was too young. Mom didn’t want to scare him. The rest of the family all hate Dad now.”

  “When did it stop?”

  “When I was twelve,” he says, but he pushes himself up from the floor at the same time. He’s still clenching his jaw as he speaks. “Jamie came upstairs one night and saw Dad hitting me. Called the cops, even at his age. Dad was arrested that night. It didn’t go to trial, because he pleaded guilty, so it was never publicized. I got to keep it a secret. I get to pretend that I’m fine.” A heavy sigh escapes his lips as he walks away from me once more and begins to pace back and forth across the room. “I really fucking hate him. Really, really hate him. After a year or something I started to believe that there must have been a reason for it all. I thought I deserved it for being a worthless piece of crap. I still do. I can’t even move on from it, because it’s impossible to forget, which sounds so pathetic, but it’s true. I’m supposed to be on antidepressants, but I don’t take them, because I want to drink and get high instead and you can’t do both. And you know what, Eden? You’re right. I’m lost. I’m totally fucking lost in this mess.”

  From my position on the floor, I press my hands down on the carpet and push my body up. Once I’m on my feet, I try to analyze the emotions flickering within his eyes. There’s everything at once, shifting from one emotion to another so fast that I can barely keep up.

  I hear him inhale sharply right before he yells, “I depend on distractions! They make coping easier, because in the hours that I’m drunk or high or both, I forget that my dad fucking hates me!” And then, almost as quickly as the wave of anger washed over him, adrenaline kicks in. He stops pacing and reaches for the glass on the bedside table, snatching it and then hurling it across the room.

  I jump a step back, startled when the glass shatters against the far wall. There’s an awful sound, and it pierces through me for a second. The pieces of glass all drop to the floor in a ragged pile, and Tyler just stands there, staring, breathing. Satisfied, he collapses onto the bed.