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I look forward and I notice Tyler watching me in the rearview mirror. It’s almost as if he’s studying me for some reason and I can’t figure out why. He’s been different with me since the night of the fire. It may be because he’s giving me space to process everything, but it feels like it’s more than that.
We pull into the motel parking lot and park directly in front of our rooms. Tyler helps Granny out of the car and to her room. Once she’s shut the door, he turns back toward me.
Tyler shoves his hands deep into his front pockets and steps up in front of me. “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do for you before I go?”
“Go?” This catches me off guard because I fully expected him to come in and stay with me for a while—if not for the whole night. I need him to be here with me. I don’t want to be alone.
He sighs. “Yeah. I thought it was best to give you some space.”
“Tyler, I don’t need space from you,” I tell him like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
His lips twist and for some reason it appears that he doesn’t like that a
nswer. “All the same I feel like I should go.”
I furrow my brow. “But I don’t want you to.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Please, Avery, don’t make this any harder on me than it has to be.”
I flinch at that response. “Harder on you? If you haven’t noticed, we just buried my father. How in the hell is this hard on you?”
“I know . . . shit, this is so hard.” He shuts his blue eyes briefly and then opens them to refocus on me. “I’m leaving, Avery.”
“Leaving? Are you fucking serious? How can you just leave me here when I asked you to stay? I need you.”
He shakes his head. “I’m the last thing you need.”
What he’s saying . . . it makes no sense. “Tyler . . .”
“I can’t stay. I can’t ever stay with you again. Don’t you see? All this—the fire—it’s a sign—a sign that I’m not supposed to be with you. I was careless. I’ve hurt people. Your sadness is all my fault, and I swear I won’t ever hurt you again.”
“Tyler, stop.” Tears stream down my face. “Don’t do this. Don’t put the blame for what happened on your shoulders. We both were in that barn. We both left the lantern—”
“No, Avery. It was my fault. I was losing focus on what I needed to do with my life, and bad shit happened because of it. It’s another sign.”
My mind jerks to the thought of Tyler’s father and the promise he made to his dad. “You can’t honestly believe all this happened because we slept together? Do you realize how insane that sounds, Tyler?”
Tears well up in his eyes. “Being together did cause this, Avery. Don’t you see?”
I fold my arms across my chest. “I can’t believe it. You’re just like every other asshole who gets what they want from a girl and then ditches her.” He tries to interrupt me, but I just keep going, raising my voice to the point where I’m practically screaming at him. “I thought you were better than that, Tyler! I thought you were a sincere guy. I can’t believe that you’re using my father’s death to break up with me!”
“I’m not making this shit up, Avery! God, do you think I really want to leave you? That I never cared? Well, you’re fucking wrong. I’m trying to do the right fucking thing here. I’m trying to do what’s best for you. I can’t stand the thought of you hating me, so I have to leave.”
“I could never hate you,” I tell him.
“You say that now, but once you’ve had time to see things clearly, you’ll know this fire was all my fault.” His lips pull into a thin line as a single tear drips down his cheek. “And you’ll despise me as much as I despise myself. I have to do this, Avery. Being with you—it was a mistake.”
My breath catches. “A mistake?”
He closes his eyes and when he reopens them, there’s a hardness in them, like he’s trying to cut off all his emotions.
“I have to refocus on my music, and there’s no room in my life for you.”
“No,” I whisper. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do mean it. You were nothing but a distraction, Avery.”
I clutch my chest, attempting to hold together pieces of my shattering heart. He’s leaving me now?
