AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He puts on a face like he’s annoyed when he sees it’s me at the door, but I know him, know there’s way more hurt than anything else involved when it comes to me.
I felt like an assassin a few weeks ago when Tyler doubled over like I’d landed a shot to his gut, like I’d physically knocked the wind out of him. He never saw it coming, and how could he? I was a different person the day after the crash. I saw my mother, my father, my town, Tyler—I saw everyone and everything through a new and decidedly more jaded lens.
I don’t even know who you are, he said. And I felt the same. Fact is, I’m still struggling to get used to this new version of myself. I’m still on the fence as to whether or not I even like her.
He promised me he’d change, begged me not to do this to him, begged for another chance. He cried but I didn’t. I was stone-faced and distant, treating the break-up as just another box I had to check off on my very long to-do list.
Standing across from him now, I feel the weight of what I’ve done to Tyler. I’ve never had the power to hurt another person the way I’ve hurt him, and there’s no pleasure in having the upper hand.
I’m leaving tomorrow. I’m driving my late-model Sentra up to Pittsburgh and starting a new chapter. So today is for making amends, for closure.
They say it’s easier to leave than to be left behind, and I believe that. But when Lila Watkins comes sauntering out of Tyler’s bedroom, making her way to the kitchen so she’s sure to be seen, I’m the one who feels like I’ve been sucker punched. I hand over the cardboard box with what I’m sure is a lifeless expression because I feel dead.
For a fleeting moment I imagine them tangled up in his sheets. Does he make her laugh, blow raspberries on her naked skin and tickle her even though she begs him not to? Does he study her and smile as he runs one hand through her long hair? Does he tell Lila how beautiful she is?
He looks over his shoulder to see what’s got my attention and then turns back to me. Taking the box from my hands, he says, “You didn’t have to give this stuff back.” When Tyler adds, “It’s just crap,” I don’t know if he’s referring to his tattered blue flannel that I used to wrap myself up in, or if he’s referring to us, to me.
I want to tell him. I want to tell him that what we had was special. That I’ll always have nothing but love for him, always want good things for him. But she’s here. She’s wearing one of his shirts with nothing on underneath, acting like she belongs. And his eyes, eyes that were always soft and smiling, are hard now and taking me in like I’m nothing more than an unwelcome guest. He shifts on his feet, impatient.
I turn to go. “Take care of yourself, Tyler.”
He clears his throat, and when I look back he’s running his thumb back and forth over his chin as if he’s trying to decide something. A moment later he gives me a sad, lopsided smile that I return. He doesn’t need to say it and neither do I.
He calls after me, “Good luck, Sky.”
I turn back to thank him but he’s already shut the door.
Chapter Four
Skylar
Less than an hour.
That’s all it will take whenever you want to drive back home, take a break, go and see Sienna.
This is what I tell myself whenever I feel lonely, which is basically all the time.
My scholarship covers everything—tuition, room and board. There’s no way I would have been able to come here otherwise. I can’t apply for a school loan, and any landlord with half a brain wouldn’t rent to me after getting a look at my credit score. Nope, I’m a cash and carry girl now. I have a bank account, but I’m not allowed things like overdraft privileges and such. I won’t be in the clear until my credit record is expunged, and I’m told that could take a while.
It’s fine, I tell myself. It could have been worse. Walking into the police station and filing a report was humiliating, but we got through it. Wes took the report, a guy only a few years older than me, and he damn near choked on his coffee when Sienna named our father as the perpetrator. My father, a perp. The thought of it, picturing him in his button-down shirts and pleatedslacks, as he still called them—he couldn’t look more straight-laced, upstanding and ordinary if he tried.
Wes was good about it. After that momentary lapse in professional conduct, he took our information with a straight face, nodding impassively and acting as if people came into the station every day claiming their father had put them into debt for close to a hundred thousand dollars.
That was the worst of it. Dealing with the FTC was a piece of cake in comparison. Those government agencies do, in fact, deal with this sort of bullshit on a daily basis. So the woman who was handling our case may have been shaking her head in sympathy and clucking her tongue in disapproval on the other end of the phone line, but at least we didn’t have to witness it like we did walking out of the precinct.
By the time we left, it was obvious that every single officer knew our tale of woe. And the clerical worker, an old friend of my mother’s who sat her ass on our couch for book club or Ladies’ Auxiliary meetings more times than I can count, gave us nothing more than a weak smile as we passed her desk on the way out. She couldn’t even look us in the eye.
But being the town pariah, charity case du jour, the object of scrutiny and sympathy—none of it matters to me. It’s still home and I miss it.
I want to run home all the time. I don’t like living in the dorms. My roommate is fine. It’s not her. She minds her own business and keeps to herself. She’s what I would have called a loner back in high school before I up and joined in their ranks.
That’s what has me so rattled. I used to be in the center of it all. I had friends, I had Tyler. And I didn’t have tomakefriends. Nothing took effort. When you grow up in a small town like mine, everyone just knows you. You don’t have to present this package to the world, let them open you up and then decide if you’re worth keeping. You’re just surrounded by the people who have known you, accepted you and loved you since day one. At least I felt that way.
This is like walking through a movie set every day. Life is going on all around me but I’m nothing more than a prop in the background, set dressing, silent and inanimate. Spirited conversations, the complex nonverbal language of relationships—even the most basic exchanges, like the man in line ordering his coffee as I sip my tea off to the side—I take it all in. I watch their body language, listen to their words, create imaginary backstories for each and every character.
I feel invisible.
I sit in these arena-style classrooms with upwards of three hundred students packed inside, but cannot seem to find one person to so much as make eye contact with. The five or ten minutes before classes start are the worst. Clusters of students talk, laugh looking at some nonsense on their friend’s phone, or walk into the room searching for a familiar face, smiling when they catch sight of their person.
