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They also mentioned how he’d had Ty’s grandparents deported.
A few years later, they would die in an accident, never seeing their grandson again. Ty’s entry was cold and to the point but I noted the way his pen dug into the paper, as though he wanted to scream but couldn’t.
Several of his entries were dedicated to how he'd failed to protect Daniel or tried to help him, both from Michaelson family members and fellow schoolmates. He wrote sparse bits of horror about how his Uncle Sal treated Daniel, mentions of the injuries inflicted on Daniel, his rage at his uncle, and how his cousin seemed to withdraw sometimes in a way that scared Ty more than anything else.
Suffice to say that I felt immense relief when I read how Sal had finally gone to federal prison for good.
After that, it seemed Daniel recovered enough toalmost have a normal existence in our fucked-up family,Ty had written.
There were a few more entries, but these had years separating them instead of months. Finally, I came to the last one, a note about his father having to go to the hospital. It was dated six years ago.
Closing the diary, I set it aside and laid back.
My head throbbed from everything I’d just read.
But the one thing that stuck out was that Ty had lost his mother young in an unexpected way and then had the moorings ripped out from his life by a selfish father.
It was strange that we had that in common, out of all the similarities to share.
Sitting up, I went through the pictures and saw that most of them were of Ty’s family from before, mainly his mother and grandparents. There were also some photos of Ty and his friends, laughing and hamming it up on a football field.
Then I found one of three teenage boys in suits, lined up on the front steps of this very house. They all had stiff smiles and rigidpostures, and I’m sure I didn’t imagine the fear in their eyes. I recognized Ty and the blond boy who had to be Daniel.
The other boy was husky and dark-haired, with mischief lurking on his face despite his fear, but there was sadness there too.
I turned my attention back to Daniel, noting that he was gripping Ty’s hand, and my heart ached. As I examined his face, an exclamation escaped me, and I realized I’d seen Daniel all grown up a week ago. He was the blond man that we’d seen lounging against an SUV on a cold winter’s night, blowing smoke into the air, the one that Sara had been flustered over and couldn’t get a read on.
“No wonder,” I murmured. “Poor guy.”
Looking through the photos and papers of Ty’s life, I suddenly realized what this little box was. Hidden away in a dusty room, these were the scraps of his heart that he’d tried to hold onto. And up until six years ago, maybe he’d succeeded.
Gathering them up, I carefully put them back, slipped off my bed and hid the box in a drawer under some t-shirts. My fingers shook as I closed the drawer and I leaned against the bed and tipped my head back, wondering why I was fighting tears.
Then it hit me.
I was crying for the boy that Ty had been, for the fact that he hadn’t always been like this.
Cruel circumstance, loss, and a lack of choice had made his heart turn stone-cold.
Maybe, in another life, we could’ve found each other and been happy.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Lia
With a gasp, my eyes flew open and I surfaced, as though I had been drowning in my dreams. Sweat soaked the pillow under my neck and I sat up, gingerly touching my damp hair.
Vivid images pulsed in my head of Ty, wrapped in shadows and pulling me in for a kiss, or running after his mother in the rain and bleeding on a cement floor.
Throwing back the covers, I all but ran for the shower and stayed in there until the scorching water had cooled. When I was done, I wrapped a towel around me and told myself they were only dreams, that it was probably nothing but stress and confusion causing this.
But deep down, I couldn’t stop thinking about that little boy.
Finally, I roused myself and got ready. I dried my hair then went back to the guest room to find clothes. Restless, I flipped through the outfits in the closet before deciding on a pretty, pale blue sheath dress that hit at my knee and a long white sweater. Both were so gorgeous, I immediately felt dressed up even though I left my feet bare.
My stomach rumbled with hunger. I'd been up for hours, but I guessed it was barely mid-morning since that dream had woken me around dawn.
Even though I didn’t want to, I had to face Ty.
