32
TYLER
I HADN’T BEEN BACK TO this piece of shit town in years. Not since Josh’s mom and stepdad moved away. There was nothing for me here but bad memories and the evidence that nothing had changed. The houses were still run down. The yards were overgrown with weeds. The concrete roads were pitted and pockmarked, and the dirt ones were so bad you’d need a lifted truck to navigate them.
Mom was buried a whole county over in a much nicer area, away from her fucked-up family. I didn’t even tell them where she was—those assholes didn’t deserve access to her. So, no, there hadn’t been a reason for me to come back here. Not until now.
One of the few changes of note was that there were more trees than I remembered. This part of the country was flat, and growing up, there had been a lot of open fields, though they’d mostly laid fallow because the local farming industry had been in full collapse by then. Now the forests were creeping back in, reclaiming what had been stolen from them. I wondered if that meant the wildlife was rebounding, too, bears and wolves stalking through the trees.
Stella was quiet beside me, her face turned away as she stared out the window at the passing landscape. Seeing her openly weep for me had been oddly gratifying. Like maybe I wasn’t wrong for thinking I had an especially shitty childhood.
She must have felt my eyes on her because she glanced my way. “Where are we going?”
“To see my aunt Jenny. She was the only one Mom had any contact with and can confirm everything I told you.”
Ten minutes later, a familiar, abandoned farmhouse appeared ahead on the right, looking even more decrepit than I remembered, the roof caving in,
the front porch half rotted away. I hit my blinker and turned onto a dirt road just past it, slowing the car to avoid all the ruts and potholes. My shoulders stiffened up, and I put both hands on the wheel, white-knuckling it even though we were only going ten miles an hour.
Stella noticed. “You sure you want to do this?”
“Yes. Aunt Jenny will confirm everything I told you, and then you’ll know I’m not lying.”
“I don’t think you’re lying,” she said. “Not about this. I believe you really think Richard treated your mom that way.”
“But you still don’t believe he did.”
“Does it matter if I do?”
“It does,” I said before I could stop myself.
Did I have any right to ask her to believe me? No. But I was asking anyway because I needed someone else to hear the whole story. To understand that I had my reasons for doing what I’d done, behaving the way I had.
My mother died a horrible death that might have been prevented if she’d had access to early cancer screenings or better healthcare. Coverage she would have had if Richard had done the right thing. For him to claim he’d been looking for us, all so he could save face if the scandal eventually broke, was un-fucking-forgivable. I couldn’t let him get away with it.
All too soon, we were pulling into the dusty driveway of a run-down, brown-shingled ranch. Pink flamingos dotted the lawn. A flower basket hung beside the front door. We parked next to Jenny’s ancient, rusted-out minivan, and I turned off the car. Two tired-looking old hound dogs roused themselves from the front porch. One gave a low woof as they headed our
way, but neither seemed aggressive.
Still, I wasn’t taking any chances.
“Let me go first,” I said, pushing my door open. Both dogs wiggle- butted right up to me, tails blurring, noses leaving wet marks on my pants.
“They’re fine,” I told Stella, and she climbed out next.
They went around and greeted her, and then retreated toward the house like their jobs were done and they could go back to napping.
“The fuck are you doing here?” a raspy voice called.
I turned to see Jenny standing by the railing, wearing a blue-and-white tie-dyed dress, her long brown hair piled on top of her head, a blunt
dangling from her fingers. She’d lost weight since the last time I’d seen her,
the dress hanging loose on her frame.
“I came to talk to you,” I said.
She took a long hit off the blunt, eyeing me over the top of it. Yup, this was going about how I expected.
“This is my girlfriend, Stella,” I said, putting a hand on her lower back to get her moving. Why I felt the need to still play-act like we were together, I had no idea. Maybe it was habit at this point, a way to explain her presence.
Jenny exhaled a cloud of smoke and looked Stella over from head to toe.
“I thought you left here because you wanted to get away from the trash?”
Stella reached the porch steps first, extending her hand toward my aunt.
“It’s been a long fucking night. At least give me a hit if you’re going to be an immediate bitch to me.”
Jenny barked a laugh, caught off-guard, and passed the blunt over.
“Maybe you’re not so bad.”
“I’ve even been told I’m tolerable once or twice,” Stella said, taking an
even longer drag then Jenny had.
My aunt chuckled.
I pulled the blunt from Stella’s fingers when she tried to take a second hit. “Calm down, lightweight.” I wasn’t one, so I took two drags and passed
it back to my aunt.
“What do you want?” she said.
I blew out a lungful of smoke. “To talk about Mom.”
She scowled. “You finally going to tell me where you hid her?”
“I didn’t hide her, I gave her the burial she deserved, without help from any of you.”
Jenny pointed the blunt at me. “Don’t start that bullshit. I was in jail, Tyler. What the fuck did you expect me to do from there? Barter my commissary money for a headstone?”
I clenched my jaw shut on a retort. I was not getting dragged into this fight again.
“I just want to say goodbye to my sister,” Jenny said.
“Fine. I’ll tell you where she is. After you answer my questions and promise not to tell anyone else if the family. She’s finally at peace, and I don’t want them bothering her.”
“Like I talk to any of those fuckers.” She studied me for a second. “What
do you want to know?”
“What happened to Mom in the city?”
Her gaze slid away from mine. “Why are you asking me that now, after
all these years?”
“Because I found Richard.”
Her eyes, the same pale blue my mother’s had been, landed back on me.
“What do you mean, you found him? You promised Meg you wouldn’t go looking.” She inspected my clothes—dirty, but expensive—before her gaze slid to my six-figure car. “Don’t tell me you live there.”
“I live there.”
“Goddamn it, Tyler. He didn’t lie and tell you he tried to find you two, did he?”
A tingle ran up my spine. Why—the fuck—had my aunt jumped straight to that conclusion? “Why would you think he said that?”
She waved her hand through the air. “Because that man was always lying about everything.”
I studied her. Lack of eye contact, increased breathing, immediate defensiveness, looking up and to the right, fidgeting with the blunt. She was trying to hide something from me.
Stella shifted at my side, and I could tell from the look on her face that she thought so, too.
“He told a pretty convincing story,” I said, remaining vague on the details to see how Jenny would react.
She suddenly became very interested in her fingernails. “’Course that
asshole did.”
Lying. She was lying.
“Aunt Jenny,” I said, my voice laced with barely restrained anger. “I am going to need you to tell me what happened. What really happened.”
Her head snapped up, eyes boring into mine. “Don’t you take that attitude with me. I am your elder.”
I stepped toward her. “You’re nothing but a mean old drunk who’s spent your whole life blaming other people for the problems you caused. You mooched off us when we had nothing to give and took advantage of Mom’s kindness for years. The fucking least you owe me is the goddamn truth!”
“Tyler,” Stella said, putting a hand on my arm.
“No!” Jenny shouted. “Let him show you who he is, honey. Who he’s always been. A self-obsessed brat who thinks he’s too good for the rest of us.” She got right in my face, breath reeking of pot and stale liquor. “You wanna know what happened? Your mama saw what those people were like.
She saw how greedy and awful money made them. How rotten and spoiled and mean their kids were, and she didn’t want you to grow up in that world.
She thought it would be better for you if you grew up here, with nothing, so you learned the value of money and hard work. That’s why she left Richard.”
She poked me in the chest. “Well, I’m glad she’s not around to find out she failed. That it wasn’t money that made them like that, it was blood, and even after all her hard work, you turned out just as bad as those rich assholes.” She shoved me, and I stumbled back a step. “Get off my property. I got somewhere to be.”
She turned and stormed back into the house, and I just stood there, unmoving, my ears ringing. I tried to tell myself she was lying, but the truth was there for anyone who knew how to read the signs.
“We should go,” Stella said, taking the steps down to the dirt lawn.
I didn’t follow her because I didn’t think I could move. My hands were shaking, and I felt hot, dizzy. Like I was about to puke.
“Tyler, come on,” Stella said, heading toward the car.
My gaze went past her to the trees, my vision tunneling around me.
There was nothing in my head but a low roar and a need to get away. From what, I had no idea. Maybe myself. Maybe the knowledge that my entire life had been a lie and I had wasted years of it pursuing a Machiavellian plot of familial vengeance. Maybe if I started walking, I’d feel better.
Maybe if I kept walking, heading as deep into these woods as I could, I might find some forest hermit with untold knowledge who could tell me how to unfuck my life.
Aunt Jenny came storming back outside. Without so much as looking at me, she took the stairs down and climbed into the minivan. The engine wheezed to life, and then roared as she dropped the gas pedal to the floor and tore out of there so fast the rear tires skidded. Time seemed to slow as the van suddenly jerked several feet to the left.
Stella was standing in its path, her eyes widening as she realized she was about to get hit. I screamed—her name, or a warning, I wasn’t sure—but
there was nothing she could do to avoid being clipped by the tail end, and then suddenly she was flying backward, her head cracking against the
ground.
Fuck!
I leapt from the porch as Jenny took off down the road, still swerving.
Stella lay in the dirt, the dogs closing in on her. I shooed them away and slid to my knees by her side. Her eyes were closed, head lolling in a boneless way that shot terror straight through my heart.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Was she dead?
“Stella.”
No response.
I grabbed her shoulder and was about to shake her, but thought better of it. What if something critical was broken and the slightest movement finished her off? I slid my fingers to her neck, feeling for a pulse and panicking when I didn’t immediately find it.
What had I done? What had I fucking done?
Stella was afraid of cars, and I’d forced her into one and dragged her up here to what, get killed by another? And god, after everything else I’d already put this woman through. This prickly, impossible, snarky, beautiful woman, who I once thought I hated but now— Her pulse jumped against my fingers.
Relief swept through me, but that didn’t mean she was okay, just alive.
She’d just been hit by a car, and while it hadn’t looked that bad, she was thinner and frailer than most. Her back might be broken. She might have brain swelling. How the fuck did I check for that?
I had no idea, but luckily, I knew someone who did.
I yanked my phone out of my pocket. One bar.
Please let me be able to make a call. I swear, I’ll never be mean to this woman again, I promised any deity who might have been listening.
I called Josh and put it on speaker. A few seconds passed before it finally started to ring, and I swear my heart stopped while I waited.
“Yello,” Josh said.
“Can you hear me?”
“Kinda. You’re breaking up a little. Are you on the shitter? You know your bathroom gets the worst reception in the apartment.”
“Is Aly with you, or is she on shift?”
“She’s here. Why?”
“Can I talk to her?”
“Seriously?” he griped. “I barely hear from you in weeks—weeks, Tyler —and the first time you actually call me first, it’s to speak to my fiancée?”
“I have an injured woman here!” I yelled. “Quit fucking around and give Aly the phone!”
“Oh, shit. One second.” I heard the sound of running feet. “Babe! Tyler needs your help, and before you say something sarcastic like I did, it’s serious.”
A scuffling noise came over the line, and then Aly’s voice. “Tyler? What happened?”
“She got clipped by a car and hit her head,” I said, hating the panic in my voice. “Now she’s unconscious. What do I do?”
“Call 911,” she said.
I hung up, called them, gave them our location and then called Aly back.
“They’re on their way, now what do I do?”
“Call them back so they can talk you through it.”
“That’s what I called you for! They’re just an operator. You’re a fucking
ER nurse.”
“Jesus. Okay, is she breathing?”
“She has a pulse.”
“Yeah, but is she breathing?”
“I don’t know!” I yelled, staring down at Stella’s slack-jawed face.
Aly went into full nurse mode. “Put a hand on her ribs and your cheek near her mouth. Wait to see if her lungs expand or she exhales on you.”
I did what she said, shaking with adrenaline, and just like with Stella’s pulse, it took me far too long to feel anything.
“She’s breathing,” I said, about to pass out from relief.
“That’s good,” Aly assured me. “Keep one hand on her ribs to make sure she doesn’t stop. What position is she in?”
“She’s on the ground. On her back. I didn’t move her.”
“Good. Don’t. Make sure her head stays slightly tilted back while she’s unconscious to keep her airway open. If she starts to gag at all, roll her sideways so she doesn’t choke.”
“Puking after a head injury is bad, right?”
“It’s not great,” Aly said, and I was grateful for her honesty. “Is it light
where you are?”
“Yes, we’re outside.”
“Crack one of her eyelids open.”
Aly walked me through the steps of checking Stella’s pupils for responsiveness, and sounded relieved when I told her both of them
contracted immediately and equally.
“Have you tried to wake her up at all?”
“No, I called you immediately.”
“Okay, next we’re going to try the shout-tap-shout method,” Aly said.
It involved shouting a person’s name, gently tapping them, and then shouting their name again. I was just gearing up to scream Stella! straight into her face because how dare she scare me this badly, when she started to wake up on her own, letting out a groan.
“I think she’s coming to,” I said. “She’s rolling onto her side. That means
she didn’t break her neck, right?”
“I mean, you’d need X-rays to be sure—”
“Aly.”
“She probably didn’t break her neck. But she still needs to go to the hospital to get checked out.”
Stella made another low sound and blinked her eyes open.
I carefully brushed her hair back from her face. “Hey, Sunshine.”
Aly sucked in a surprised breath.
“Was that a pet name?” Josh whispered.
The sound of a slap came over the line, and then shushing.
Great, I was on speakerphone, too.
“Tyler?” Stella rasped.
“Ask her questions,” Aly said. “Simple ones.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Not Sunshine,” Stella answered.
I grinned, taking her immediate snark as a good sign. “What month is
it?”
“August.”
“Who am I?”
“A bastard.”
Josh choked back a laugh.
“I’m hanging up now,” I told Aly.
“Wait!” she said, before giving me a list of instructions on how to handle Stella and what to watch out for in case her condition deteriorated while we waited for the ambulance.
I asked her to text it to me, thanked her, and hung up.
“Who was that?” Stella asked.
“My best friend and his fiancée,” I told her. “She’s an ER nurse. What hurts?”
“My whole body,” she groaned, her breathing picking up.
“What specifically, Stella? Come on, try to focus.”
“My head. My hip?” she added, sounding less sure. “My forearms from putting them out to try and block the van. Oh, god, I got hit by a car. I got hit by a car.” She burst into tears. “Am I okay?”
I couldn’t let her just lie there anymore, and since she didn’t say her neck or back, I pulled her onto my lap. “You’re okay.” No thanks to me. “You’re not even bleeding, and she didn’t hit you that hard, just enough to knock the wind out of you. You hit your head when you fell, but you were only out for a minute or two.”
She sobbed even harder, and I didn’t know if it was because she was in that much pain or just traumatized.
“I hate you,” she said, trying to push away.
I held her easily, refusing to let her go, because for a second there, I’d
thought I’d lost her forever. “I know.”
“This is your fault!”
“It is.”
She beat her fists against my chest, still crying, and I was glad, because it meant that she couldn’t have been hurt that badly if she was trying to fight me, right?
“I’m sorry,” I told her, pulling her close enough to drop a kiss on top of her head.
She punched me one more time and went still, her sides heaving, voice broken. “Why should I believe you?”
It wasn’t lost on me that she’d been forced to ask me that question multiple times. “Because I’m done lying to you, Stella. I thought you were dead. I thought I had gotten you killed, and it … shifted my perspective on things.”
She was silent for the longest moment of my life. “Finally realized that it’s actually you who’s in love with me, huh?”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said.
I’d spent my whole life so full of hate that I didn’t know if there was any room in my heart for love. But what I did know was that over the last several weeks, Stella had wormed her way into it against my will. I’d told myself I kidnapped her because I wanted someone else to bear witness to everything I’d been through, everything I had lost, and maybe that was true, but deep down, I hadn’t wanted her to get caught or arrested. I’d wanted a chance to explain myself. Had hated the look of loathing and disgust on her face when she realized what I’d done, like we’d suddenly been reset back to day one.
So I’d done what I did best. Acted in my own self-interest without a thought for what anyone else wanted or needed. I’d forced, coerced, and bullied because I’d spent so long treating people that way that I’d forgotten there was any other way to behave.
In the distance, the first wail of sirens cut through the air.
I stared down at the woman in my arms, with no idea how to move forward from here, only knowing I wanted to move forward with her. And from this point on, I’d do whatever it took to make that happen.
