It’s almost ten by the time I shut down Tyler’s laptop. I’ve been lying here for a while. Just thinking. About Tyler and about the video and about him and me. I wonder where all of this is going. When Dean finds out the truth and when we break the news to our parents, what happens then? What’s next? Will Tyler and I get together? Are we supposed to wait a few months and let everything cool down first? I don’t know. All I know is that I’m growing tired of waiting. It’s been two years and we haven’t gotten anywhere yet. Two years and I have yet to be able to proudly introduce Tyler to people as my boyfriend. Will I ever get to do that? I can only hope and I can only pray that no one looks back at me with wide eyes and shocked gasps.
I’m still sitting alone in silence, comfortable in the dark, when the door slowly opens with a creak. I glance up expecting to see Emily, but instead I see Tyler. His head is hung low as he lingers at the door, his hand resting on the handle. He appears calm now. Not confused or angry, but not quite relaxed either. Just calm.
“Can we talk?” he asks quietly. There’s a nervous undertone to his voice, like he’s expecting me to say no. I might not be able to clearly see his face, but I can tell that he doesn’t want to look me in the eyes right now. He’s staring at the ground.
I don’t reply, only nod once and hope that he can see it. I press my palms down on the mattress and shift my body over to the other side of the bed, closest to the window, and I wait for him to join me in the warm space I’ve just left. That’s exactly what he does. In silence, he closes the door behind him with an inaudible click and makes his way over, gently slipping into the bed by my side. He stays on top of the comforter, putting an arm around me as I rest my head against his shoulder. We both breathe softly for a while, and even though he asked if we could talk, neither of us wants to. We both just look ahead of us to the mirrored closet doors opposite the foot of the bed, staring at the reflections of our outlines through the dark.
After a short while, Tyler decides to finally say something, but he doesn’t move an inch as he clears his throat. “What happened yesterday?” he asks so quietly that it’s almost a whisper. The silence feels too fragile to speak any louder.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to consider everything that happened today and yesterday. Everything has gone wrong since Tuesday, since the moment Tiffani stepped foot in Manhattan. I’m just relieved now that although I made a mess of it all and that Dean’s probably already been told the truth by now, Tiffani didn’t get her way. It backfired. The fact that Tyler’s here with me right now already proves that he’s taking my side, that it’s me he believes. “Tiffani wanted you back,” I admit, my head still against his shoulder. His chest rises and falls. “She thought the only way that would happen was if I wasn’t in the way. She said I had to cut things off with you or she’d tell Dean the truth. If we beat her to it and told Dean first, she’d tell our parents.” It’s a little more complicated than that, but I simplify it all for the sole reason that I don’t particularly want to talk about it. I try to glance up at Tyler, but from my angle I can only see his forehead.
“Fuck,” he murmurs. I see him run his free hand back through his hair as he exhales a long breath. Slowly, he shakes his head and squeezes my body tighter against his. “I’m sorry for being such an asshole earlier. I was just pissed off at you and I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“I’m sorry too,” I tell him.
He manages to laugh a little, a quiet, breathy laugh, just like the times he laughed during the video. I don’t think I’ll tell him that I know about it. I think I’ll keep that a secret. “Seriously, I thought you’d given up on me,” Tyler admits. “Don’t ever scare the hell out of me like that again.”
I don’t think I’ll ever give up, especially not now, and I think this exact moment is a better time than any to show Tyler the new addition to my wrist. I don’t need to reply to him right now. I think his own words, his own quote is the only reply he needs. Smiling, I hold up my hand and raise my pinky, purposely angling my wrist in Tyler’s direction as I say, “I promise I won’t.”
He’s just about to interlock his pinky with mine when he pauses, grasping my wrist instead and bolting upright, then leaning forward. When I glance sideways at him, he’s squinting through the dark at the words inked upon my skin. He looks to me with wide eyes. “What’s this?”
“You might want to turn on a light,” I say, biting down on my lower lip as I grow slightly anxious. I can imagine Tyler’s eyebrows shooting up as he unwraps his arm from my body and reaches over me to turn on the lamp on the bedside table, his other hand never letting go of my wrist.
The room immediately brightens up, setting both our faces aglow, and I don’t even look to my wrist. I look at Tyler, admiring the way his eyes gloss over and his lips part, his entire face lighting up with surprise in the most adorable of ways as he studies my wrist with great intensity. “No way,” he says, blinking at me with an expression full of innocence. It all makes him seem younger in that exact moment, like he’s just a kid again.
I laugh and pull my wrist free from his hand, scanning my new tattoo again for myself. It’s still rather red and occasionally I can feel a hot sting, but it’s all worth it for Tyler’s expression alone. “I got it this afternoon,” I say, answering the question he hasn’t even asked. I know he’s wondering about it, though, so I continue to explain. “It was the only thing I could think of that would make sense to only you and me. It’s yours. It’s what you wrote.”
“You were way more thoughtful than me,” he says with a sheepish smile as he lifts his left arm up a little, glancing down at his own tattoo, the one on his bicep and the one that’s only four letters long. “I wasn’t that original. Hey, the ‘te’ looks a little squint,” he says, pointing to the words on my wrist again.
“That’s because you wrote it a little squint,” I fire back at him, rolling my eyes, and he seems to realize only then that my tattoo is in his very own handwriting, because color rises to his cheeks and he looks away. I roll out of the bed still smiling, dropping to my knees on the carpet and looking back across the bed to Tyler. It’s hard to believe that this afternoon everything went wrong and now everything feels right again. “By the way,” I say, “Emily knows.”
“Knows what?” Tyler asks, his eyes never leaving mine.
“About us,” I say slowly. I push myself up from the floor and get to my feet. I look down at Tyler, still in the bed, studying me. “She knows that we’re more than just stepsiblings.”
“You told her?” Immediately he pushes back the comforter and slides out of the bed, straightening up as panic pools in his eyes.
“She figured it out herself,” I tell him. His expression shifts from worry to confusion as he tries to process the fact that Emily knows the truth. “And,” I say, walking around the bed with a wide grin toying at my lips, “she doesn’t even care. She’s totally cool with it.”
Tyler’s eyes are wide again as they follow me across the room. “She is?”
“Yeah.” When I reach him, I cup his face in my hands and stretch up to kiss him, pressing my lips to his before pulling away to add, “People knowing the truth isn’t that bad after all.”
He looks at me hard for a moment, his eyes searching mine. I wonder if he thinks I’m kidding, but I’m most definitely not, so I kiss him again almost as a way to reassure him that everything is okay for once. I can’t stop myself. I’m smiling against his lips, squeezing my eyes shut, and I bask in that feeling of acceptance again. It’s so overwhelming and so incredible that I don’t quite know how to handle it. I’m no longer terrified of people discovering that I’m in love with my stepbrother. We’re just two people with a label plastered upon us. That’s all it is.
Even though he struggles to tear his lips from mine, Tyler pulls away, and he drops his hands to my waist and gently pushes me back a step. “Does Snake know?”
“Don’t think so,” I say, shaking my head once. Slowly, a smile fueled by nervous excitement grows on my lips as I reach for one of Tyler’s hands. I remove it from my waist and twist my fingers around his. “Is he back yet? We should tell him. C’mon, can we tell him?”
Tyler lets out a laugh, throwing his head back at the same time as he pulls my body against his. “If only you were this enthusiastic about breaking the news to your dad,” he murmurs, smirking as he reaches for the door with his free hand.
He leads me into the living room, and it’s the first time I’ve left his bedroom in almost five hours. I was too caught up in the video Emily showed me. The one that lasts for four hours and twenty-seven minutes.
Speaking of Emily, she’s perched on one of the couches in the living room, surrounded by notebooks and odd scraps of paper that decorate the coffee table. The TV is on, but the volume is low, as though it’s only on in the first place to serve as background noise. She glances up when she hears us shuffling our way across the carpet, and immediately her lips curve up into a smile. “So I take it you two have sorted everything out?”
Tyler doesn’t answer her question, only walks me over to the couch instead. He lifts up our interlocked hands and arches his eyebrows at her. “You know?”
“Yeah.”
“And it doesn’t freak you out?” he asks, just as confused as I was earlier. For two years straight, both of us predicted reactions that were nothing like hers. Tyler drops our hands back down, letting go.
“Nope,” Emily says. She shakes her head and clicks her pen a couple times, expression nonchalant. “Honestly, just do what you guys want to do. Life’s way too short not to.”
Her words make me smile and I wrap my arms around Tyler’s bicep as I squeeze him tight. “La breve vita,” I murmur, glancing up at him. “Life is short.”
Just as he’s about to open his mouth to say something back, there’s some commotion at the door. Some tapping and some fumbling. All three of us glance over, and at first I think it could be Dean trying to ram the door down so that he can kill both Tyler and me, but I breathe a sigh of relief when I hear a key being inserted into the lock. It’s Snake, finally.
The door swings open only moments later and out of habit I let go of Tyler and jump back a step or two. Besides, we haven’t told Snake yet.
“That was one hell of a long lunch date,” Emily throws at him, leaning forward on the couch so that she can see him past Tyler and me. She bites down on the end of the pen in her hand as she wiggles her eyebrows at him, teasing him a little.
Snake only rolls his gray eyes as he saunters over to the kitchen. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since he left to buy groceries last night and, surprisingly, he’s now dressed up rather nice. He’s even wearing a shirt, pressed and all. “Yeah, yeah, I took her out for dinner too. Gave her the grand tour of Manhattan.”
“Snake,” I say, playfully throwing him a stern glance as I fold my arms across my chest, “who told you you could take my best friend out on a date?”
I’m only kidding, of course, but he still spins around and narrows his eyes at me. “What’s she doing back here already?” he asks, directing his eyes to Tyler instead. But he’s only being playful too. “Are you guys best buds again?”
“Actually . . .” I cut in, stepping forward and twiddling my thumbs anxiously. I want Snake to know the truth. I want to tell him the truth. We’ve never done that before, and right now I feel brave enough to try it. “We have something we wanna tell you.”
I steal a quick glance at Emily, who’s now gnawing at her pen on the couch as she watches in anticipation, and then I look over my shoulder to Tyler. He’s smoldering his eyes at me as he smirks, but not in a malicious way, more in a let’s-do-this kind of way. He takes a step forward so that he’s by my side again. Snake studies the two of us with curious eyes.
I don’t exactly know what to say or how to phrase the truth, but suddenly I no longer even have to say anything at all, because I’m being spun around by Tyler as he draws me toward him. Out of nowhere, he crashes his lips to mine for what feels like the hundredth time now.
It takes me by surprise. It’s the last thing I expected right now, but at the same time I can’t pull away. I keep kissing him back, caught up in the familiarity of how his lips feel against mine. I’m most definitely aware that both Snake and Emily are watching us, yet I can’t bring myself to care.
Tyler quickly draws away almost as abruptly as he kissed me in the first place, and he flashes his eyes back to Snake. “Give me your opinion,” he orders. “Right now.”
I look at Snake. He’s staring back at us from the kitchen, his posture frozen, and he does nothing but blink at us. He’s a little stunned, but that’s okay. I expect people to be shocked at first. Slowly, he swallows and exchanges a rather concerned glance with Emily. “What the fuck?” he says. Pulling a face, he breathes an uncomfortable laugh, unsure of what to think and what to say.
“I’m in love with her,” Tyler tells him, and his voice is so soft and so honest that I can’t help but smile sideways at him. I think I could listen to Tyler say those words over and over again, forever on repeat. I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of hearing him say it out loud.
“But . . .” Snake tapers off and glances to Emily again, as though he’s looking for backup. He must wonder why she’s not as shocked as he is and why she’s smiling as she watches the scene unfold before her. Snake shakes his head and exhales. “Aren’t you guys, like, stepsiblings?”
“Yeah,” I say, brave enough to speak up and defend our case. I’m done feeling as though I’m doing something wrong just because I fell for my stepbrother. I know it’s okay. “So we’re not related by blood,” I explain. “We didn’t grow up together so we don’t view each other as siblings. Get it?” I widen my eyes at him as innocently as I can, praying that he’ll understand and that he’ll hopefully come to terms with it. Right now, he still looks a little taken aback.
“Uhh . . . So are you guys dating or what?” he asks. He grips the edge of the kitchen worktop with one hand and then scratches his head with the other. “Is this even real right now or are you guys just messing with me?”
“We’re not dating,” Tyler answers in reply to his first question, his voice firm. “It’s complicated. Just tell me what’s going through your mind right now.”
Snake shrugs. “I mean, it’s a little weird,” he admits. “My parents are totally religious. I’m pretty sure they’d expect me to report you guys to Jesus.” He eases up a little, rolling his eyes, then turning to pull open a cupboard door and searching around inside it. He pulls out a bag of Doritos and opens it up. As he leans back against the farthest worktop, he tosses a couple chips into his mouth and chews loudly while studying Emily. “What do you think about all of this?” he asks her after a minute.
“I already knew,” Emily says with a shrug. She shuffles the scraps of paper in her hands. “It doesn’t bother me.”
Snake munches on several more chips as he thinks, tilting his head a degree to the side. “It’s a little weird,” he says again, “but I don’t have a problem with it.” He starts to smile but it quickly transforms into a smirk instead as he raises an eyebrow at Tyler. “So do you guys have kinky family traditions?”
Both Tyler and I let out a laugh at the exact same time, but our moment of relief doesn’t last long. There’s a knock at the door that draws all of our attention. Not just any old knock, either, but a pounding rap that echoes around the apartment. It’s relentless and so forceful that it’s blatantly obvious it’s fueled by anger. I glance to Tyler as panic sweeps through me. It’s late at night. We’re all here. There’s only one other person who’d turn up at this time and there’s only one person who could possibly be livid enough to bang on the door like that. Tyler realizes this too, because his eyes pool with dread as he swallows. We both know it’s Dean. Tiffani must have finally told him the truth.
“Don’t open the door,” Snake blurts out quickly in a low voice, squeezing the bag of Doritos tight in his hand. “Sounds like a cop.”
“It’s not a cop,” I say quietly, but my eyes never leave the door. Dean’s still knocking. After a second he yells my name, and the moment I hear the strain in his voice, my heart breaks. He definitely knows. He knows the truth and he found out in the worst way possible. I know I have to open the door. I’ve got to face him, however much I really don’t want to.
Tyler, Snake and Emily watch me in silence as I force my body across the apartment. My legs feel stiff and my stomach feels unsettled, and when I reach the door I slowly unlock it. I pull it open.
Dean’s standing before me, breathing heavily as his tightened fist pauses mid-air, ready to keep knocking. His furious eyes meet mine, and my entire body freezes, the blood in my veins thinning as my limbs give way. The expression in his eyes is something I’ve never, ever seen before. They’re so dark, so sharp and so pained. It’s so not Dean, and that’s what’s so frightening. His cheeks are a flaming red as the anger consumes him. “Is it true?” he asks, voice strained.
I grip onto the door even harder than I already am as I keep holding it open, and I feel so sick that I don’t think I can possibly speak. I squeeze my eyes shut and hang my head low. I can’t bear to look at him. It hurts too much, but my silence tells him everything he needs to know. My silence tells him that it’s true, that I’ve been in love with Tyler this entire time.
Dean blows out a long breath as he processes this, and I can sense him shaking his head for a while, right before he demands, “Who?”
Now I really do have to look up. My eyebrows furrow in confusion as I study him, tears welling in my eyes as I consider the harsh reality of the situation. I knew Dean would get hurt at the end of this. I knew it straight from the moment I arrived in this city, right from the second Tyler made it clear he wasn’t over me. It was inevitable. We had no other choice. If we didn’t tell him the truth, he’d get hurt. If we did tell him the truth, he’d still get hurt. That we understood. Dean’s question, however, I certainly don’t understand. “What?”
“Who have you been cheating on me with?” he spits. His voice is seething with contempt as he glares at me in disgust. I can’t blame him. I hate myself for all of this too. “At least have the decency to tell me.”
My throat tightens. Of course. Of course Tiffani didn’t mention Tyler. Of course she would want to make me admit it on my own. I don’t know if I can, though. I don’t know if I can say Tyler’s name. That would hurt Dean too much. I could lie. I could refuse to tell him or I could blurt out a fake name, but as I look at him again—really, really look at him—I see his agonized eyes, and I realize that honesty is really the only thing I can give him right now. I can’t lie to him anymore.
Forcing myself to keep breathing, I throw a glance over my shoulder. Snake’s leaning over the worktop, tossing chips into his mouth as he watches Dean and I with extreme interest, and Emily is still gnawing on her pen as she listens, but she at least makes the effort to appear inconspicuous about the fact that she’s watching the fallout, because she angles her face down toward her notebooks all while looking at us out of the corner of her eye, and either Dean hasn’t noticed that we have company or he simply doesn’t care. Tyler, however, is already on his way over.
He stops directly behind me, placing his hand on the door too, just above mine. Now that he’s holding it open instead, I let go and focus on Dean again. He’s still waiting for an answer, growing more enraged with each second that passes. I’m glad that Tyler’s come over, though. I’m relieved that I’m not doing this on my own, that he’s by my side, and that we’re in this together.
I sense Tyler take a deep breath from behind me, and he dares to breathe the words, “She’s been cheating on you with me.”
Dean flinches, his entire face consumed by disbelief as he steps into the lobby, backing away from us. He shakes his head fast. “What are you talking about?”
“Dean,” I whisper, my voice hitching in my throat. I swallow back the nerves, fighting the urge to cry. “I love you. So much.” It hurts to say it, because it’s true, and that’s the worst part about this. I do love him. Perhaps all of this would be much easier if I didn’t. “It’s just that I love Tyler too.”
“What do you mean?” Dean now looks more confused than furious. Our words don’t seem to be sinking in. Glancing between Tyler and me, he moves his lips as though he’s attempting to say something, but the words evade him.
“Look,” Tyler starts, stepping forward. He tries to place his hand on Dean’s shoulder, but Dean aggressively shrugs it off, backing even further out into the lobby. Tyler continues, spluttering out an explanation as a messy string of words. “I’m the other guy she’s been seeing. We didn’t set out for it to happen like this. Honestly, we didn’t, but we couldn’t help it. You think I’d choose to fall for my goddamn stepsister? Because I didn’t. It’s just the way things have turned out and we were . . . we were gonna tell you. Trust me, we’ve wanted to for a long time, but we didn’t know how. I’m sorry, man. I really fucking am, but I—I need her.”
Dean stays silent for several long moments, his mind trying to take in the new information he’s just been hit with. “The two of you . . .” he starts, struggling to get the words out at first. Curling his hands into fists by his sides, he flashes his glare to me. “How long has this been going on for?”
“Two years,” I whisper. I know I’m going to burst into tears any second. I can feel them pressing at my waterlines, fighting to break free. I will them not to. “I fell for Tyler before I fell for you.”
“Two years?” Dean echoes, gaping at me in disbelief, his eyes dilating with both disappointment and fury as he discovers that the entire time I’ve been with him, my heart has been in two different places. He’s trying to make sense of it all, and when he finally does he takes a step forward to close the small distance between him and Tyler. He edges his face toward Tyler’s, his lips pressed into a bold line as his pained, vicious eyes scour Tyler’s expression. Finally, their eyes lock, only inches from one another. “Have you slept with her?” Dean asks slowly. The question shatters him. He doesn’t want to hear the answer. He really doesn’t. “Have you fucking slept with her?”
“Man, look,” Tyler tries, but attempting to muster up an explanation couldn’t be more pointless right now. His best friend has already snapped.
“You fucking asshole!” Dean snarls. His knuckles turn white as he raises his fists, and within a split second he spirals his left into the side of Tyler’s face, just below his eye.
Tyler stumbles backward into the apartment, his body nudging mine, and I lose my balance. I fall back a step, as does Tyler, and both Snake and Emily gasp from somewhere in the background. I forgot they were still watching. Emily’s now on her feet, her jaw hanging open as she struggles to decide whether or not she should get involved. Snake’s still ramming more chips into his mouth as he observes the scene with raised eyebrows.
Tyler straightens up again as he regains his balance, narrowing his eyes across the room to Dean as he enters the apartment, fists still tightly curled. “Go for it,” he orders firmly with a nod. “Hit me again. I deserve it. C’mon.”
Dean doesn’t object. Within seconds, he swings at Tyler once more, his knuckles grinding into the center of Tyler’s cheek with a dull aching sound. Dean’s cheeks are flaring hot with rage and he lifts his fists again, ready to throw another punch.
Slowly, Tyler rubs the side of his face, massaging away the ache as his eyes start to look lethal. They never leave Dean’s. “Alright,” he says sharply, voice threatening. “Hit me again and I’m hitting you back twice as hard.”
I suck in a horrified gasp as Dean spins his fist through the air once more, but Tyler swiftly blocks the hit, their bodies lunging into each other. They spiral backward, tumbling across the apartment as Emily darts out of the way just before they collapse into the back of the couch. Dean finally gets that third punch in, catching Tyler hard right on the bridge of his nose.
Tyler has lost his temper for the first time in years, and he’s so riled up by this point that the depths of his eyes are now like storms, fierce and dangerous and unpredictable. He winds back his right arm and slams his fist into Dean’s jaw. His biceps are bulging, all his strength being transferred into his hands as he continues to spin his fist at Dean, hitting him so fast and so relentlessly that Dean doesn’t even stand a chance at swinging back.
“Tyler, stop it!” I scream, but it comes out as nothing more than a strangled cry. I rush over, attempting to grab at the back of Tyler’s T-shirt to pull him away from Dean, but it’s like he doesn’t even notice that I’m there, because as he continues to throw punches each second, he ends up almost elbowing me in the face. I stumble backward, pressing my hands to my cheeks. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do.
Somehow, Dean manages to duck down, ramming his body into Tyler’s chest as he shoves him backward, both of them flying into the coffee table in the center of the living room. There’s a tremendous crash as the glass shatters beneath them and a sickening thud as Tyler’s body hits the floor first, surrounded by tiny shards of glass and all of Emily’s scraps of paper. It doesn’t stop them, though. There’s so much adrenaline running through both their veins right now that they don’t feel any pain whatsoever.
“Do something!” I scream at Snake, firing my eyes over to him as he continues to watch from the safety of the kitchen. He’s the only one who’s strong enough to help, and I don’t even realize I’m crying until now.
“Alright, alright,” Snake says loudly, tossing the bag of Doritos onto the worktop and quickly rushing around the counter into the living room. Rolling up his sleeves, he edges around the couches and grabs at Dean, wrapping his arms tightly around his torso as he tugs him up off of Tyler. “Fucking cut it out already!” he yells. Roughly, he throws Dean to one side, toward me.
Even Emily rushes in to help, extending her hand to Tyler as she pulls him up from the ground. His jaw is clenched tightly as he glares at Dean from across the room, but then the adrenaline rush seems to fade, because he glances down at himself and his eyes soften up. There’s a lot of glass stuck to him and he doesn’t hesitate to reach for the hem of his shirt, quickly pulling it off. A series of scratches now decorate the skin on his back, but I’m more focused on his right arm. There’s blood gushing from his tricep, flowing straight down past his elbow, dripping onto the carpet. When he finally notices it, all he can do is blink as Emily runs into the kitchen to grab the first-aid kit.
With tears flowing down my cheeks, I glance over to Dean to see if he’s okay. He doesn’t look too hurt in comparison with Tyler, although his jaw is deeply grazed and his left eye is swollen. Panting heavily, he squeezes that eye half shut as he looks back at me.
“Get outside,” he orders, his voice still as harsh as it was when he first turned up at the door. He doesn’t wait for me. Storming across the apartment, he stomps out the door and into the lobby.
Feeling sick to the pit of my stomach, I look back to Tyler before I make my move. He’s still standing amongst the glass where the coffee table once stood, his expression a little spaced out, as though he’s in a daze. Emily’s by his side again and Snake is offering his assistance, the two of them tossing bandages around. I want nothing more than to help too. After all, I caused all of this, but I know that right now I need to deal with Dean.
Trembling with nerves, I force myself toward the door, following Dean out into the lobby. The second I get there and stand before him, he slams the door shut behind us. This time it appears he doesn’t want an audience, and at this point I feel too broken to speak, so I don’t. I just wipe the tears away while I struggle to meet his eyes.
“You’ve been cheating on me,” Dean mutters, like he needs to say it out loud so that he’ll believe it. Cautiously, his narrowed eyes meet mine, and my heart shatters at his expression. Devastated. Destroyed. “I’ve loved you and the entire time . . . the whole entire time you’ve had this thing with Tyler. He’s my best friend, Eden! He’s your brother!”
“I’m sorry!” I cry, my voice cracking. It’s far too late for apologies, but it’s the only thing I can do. I don’t think Dean’ll ever forgive me. I can tell by the loathing that has spread over his features. I’m not used to seeing Dean like this. I’m used to seeing his soft eyes and his gentle smile. I don’t think I’ll ever witness them again. “I don’t know what else to say.”
“Don’t ever talk to me again,” he warns. His voice is raspy and coarse. Taking a step back, he increases the distance between us and roughly shoves his hand into the back pocket of his jeans, pulling out his wallet. His grazed cheek has started to bleed and I fight the urge to touch him, to help. “Here,” Dean spits after a few seconds. Harshly, he tosses a five-dollar bill at me. It hits my chest and I catch it before it falls to the ground, and when I glance down to look at it, I realize it’s our five-dollar bill. I look back up, my heart breaking even more than it already is. My lips are quivering as Dean mutters, “Five bucks for both of you to stay the hell out of my life.”
Stuffing his wallet back into his pocket, he rubs at his cheek and turns his back on me. Without waiting a second longer, he storms off, marching down the lobby toward the elevator without even so much as a glance over his shoulder. I watch him leave, tears streaming down my cheeks as I stare after him, feeling entirely helpless. I press my back to the door of Tyler’s apartment as my knees weaken beneath me and I simply cannot remain standing any longer, so I slide down the door into a seated position. Burying my head in my hands, I sob even harder, and I listen to the sound of Dean leaving.
The one thing I always hoped was that I would never lose him. I always hoped he’d be able to understand and be able to forgive us, even if it took a while. I always hoped Dean would be okay, but I clearly didn’t hope long and hard enough, because everything I hoped wouldn’t happen is exactly what has.