Chapter Forty
Tyler
“Fuck!” I muttered to myself as I made my way back to where the winners were supposed to meet up for a group photo.
I knew that I was distracted and that had made the whole competition a shit-ton harder for me, but I had been just as happy.
I enjoyed the idea of having someone to cheer for me, but now, her father had gone and fucked everything up.
I sighed, trying to let some of the aggravated tension I had built up in me go, before I just shook my head and looked down at the ground. I couldn’t believe my rotten luck. I was just starting to figure things out.
I wasn’t stupid enough to believe that we would never get caught, but I figured it wouldn’t be at a time like that.
Since when does he give a fuck about my life? I thought with seething anger as I kicked a rock through the crowd and then ran the other way so the person that it hit wouldn’t figure out it was me.
I wasn’t afraid of them, though. I just didn’t want a confrontation, because I felt like I would end up doing something that I regretted and that was the last thing I needed. So, I just shook my head again and grumbled as I made my way into the middle of the losers who thought they were hot shit, just because they made it to a place that was deemed the ‘winners’ circle.
I had come in first and in my mind, that was the only place that really mattered. Second and beyond were all beat by someone, usually me and that’s all there was to it. I had always maintained the mentality that if I wasn’t first, I was last, because no one but myself usually gave a shit anyway; so I might as well try to be hard on myself. Normally, it would make me feel all tingly and cocky, being surrounded by losers, taking the gold; after all, I had worked pretty damn hard. But this didn’t make me feel anything except disappointment right now. I didn’t have any will to even take the trophy, because I didn’t feel like I had won anything.
Even though I had done what I came to do, I had unexpectedly lost something far more valuable to me and that was surprisingly bothersome.
The look in Ashley’s eyes when she walked away with her father was haunting.
To me, it meant that the fun we had was likely over, which sucked because on top of the fact that our relationship had always made me work for something, I felt that it was also making me a better person.
I had no interest in straying from Ashley. We were having fun together and for once, I was beginning to feel a connection to another person, instead of the selfish, conceited air that I had become accustomed to.
Now, it was all fucking over.
After we took the pictures, which were probably going to be in the paper the next day, or something for the town, I took my prize and left.
Instead of going back to the beach house right away though, I went down by the ocean and began to run. I figured it might be good to give everyone some space, including myself.
So I forced myself to focus on everything about my stride, the feel of the air entering and exiting my lungs and the soreness of my muscles, which were really feeling the pressure after having completed the competition, instead of worrying about what was going on back at the house.
I tried not to think about the fact that the longer I stayed away, the longer I was allowing my mother and her father to grill Ashley about our relationship and she probably wasn’t going to appreciate that. But at the moment, I felt that I was too angry to be helpful. I wasn’t going to want to explain myself like some fucking child.
I was going to want to barge in that house and demand that I was allowed to do whatever the hell I wanted, with whoever the hell I wanted.
They didn’t give a shit about us all summer. All they did was fuck one another, but they were going to get pissed off at us for doing the same thing? What? Because we’re step-siblings. Go blow it out your ass. We’re not related and chances are, they won’t even last when the novelty of being a married couple wears off.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen it before. Actually, I had seen it twice before. My mother thought that marrying a man and then taking him for all he was worth made her honest, but that only compounded her sins.
At least there’s no ulterior fucking motive for us being together, I thought, not allowing myself to slow down, for I knew if I gave into the temptation I would not be able to stop myself. Surely, I would just barge in there and give her father and my mother a piece of my mind that they would probably choke on.
That wouldn’t end well and even though I wanted to do it really fucking bad, something told me that I would regret it. So I continued to make my way down the beach, focusing, almost a little bit too much on the hot sand being kicked up by my feet and the feel of my shallow breathing trying to keep pace with the rest of my body.
For once, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do and I didn’t want to act on my instinct so, I just kept running.
When I finally did stop, the fight hadn’t been completely lost from me, but I wasn’t blindingly angry and I had managed to stop seeing the situation as so unbelievably dire. I knew that I needed to get my head on straight if I was going to walk in there, but I also was going to lay down and take their shit.
So, once I had come to this conclusion, I breathed a long sigh of relief before I huffed loudly as my body caught up with everything I had demanded from it that day.
I knew how I was going to handle this situation; the only thing that I needed to do now was find my way back to the house.
I walked back up the dunes and gauged what street I was on. I thought things looked familiar and I was right. I certainly wasn’t that far from the house, so I decided to walk the rest of the way.
By the time I began my ascent up the driveway, past the car that I had first seen Ashley come out of and the family car that we had driven up in, I had made the decision that no matter what happened when I walked through that door, I didn’t want to make anything more difficult for Ashley.
If need be, I would leave and never return, if that would make everything all right. After all, my mother wouldn’t give a shit and it would save Ashley from hating me when my mother eventually tired of her father.
As I thought of this, I stopped to reconsider the idea before I shrugged and thought that maybe I should leave and never come back now.
However, then I thought of Ashley and knew that I had to at least announce that I was leaving, if it came to that, but there was also something else. There was a large part of me that didn’t want to leave and I realized then that I hoped it didn’t come to that.
Perhaps something could be worked out, I considered with the first stretch of positivity that I had ever since Ashley’s father showed up at the competition. I can’t believe I actually want something to work out.
It was beginning to get dark now and I figured I had better get to it and get this shit over with. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take all that long.
With all of this in mind, I jogged the rest of the way up the driveway and actually, honestly and truly hoped for the best.