Chapter Forty-Nine
Ashley
Tyler had been gone for a fairly long time. I knew that sometimes he took long runs in order to accurately clear his head, but tonight, something seemed different, wrong.
I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but since I had finished what I was supposed to do completely and was now just waiting for Tyler to get back, I grew more worried by the second.
I tried to call his phone, only to find that it was still right here on the table. I thought it was strange that he would leave it, but then again, that was just the way Tyler was. He left things basically everywhere and hardly ever had them when he needed them.
In a way, it made me feel better that he didn’t have anything with him, because despite everything that had gone on and all the plans that we made, I was still a little concerned about his sincerity when it came to sticking around.
I had never thought that our relationship, even when I was having a moral crisis over whether it was right or not for me to be dating my stepbrother, would actually pan out to be anything real.
Now that it was, though, there was a part of me that was terrified that he was just going to decide one day that he made a mistake; plenty of men did it, after all. It wouldn’t be so uncommon.
In fact, it would probably make more sense, at least in my head, because why would a man like Tyler want me?
However, slowly I was beginning to trust him implicitly. There was just something about the way he made me feel and the pleasure I received from having him in my life that made all the difference. I didn’t want to be without him and even though I wasn’t completely sure, I had a sneaking suspicion that even though I would probably never get him to admit it fully, he liked having me in his life as well.
I got the feeling that he wasn’t exaggerating when he told me that I was literally the only one in his life that has ever truly cared for him. As sad as that was and regardless of how much I knew Tyler was willing to bend the truth in order to get what he wanted, there was something about the way he admitted this to me that made me absolutely sure that he was telling the truth.
Plus, if he wasn’t, I couldn’t understand why he would have stuck around with me so long. We had already had sex and it wasn’t like I was bringing any money to the relationship; I was relying on me. Therefore, I concluded that he must actually like being around me, which was good news for me, but still seemed somewhat strange, considering the kind of man he was when I had met him.
That’s also why it didn’t make any sense to me when he had not returned.
After fending off the worry for a little while longer, I felt a nauseous pang rumbling in the pit of my stomach.
Maybe something is wrong… I thought, but still tried my best not to go there. I knew that if I went there, I would be calling the hospitals in no time and then he really would know I was crazy. What am I doing? I thought to myself as I paced around the hotel room. What should I do? Why are you thinking the worst? I looked at the clock and realized that it wasn’t nearly as late as I had thought it was to begin with and tried to tell myself that he probably just went for a longer run than usual.
God, a few weeks ago, you would have been ecstatic if you had found out that he didn’t come home. He would disappear for a day or so and you wouldn’t think twice about it, but now…Now he’s gone a few hours and you’re trying to resist the urge to start calling hospitals. I laughed at myself, realizing the absurdity of it all.
After all, I had cared about him then and I had resisted the urge to worry. So, why am I freaking out now?
Just then, I heard a knock at the door that interrupted my pacing and caused me to jump. When I landed back squarely on my feet, however, I ran to the door and threw it open. To my utter relief, Tyler was standing there, staring at me as though he thought I was genuinely crazy. “Everything okay?”
“Yes, I’m just glad you’re back.” I smiled at him as my eyes passed over his body. Immediately, I noticed that he had blood on his face. My eyes narrowed in on it and my hand came up to the corner of his mouth as I said, “What’s this?”
Instinctively, Tyler moved away from me and covered his face with his hand. “What? What the hell is wrong?”
I continued to peer at him, even though most of his face was covered by his hand as I answered, “Did you cut yourself? I see blood on the corner of your mouth.”
“Yeah,” he answered without delay, just before he brushed his fingers down his face in an attempt to clean it off. “I cut it shaving this morning…Damn cheap-ass razors…I must have opened it up again while I was running and didn’t notice.”
I nodded, having no reason not to believe him and so, I let the matter go. “Oh, okay.”
He pushed past me and moved into the small bathroom that we shared.
I waited for him to talk to me when he got out of the bathroom, as was our nightly ritual, but what he had to say tonight, I certainly didn’t expect.
“So…” he began as he made his way into the bed, pulling the sheets up and laying them across his side, “you’ll never guess who I ran into today.”
Even though his voice did not seem to be the least bit daunting, I could just tell that I wasn’t going to like what he had to say.
“Who?” I demanded, trying to remain calm, even though I realized how harsh it had come out just after I had said it.
Still, that didn’t dissuade him at all. “Your father,” he said with a smile.
I glowered at him, unsure of how he could possibly find any humor or happiness in that statement.
“Oh?” I asked, trying to sound at least somewhat interested in what he had to say, for Tyler’s sake, not my father’s.
“Yeah,” he continued. “And I have good news…” He stopped and I saw his eyelids drop, as though he was about to reconsider, before he added, “Well, good news for us, not so good news for my mom and your dad.”
“What is it?” I asked causally.
“They’re getting a divorce!” When I looked at him he beamed at me, as though our love life was truly the only thing that mattered to him.
Not so long ago, I would have been appalled by his lack of empathy, but right now, I just beamed and asked him, “Are you serious?”
“Serious as a fucking heart attack!” He leaned over and kissed me passionately. I felt the familiarity of his taste, but as the news sunk in, there was a difference in the way it made me feel. When we broke away, he answered, “We’re not step-siblings anymore! I told you that marriage was a crock of shit from the beginning!”
I beamed. “Oh thank God!” I answered him, wanting to experience that new feeling of what I could only describe as true freedom on my lips once again. I leaned over, wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him in close, before taking his lips onto mine again and slipping my tongue between his teeth.
We continued to kiss for quite a while before finally, we moved apart, stared at one another and laughed.
I tilted my head as I gazed into his eyes. “You know, part of me knows that I should be angry, or feel some other emotion, but right now, all I feel is happiness.”
He smiled down at me, almost sweetly. “Ashley, they were never really in love. Everything that they did, it was all for show.” He shook his head before he pulled away and added in a much more morose tone, “Unfortunately, it’s all my mother’s fault.”
At this, I squinted my eyes and asked him, even though I was slightly afraid that he would be too upset to say anything more, considering the drastic change in his thought process since he had first said the words. “What do you mean?” I played with his hair, running it through my fingers in an effort to be comforting.
“She cheated on your father,” he answered and pulled back, breaking the connection my hands had with his hair. Tyler let out a deep sigh before he added, “Just like my fucking mother. She couldn’t keep a relationship together if her life depended on it. She just opens her damn legs for anything that moves.” He scuffed another sigh and looked away from me with sadness in his eyes. “It sucks that she will never be able to do anything right and I think that maybe, it might be too late for me.”
When he said the last part, he looked over in my direction with large, almost apologetic eyes and I knew that this went far deeper than just having regrets over his mother’s lack of sexual discretion.
However, I didn’t want to come to any conclusions and so I asked, “What do you mean by that, Tyler? Do you not want to be with me anymore? Are you having second thoughts?”
“No!” he exclaimed quickly, before he once again rolled his eyes downward so that he was no longer looking at me. “It’s not that. I don’t want to leave you. I’m just afraid…” He willingly cut himself off there.
“Afraid of what?”
I could see that he probably wished he didn’t bring this up, but now he had no choice but to explain it to me.
Yet, for a moment, I wasn’t sure if he was going to say anything else. He just stared awkwardly down at the hotel sheets, with his eyes bearing into them angrily, as though he wished to set them ablaze so that he wouldn’t have to talk about anything that he didn’t want to anymore.
Thankfully, he failed in the pursuit that I dreamed up for him and so, he finally rolled his eyes back toward me before he bore his gaze down upon me and spoke in a serious tone. “Don’t you understand, Ashley? I’m fucking afraid to lose you!”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I assured him easily, trying to rest my hand on his arm, but he flung himself out of my grasp.
“I trust you. I just don’t fucking trust myself. I’ve never had a good relationship my entire life and I’m starting to think that the shitty apple doesn’t fall far from the fucking tree.”
“Tyler,” I answered calmly, easily placing a hand over top of his and squeezing it slightly, so that he couldn’t throw my touch away so easily, “from what you have told me and from what I have observed from you, I am the first person you have ever really tried to have a relationship with, besides your mother.”
“And my father,” Tyler spat. “Who I killed…” He scoffed at himself and shook his head before he demanded, “Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with me?”
“There is nothing wrong with you!” I answered passionately, trying to get him to understand that I was speaking from my heart, not just trying to make him feel better. “Just because you are your mother’s son doesn’t mean you are destined to be like her. You can learn from her. You see what she is doing is wrong. Now, you just have to make a conscious effort not to do the same types of things in your own life.”
He growled at me as he retorted, “How do you know that’s going to work for me, Ashley? How do you know that I just won’t pick up and leave you? There could be just you, or there could be kids involved, who the fuck knows? I’m terrified that I am going to wake up and feel like the walls are closing in on me, just like I heard my mother describe it one time and not know any better but to flee.”
“I trust you. I am putting my faith in you, Tyler. I could have the same problems. My father was a cheater too! He might not have gone after everything that my mother was worth monetarily, but he still cheated on her and he still intended to leave her before she got sick. So what’s to say I won’t end up like him? Huh?”
At this, Tyler laughed, but his voice was far more sinister than it was anything else. “Because the writing isn’t plastered literally over every fucking wall of every house you have ever lived in…because you’re not like that. I am. I have felt that way before, every time I have ever even considered settling down and having a future with anyone.” He shook his head. “I’m just so damn scared that I am going to do the same thing to you that my mother and your father did the people they loved, as well as everyone else they have ever come in contact with romantically.”
With that, he turned over and exclaimed, “I’m going to fucking bed. To hell with this shit.” He turned out the light.
I wasn’t sure what to think about the whole thing, because I couldn’t manage to contemplate much of anything other than the fact that he might have just told me, in so many words, that he loved me.