CHAPTER SIXTEEN
This was ten times harder than Billie had thought it would be. Clearly Tyler wasn’t happy with her and she’d barely begun to tell her story. By the time she was finished he was going to be livid.
“We were poor,” Billie began, watching his expression carefully. “Like dirt poor. I never met my father and my mother drank too much. We didn’t have a lot of food and other necessities that people take for granted.”
Like clothes, heat, and medicine.
Scraping his hand down his face, Tyler sighed. “Aww, baby girl. I’m so sorry.”
Billie shrugged awkwardly. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. It’s not your fault. It’s just the way it was.”
“What about social services? Didn’t they intervene?”
“A couple of times but they’d send our mother to parenting classes and Alcoholics Anonymous. Things would get better for a little while and then she’d start to drink again. She’d get fired from whatever crappy job she’d been able to get and the cycle would start all over again. By the time Sierra and I were about eight years old we were taking care of Sharon, not the other way around.”
Tyler frowned. “Sharon?”
“That was my mother’s name. I didn’t call her Mom. She never encouraged that. She didn’t like men to know she was old enough to have children.”
Suppressing a shudder, Billie thought about all the “uncles” that had drifted in and out of their lives. Thankfully none had abused her or Sierra but they’d been losers, every one of them, and they hadn’t done Sharon a bit of good, pulling her down into the gutter with them.
Tyler was angry. His lips were pressed together so tightly they had a white outline around them and a muscle worked in his jaw. Tears burned behind her eyes at the thought that he might be mad at her for keeping this secret.
“Where is your mother now?”
Her throat tightened painfully and she had to clear her throat a few times before she could answer. “She died about three and a half years ago. She got drunk and ran her car into a tree. The paramedics said she died instantly.”
His mouth hanging open, Tyler placed his hands on the table as if to hold onto something solid. “How did I not know this? I don’t remember you taking a trip for your mother’s funeral. Did you not go?”
She remembered that time well. It had cost her every single cent she’d saved since hitting Los Angeles. Luckily she’d just been in a movie and was living in the guest cottage for almost nothing. “I did go, although there wasn’t a service or anything. Someone had to claim the body. I had her cremated. You were in Toronto shooting a Thunder movie.”
“And you never mentioned it.”
He didn’t phrase it as a question because they both knew the answer. She hadn’t told him for a myriad of reasons. Hopefully she could get him to understand what she’d been thinking.
A few tears of fear slipped down her cheeks and she swiped at them with her fingers. “You had this wonderful and loving childhood, Tyler. Your parents adore you and were there for you, like moms and dads are supposed to be. I never had that and I was ashamed of what people might think about me. For the longest time I blamed myself. That maybe if I’d been a better daughter or more lovable Sharon wouldn’t have to drink every day. I know now it’s a load of horse shit but at the time I really believed it. When I came to Hollywood I wanted a brand-new start with my past behind me.”
“As if it didn’t exist,” Tyler murmured. “As if you as a child didn’t exist. You obliterated every sign of her and became a new person.”
“Basically? Yes,” Billie agreed. “I didn’t want to be poor, cold, and hungry anymore. I wanted to be beautiful and glamorous. I wanted to have the life that I’d seen on television so I came to the place were dreams are literally manufactured.”
She waited as patiently as she could while Tyler digested all that she’d revealed. His anger wasn’t as palpable and had changed into a sort of sadness. She hadn’t wanted his pity either but it was preferable to his rage.
“Where is your sister?”
This was the more complicated part and honestly, she’d rather keep silent about it but she’d decided that she would tell him the truth. That meant all of the dirty details.
“That’s the second part of this story,” Billie finally said, carefully choosing her words. “Sierra reacted to Sharon’s drinking differently than I did. She always had boyfriends because I think she needed to feel loved. Eventually she met her current husband and he’s a fucking loser who verbally and physically abuses her. I tried to get her to leave him but she never would and eventually she got tired of the arguing. On the day that I showed up to her house to bring her with me to Los Angeles she ordered me out of her life. She said she hated me. I haven’t talked to her since but I do occasionally speak with a mutual friend who still lives in Wisconsin.”
“Wisconsin?” Tyler’s brows quirked. “So that’s where you come from. You always just said the Midwest which could be anywhere from Nebraska to Ohio. Of course all of this explains why you don’t drink. I’ve wondered about that.”
But he’d respected her privacy and never asked. “I drank some in high school as well, but I didn’t really enjoy it and after seeing my mother and her long line of men I figured it was a bad idea to do it. I didn’t want to go down that road. I wanted a better life.”
Sierra had too but she’d never had a chance. A few bad decisions and it went sideways.
Tyler looked at her now, his intense gaze almost stripping her bare as if he could see all the way inside of her mind and heart. “She’s your twin. You have to miss her a great deal.”
A sob caught in Billie’s throat and she rubbed at a few stray tears. “Sometimes it’s as if I’ve lost a limb. We weren’t identical twins but we were close. We spent almost all of our time together growing up. We were a team and she was my best friend…and then suddenly she wasn’t anymore. I knew I had to leave and make something of my life.”
Tyler’s smile was gently. “Babe, I think you’ve looked back a whole hell of a lot. You might not have said anything to me about this but I know this had to have been in the back of your mind all these years. I’m sorry you haven’t talked to your sister.”
She hadn’t cried this much in years. Certainly not since she’d met Tyler. “She hated me then and maybe she hates me now. I don’t know. I do know that I must be a horrible person for getting out of there and leaving her.”
“If you didn’t leave you might have ended up the same. It’s not terrible to want a life for yourself. You tried to help her.”
“Did I try enough?”
Tyler ran his fingers through his hair, leaving it sticking up on its ends. “It’s been my experience that people have to help themselves and that sometimes you have no choice but to walk away. If she wouldn’t let you help her it would be cruel to ask you to stick around and watch her destroy her life with a man that hurt her.”
That’s pretty much what it had been like. At some point, Billie’s survival instincts had kicked in and she’d run for her life. The only thing she’d had by then was a crappy apartment she’d shared with three other girls, a wreck of a car, cheap clothes, and two lousy waitressing jobs with handsy male customers. She’d been going nowhere fast. But the guilt of leaving had never quite gone away.
“I’m hoping she’ll really leave him for good this time. That’s what the money was for. My friend called and said Sierra was in the hospital. Her loser husband had beat the shit out of her and she was so skinny and frail she was having a hard time recovering. Connie begged me for the money to help Sierra pay the hospital bills, get a divorce, change her name, and start a new life. He threatened to kill her next time. That’s why I changed my mind and said yes. I needed the money.”
Reaching across the table, he captured Billie’s hands in his own much larger ones. “Baby, I would have just given you the money. You don’t owe me a goddamn thing. Shit, was it even enough? Do you need more?”
Shaking her head, Billie slid her hands out from under his and tucked them into her lap.
“No, it’s all fine. Connie says that Sierra is doing better.”
“We can go visit her if you want,” Tyler offered, looking hurt from her withdrawal. “In a few weeks when she’s feeling better.”
“I don’t think she’ll want to see me. She hates me.”
Something Sierra had been happy to tell Billie every time they talked.
“I doubt that. That’s the situation talking. Once she’s away from him, I bet she’ll be glad to have her sister back. So will you.”
“I’m not holding my breath.”
Rubbing the back of his neck, Tyler shook his head. “That’s a hell of a story, baby girl. I have to admit I never would have guessed it.”
Billie took a breath and held it, tears squeezing from her eyes. “Are you mad at me? Do you hate me too?”
Tyler was out of his chair so fast it felt backward with a clunk against the tile. Rounding the table, he pulled her up and locked his arms around her like steel bands.
“I don’t ever want to hear you say something like that again. Do you understand me? I am not angry. I admit I was at first but now I’m mostly just mad at your mom and the system that let you down. You deserved a better life than that and I’m going to make sure that you get it.”
He didn’t understand and she had to make him see. Cupping his jaw in her hands, she turned his head so their gazes clashed.
“You already have, Tyler. You’re not only my best friend, you’re my family. You’re my home. That’s why I’m so scared about this blowing up in my face. If I lose you as a best friend, it will be the second time in my life. I barely survived the first.”
Resting his forehead on hers, they stood like that for a long time as she drew strength from his hold. Everything seemed to fade into the background and all she could hear was the pounding of her own heart. His soft breath landed on her cheek in perfect rhythm and she allowed her eyes to drift shut and her body, that had been so tense before, relaxed against his.
Billie could have happily stayed like this forever but it wasn’t the most practical way to spend their days and nights. Eventually his hold loosened and she stepped back, sighing at the loss of warmth. His fingers smoothed down her still damp cheeks before carding through her tangled hair.
“I promise you that I will never leave you no matter what. You’re just as important to me as I am to you.” He lifted her chin so she was looking into his eyes. “I just wish you trusted me.”
“I do. More than anyone I’ve ever met.”
He was already shaking his head in denial. “You believe that but it isn’t true. I’m not sure you’ve ever trusted anyone in your entire life, but now I understand why. I’ll say again what I said before. I’ll earn your trust. I just know now that it’s going to be a hell of a lot harder than I thought it would.”
If Tyler couldn’t do it, she doubted it would ever happen.