Ella is in the living room when we get inside. She’s holding a few sheets of paper and she’s studying them, a finger pressed to her lips. Jamie’s sitting on the recliner with his fractured wrist resting on a pillow. He stares at us both with a peeved expression, and I think it’s the first time I’ve ever seen him looking displeased.
“Dave, they’re home,” Ella says loudly without even glancing up. I was hoping she wouldn’t notice us awkwardly lingering in the doorway, but it’s true what they say about parents. They have eyes in the back of their heads and four ears.
Tyler glances sideways at me, his face taut. He’s better used to dealing with Dad and Ella than I am, and quite frankly, I’m hoping he’ll do all the talking on my behalf. If I try to explain myself, I’ll only stammer and blurt out something that I wish I hadn’t, like when Tiffani heard me tell Ella I was with Meghan and it totally backfired.
Dad barges into the living room moments later in his sweats and T-shirt. I’m not used to seeing him without a shirt on his back and a tie around his neck. It makes him seem less intimidating, like he’s my grandpa. “What do you have to say for yourselves?” he barks, and immediately it becomes clear that he is pissed off on an entirely new level.
“The movie was good?” I try, but even Tyler shoots me a look that says, Don’t even bother. I should have known Dad would go insane when I didn’t come home. Movies don’t last until 10:00 a.m.
“You two went to that beach party, didn’t you?”
Ella has looked up from her papers and placed them down on her lap while Jamie continues to watch Tyler and I struggle to get out of the shark tank. There’s a sparkle of amusement in his eyes, as though this is entertaining. On my end, it’s not.
Neither Tyler nor I muster up a reply. This tells our parents exactly what they need to know: yes, we lied, and yes, we went to the beach party underage. In my defense, nothing like it takes place in Portland. How was I supposed to turn down the opportunity? In hope of saving our fate, I try to appeal to Dad’s sympathetic side. So I cry.
“My friends took me there after the movies,” I choke out through my exaggerated sobs. My voice is raspy, but it isn’t fake. I’m still dying of thirst. “I didn’t even know what it was!”
Tyler’s staring at me, his face blank. I’m defending only myself and apparently he believes I’m not doing a very good job. With a sigh, his eyes shift from me to my dad. “I chose to go,” he says, casually honest. “What are you gonna do? Ground my ass for another five years?”
Dad glances between Tyler and me, his eyes narrowed, like he can’t figure out which problem to tackle first: my fake weeping or Tyler’s attitude. He chooses neither.
“Where have you been all night?” he interrogates while Ella watches, and her gaze only makes me think about what Tyler said last night, about her being wary when it comes to parenting and having to punish him. Dad seems to have no problem at all when it comes to striking up an argument.
“We all crashed at Dean’s place,” Tyler bluffs, although in a way it’s only a slight distortion of the truth. We did crash at someone’s place, only it was TJ’s and not Dean’s, and Tyler and I weren’t exactly sleeping. “Just chill out. It’s summer.”
“Oh,” Dad says with sarcastic realization. “My bad. I forgot that it’s summer, so that means you can do whatever the hell you want. Sincerest apologies.”
I can hear Jamie stifling a laugh, and I want to tell him to just shut the hell up, but I know that wouldn’t go down well with Dad. Besides, I like Jamie. In the you’re-pretty-okay-for-a-stepbrother sense, that is.
“This isn’t the first time you haven’t come home, Eden,” Dad mutters in disgust. My eyes quickly flicker back over to him, and I force a couple more tears to well up. His hair looks grayer than it did over a month ago when he picked me up from the airport, and the more his scowl dominates his features, the older he appears. Mom looks twenty-one in comparison.
“It’s just sleepovers,” I sniff, way more dramatically than I intended. The first time I didn’t come home was when I fell asleep at Jake’s place after kissing him during The Lion King. The second was last night, when I was too captivated by Tyler’s touch, too charmed by his voice, too in love with his being.
“That’s not the point!”
“Then what is?”
Dad glares at me as he struggles to muster up a decent reply. He comes up with nothing and sets his attention back on Tyler. “You’re impossible, so I’m not even going to say anything. Just go upstairs. Get out of here.” He glances over his shoulder at Jamie with a sort of scowl on his lips, and Jamie gets the message and stands to leave.
“Fine by me,” Tyler says with a smirk, but it quickly fades when I catch his eye. His lips quirk into a sincere smile instead, a smile full of reassurance, like he’s trying to tell me not to worry because everything will be okay. When Jamie approaches him, Tyler swings his arm carefully over his shoulder and gently leads him out of the room, murmuring, “How’s that wrist, kid?”
In that second, I wish I was like Tyler. I wish I was able to put up a front and act like everything is a joke. I wish I got into trouble so much that being yelled at becomes part of the daily routine. I wish I wasn’t still standing here in front of my dad, subject to questioning and disappointed expressions while I have these stupid tears running down my smeared makeup.
Dad, I have realized, clearly doesn’t have a sympathetic fiber in all of his being. I should have known. Every time Mom was upset, he didn’t care. Every time she cried over him, he cared even less. He’s never cared.
I quit the crying act and look at him hard. “Well?”
Ella’s still in the room. She’s gnawing on her lips as she continues to watch, never moving from her position on the couch, staying silent. I don’t know if I should be glad or not, because I haven’t yet figured out if she’s the type to join in the yelling or the type to defend you.
“Eden,” Dad starts slowly as he rubs his temples. “I didn’t bring you down here so that you could sneak around and lie to me.”
“Then what the hell did you bring me down for?” I explode, throwing my hands up in exasperation. “Did you want to take me bra shopping? Did you want us to sit over campfires eating s’mores? What, Dad? What did you expect?”
I cannot even begin to fathom my hatred. For the six weeks I’ve been here he hasn’t made the slightest effort to fix things with me, to apologize for walking out on both Mom and me without an explanation, for leaving and waiting three years to see me again. And he wants to come into my life now? He wants to try and act like my parent now?
“I think we all need to just calm down. The important thing is that she’s here,” Ella says with a slight edge to her voice. I’ve concluded now that not only is she the type of mother that doesn’t mind if you disappear, she’s also the kind who defends you when you do.
“Exactly,” I remark, trying to make my voice softer. “I’m home and I’m alive, and so is Tyler, but if it helps, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for us not coming home.”
Dad doesn’t accept my apology. He just stares at me in a way I’d never expect a father to look at their daughter, like he can’t stand me. In that exact moment, I hate him.
“What are you looking at me like that for?” I ask. “What is your problem with me, Dad?”
“I don’t have a problem,” he says. He glances sideways at Ella, like he needs backup in order to fight a sixteen-year-old, but she only looks at him with wide eyes.
“Is that why you didn’t talk to me for three years? Because you don’t have a problem with me?” I don’t know where my words are coming from. Somewhere in the back of my mind, these thoughts have been gathering ever since he left. Now that I’m furious at him they’re spilling out all at once, and I can’t stop them. I can see the color rising in Dad’s cheeks as he takes in my words. “Is that why you walked out? Because you don’t have a problem?”
“That’s enough!” he barks, because he can’t handle the truth.
He can’t handle the fact that he’s a sorry excuse for a father, because he never thinks he’s in the wrong. That’s why he and Mom argued all the time. Nothing was ever his fault. It was always hers.
“You haven’t even tried to make an effort with me.” I even take a few steps toward him. My chin is tilted high, because I’m determined to let him know how I feel. “You haven’t even said sorry to me yet. That should have been the first thing you said to me when I stepped off the plane.”
Dad throws his hands up in defeat. “Okay, Eden, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I haven’t been around,” he mutters, but it’s far from sincere. “There. Are you happy now?”
“What’s the point of that now, Dad?” I shrug. “You’re three years too late.”
I want him to look hurt. I want my words to have an effect on him, and I want him to drown in guilt. But he doesn’t look pained at all. He looks pissed off as he narrows his sharp eyes at me, delivering a scornful glare. “You’re exactly like your mom, you know that?”
Ella looks shocked.
“Thank God,” I say. “I’d hate to be like you.”
Now I’ve got my point across, I decide it’s time to storm out before he can try and argue back with me any further. He knows I’m mad at him, and it’s going to take a lot of apologizing on his part if I’m ever going to forgive him.
His eyes cold, Dad turns back to Ella, and I swing around and march toward the door.
I hear Ella hiss, “What the hell, Dave? Go after her! I know she’s been out all night, but you think you’re going to make it up to your daughter by being all high and mighty?”
“Hey, don’t blame me for this. It was your idea to get her out here in the first place. God, teenagers are a nightmare… Maybe once she’s back home and Tyler’s in New York we’ll be able to get back to normal.”
I halt by the door and swallow painfully. Did I just hear right? Dad just invited me because Ella told him to? It shouldn’t surprise me, it shouldn’t hurt, but it does. I turn around and look at them both. “You don’t want me here?”
They look up at me, shocked. Ella gets up. “Eden, you weren’t supposed to hear that; of course your dad—”
But I can’t stand to hear their excuses. “And why is Tyler going to New York?”
Ella fires my dad a glare, but then she looks back at me and gives a tight smile. “It’s nothing.”
I know that it’s certainly not nothing, but I’m tired of asking questions and never getting a straight answer. I’m absolutely livid, and I think my heart might explode from my high blood pleasure. Mom’s always been right about Dad. He’s an asshole.
I stuff my hands into the pockets of my sweater—it only reminds me once more that I was robbed—and storm up to my room. My head’s still spinning, even more so now, and all I crave is water and a shower and Tyler. Two of those things I can have.
Ugh.
I need to clear my head, to remove myself from the house and get some fresh air instead. I need to run. I’ll shower when I get back; I’ll talk to Tyler when I get back. I just need to think straight first.
I fight the overwhelming urge to throw up as I slip out of my skirt from last night and change into my running gear, fetching myself a bottle of water from the kitchen and heading out the patio doors in order to avoid Dad.
And then I’m off, falling into a steady pace as I make my way north rather than west. I don’t want to go back to the beach. I want to take a new route; I want to end up someplace different and new. And so I quickly find myself in Pacific Palisades, the sun beating down on me, my feet thudding against the concrete and my headache slowly easing away.
I think last night has just made everything even more complicated than it already was. Now Tyler and I are walking on eggshells, monitoring our words and ensuring not a single soul catches us exchanging a knowing smile. If we get caught, we’re screwed.
My head is a total mess. In a perfect world, Tyler and I wouldn’t be related through a marriage certificate. In a perfect world, Tyler and I wouldn’t have to sneak around and hurt people in the process of falling for each other. In a perfect world, I’d get to brag about him to Amelia. But this world isn’t perfect. Far from it.
* * *
When I get back to the house forty minutes later, still a little hungover and out of breath, I come to an abrupt halt on the lawn.
Tiffani’s car is parked out front. It shouldn’t be. It’s Sunday morning, and they never see each other on Sundays.
I force myself over to the front door, but there’s a stiffness in my bones, and I can’t tell if it’s because of the run or because I know there’s something not quite right. I almost want to turn around and run another five hundred thousand miles in the opposite direction, but I drag myself inside the house and creep up the staircase. I notice Dad and Ella are talking in the living room when I sweep past, most likely discussing ways to get rid of their two reckless kids.
I’ve barely reached the landing when Tiffani emerges from my room, shoving open my door with Tyler hot on her heels. He reaches for her arm and tries to pull her back, but she shakes off his grasp.
“Oh, here she is,” she says venomously, her voice dripping with acid. “You’re just in time.”
Tyler’s eyes are wide as he stares at me from behind her, and with a minute shake of his head, he runs a hand through his hair.
“In time for what?” I dare myself to ask, although judging by the furious expression on her face I don’t think I want to know. Tyler looks worried, and I can’t blame him. I’m starting to feel the same.
Tiffani’s eyes are like ice and I’ve never seen her look so…nasty. Right now, if this was a scene in a movie, she’d be the villain for sure. “I need to talk to you both, because in case you can’t tell, I am pissed the hell off.” She balls a hand into a fist. “I am this close to punching you in the face, Tyler.”
“What have I done this time?” He’s staring at her with a perplexed look in his eyes, but it doesn’t stop him from taking a step back, just in case.
“What have you done? Are you seriously asking?” Her mouth is agape, and then she takes a deep breath. “Backyard. Now.”
She barges past me and knocks me against the wall. I scrunch up my face and glare after her as she descends the stairs. What’s her damn problem?
I glance back at Tyler. He presses his hands to his face and mouths, “Fuck.”
Tiffani pauses at the bottom of the staircase and glowers back up at us. She throws a pointed glance at the living room door, where our parents are. “I can talk to you both outside or I can talk to you right here,” she says slowly, her voice hushed, “and trust me, I think you’d rather I spoke to you outside.”
She knows, I think. She so fucking knows.
The exact same thought must cross Tyler’s mind, because he shoots me a panicked look and swallows. I can’t think of a worse time to be confronted about all of this. I’m hungover, I’m sweaty, I’m tired, and I look like I’ve just escaped from rehab. I’m that trashy.
There’s absolutely no chance of me getting out of this. I wonder if it’s too late to run those five hundred thousand miles. Tyler’s nudging me down the stairs, and I can literally feel his unwillingness through his touch. His arms are rigid, fists curled. Somehow, the two of us make it through the patio doors and into the backyard.
“Soooooooo,” Tiffani says.
Tyler furrows his eyebrows. “So…”
“So I woke up to a text from TJ this morning,” she states. She’s glancing between the two of us, so I try to look nonchalant. I try to look like I didn’t just sleep with her boyfriend. “And, you know,” she continues, “I’m getting real sick of other people talking to me about us hooking up, Tyler, because half the fucking time it’s not even me.”
“What are you talking about?” Tyler asks, and both Tiffani and I stare at him. He knows what she’s talking about. He knows exactly.
“Don’t start, Tyler. Just don’t,” she snaps, her voice growing louder.
She’s turning vicious, and I know that the chance of us remaining friends after this is pretty slim. “He made a joke about us hooking up last night, because his room was a total mess, and we both know perfectly fine that it wasn’t me.”
“Look,” Tyler starts, taking a step toward her. “Baby, I didn’t hook up with anyone. I just forgot to tidy the place up after—”
“Shut up!” she yells, and he does. I think she’s past the point of putting up with his bullshit. She squeezes her eyes shut for a second, breathes in and out, and then turns to me, a smile on her lips. “Eden, didn’t you want your shoes?”
Everything stops. My heart skips a few beats, my limbs stiffen, my blood runs cold. I try to splutter some words out, but they rise in my throat only to disappear. My voice becomes a rasped whisper. “How did you—”
“Because,” she hisses, “TJ asked if I’d had a good night and then said I’d left behind my Converse. Asked me what the words written on them meant.” My heart completely stops beating now. “I sure as hell remember you waving yours around the entire night. The ones with the lyrics on them, right? By the way, you’re not getting those back. I told him I didn’t want them and asked him to toss them in the trash for me.”
“But Tyler’s my—”
“Stepbrother? Yeah, I know.” She’s growing so livid that tears are threatening to fall. Quickly wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she straightens up and adjusts the waistband of her sweats. “I just spent the past half hour arguing with myself. I was like, ‘No way, they’re totally related.’ But I’ve watched Clueless before, okay? You know, when Cher falls for her stepbrother? I’m not stupid.”
This is it. This is what being caught feels like.
And it feels like hell.
Both Tyler and I are at a loss for words. I don’t quite think either of us ever prepared ourselves for what would happen if this ever happened, if the truth was ever uncovered. It feels like Judgment Day. I feel so small, so tiny, standing here in front of Tiffani. I can’t even look at Tyler. I just feel sick, like I could hurl at any second, so I try my hardest to hold it back as the barbecue over by the pool catches my eye.