[a/n: first of all, i'd like to apologize for the wait. i'm not sure i can ever explain why exactly i couldn't seem to write anything past a few sentences (that would eventually get deleted) for the past few months, but, as promised, i've resolved that i will continue to write this until it's done.
second, if there are any differences in the way i'd written this and the way the previous chapters were written, i apologize. those, after all, had been written months ago, and i'm still trying to ease back into writing.
lastly, part of the reason why i couldn't seem to continue writing this was that i felt as though it was dragging too much. the pace was all off, and it was difficult to figure out how to keep the story moving, so this serves as a little warning to tell you that things will begin to pick up from this chapter, so a lot of things will happen here, and in the coming chapters.
sorry and, if you're reading this, thank you for always putting up with me.
p.s. i didn't proofread this yet haha i have class tomorrow and i still haven't taken a look at the class readings and yeah sorry for the mistakes]
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Chapter 21
I hated human confrontation.
I hated human confrontation paired with anything related to emotional attachment, which was why I only ever had two responses when it came to conversations that required me to have a look into my so-called "emotions."
That being said, I was willing to bet that in all my eighteen years of existence, there was absolutely nothing more painfully awkward than the moment I had to show up at Tyler's doorstep at two o'clock in the morning two weeks after our one-night stand and six hours after he asked me to have dinner with him (both of which ended up with me running away with no explanation whatsoever), so when he finally opened that door and said "hi," my mind went completely blank.
I stood there, completely lost, as I watched the expression on his face shift from pleasantly surprised to slightly confused before finally settling into a somewhat questioning stare, brows slightly furrowed and lips turned into a slight smile.
Austin cleared his throat, nudging me forward with a slight push, prompting me to squeak out a panicked, "Hi!"
"Reed." Tyler's eyes flickered over my shoulder. "And..."
"Austin."
"Tyler." He, ever so amiable, offered Austin a smile before looking back at me. There was a tinge of both understanding and disappointment in his eyes; a slight sag in his shoulders; a bittersweet feel to the otherwise cheerful smile he was sending my way. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were..." he trailed off, shaking his head apologetically.
"Oh, no," I said. "No, no, no, really, just—no. We're, uh, we're not—you know. We're, uh, we're not—"
"We're not together," Austin interjected.
"We're not."
Tyler's eyebrows rose. "Oh."
It was growing more and more uncomfortable by the second, and maybe if I wasn't a selfish sensitive bitch, I probably would have just asked him to have a private conversation so I could finally just turn him down and walk out of his life forever, but the mere thought of having The Talk with him was incredibly difficult to imagine, and instead of facing this situation between us head-on, I said, "Can we come in?" acting as though the elephant in the room was completely nonexistent.
Part of me hoped he'd stop being so nice, that he'd just curse me for being cowardly and confusing, but I should have known that there was no way that would actually happy. "Yes, of course," he said, stepping back with a warm grin plastered on his face. "Come on in."
Austin and I exchanged furtive glances before gingerly stepping in, allowing Tyler to close the door behind us.
"I haven't finished cleaning yet," Tyler said, walking across the room to grab the partially full garbage bag sitting by the couch. "I'll just get rid of this. I'll be back in a minute."
Despite what he said, the room was actually really clean. The smell of stale beer and swear still hung in the air, mixing into the citrusy smell of cleaning soap and air freshener, but the place was back in order. When he disappeared into the hall, Austin and I reluctantly made our way to the couch, sitting with a conscious distance between us.
I rubbed my hands on my jeans, letting out a small sigh and wishing, not for the first time tonight, that I was asleep in my bedroom.
"So." Austin shifted in his seat, turning ever so slightly towards me. "What was that about?"
"What?"
"Red, come on. You were an awkward mess."
I couldn't stop myself from cringing. "I wasn't."
He gave me a flat look.
"Okay, maybe a little," I admitted, "but I wasn't that bad. Was I?"
"You were terrible. I can't believe I'm saying this, but seeing this non-snarky awkward you is not as fun as I thought it would be. Just what is up with you two?"
Biting my lower lip, I shook my head and looked away. "I slept with him two weeks ago." He let out a low whistle. I continued, "I left before he could wake up, and I've pretty much avoided him until tonight. He asked me out for dinner."
"And you said no."
"Well, actually, I slipped away before I could tell him no."
Realization dawned on his face. "Oh, boy."
I heaved a deep sigh and brought my hands to my face. Now that I said it out loud, I realized just how badly I'd been treating Tyler. This was like Sean all over again: with me trying to pretend I couldn't see his feelings for me and me running away before I could have a chance to confront mine.
"Look, Red," I heard Austin say. "I know this probably doesn't have anything to do with me, but you do know that running away wouldn't solve anything, right?"
"Of course," I said, turning to him with an irritated glare. "I don't need to take advice from you."
He lifted his shoulders in a small shrug. "Fine. Whatever. I'm just saying."
"Well, I wasn't asking."
"For fuck's sake, Red, back off. I'm not looking for a fight here."
I knew he wasn't, but I couldn't help but feel as though he was picking apart and dissecting my decisions, seeing the flaws in the fact that I tended to avoid commitments, and I didn't need him breathing down on my neck like Tori often does.
"Sorry," I muttered, half-hoping he wouldn't hear me.
His eyebrows lifted ever so slightly, but he didn't say anything.
Thankfully, that was the moment Tyler chose to return. Both Austin and I straightened in our seats, almost as though we've been caught doing something we shouldn't have been. If Tyler noticed this or not, I didn't know, because when he sat on the couch perpendicular to ours, he was wearing his usual bright expression.
"Hey," he said, looking expectantly at the two of us.
Before any awkward silence could ensue, I decided to just jump right into it. "Tori's missing."
---
I wasn't sure how many times Austin and I had had to retell our situation over the course of the night, but by the time we finished telling Tyler, I felt sick of already; like it was a movie I'd watched so many times that every scene seemed bland and unexciting.
Tyler, however, listened attentively, and almost as soon as we finished telling him, he jumped to his feet, surprising both Austin and me. "Wait here."
Before either of us could ask where he was heading, however, he had already slipped out of the living room. He was bringing a box with him when he came back, and he set it on the wooden table as soon as he was close enough.
"You mentioned losing Tori's phone at the party earlier," he said. "I think I might have put away one or two iPhones earlier this evening."
I spurred into action, immediately grabbing the box to move it closer to me so I could look through it.
"I'm sorry, by the way," Tyler said, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand. "About the disastrous party, I mean."
"It's okay," I said, tentatively picking up a lacy black bra sitting among the other items in Tyler's lost and found box. "Seriously?"
His gaze fell on the flimsy piece of cloth between my fingers. "Yeah. That, uh, came in a pair."
I dropped it back into the box. "God." Shaking my head, I resumed my search. There were a few purses and wallets lying among the other trinkets people must have left: lighters, cardholders, half-empty packs of cigarettes, but it didn't take long for me to find Tori's phone.
"Is that it?" Austin shifted forward in his seat, eyes fixed on the phone in my hand.
"Yeah." I quickly checked if it still had some battery left, and I was relieved to find that it did. I wasn't sure what, exactly, I was hoping for when I opened it, and my heart did a quick jump when I saw the notification flashing on the screen.
There was a message from an unknown number.
"Well?" I heard Austin say.
"There's a message."
"And?"
I lifted my eyes to his. "It's for me, and it came from Tori."
---
The faucet gave a slight squeak when I turned it off. Heaving a deep sigh, I braced my hands on the sink before opening my eyes to look into the mirror.
Even I could see the exhaustion in my face. The dead-eyed gaze gave my frustration away, and no matter how much I tried to tell myself to calm down, the anger refused to fade.
After reading the message Tori left for me to read, I simply couldn't hold my cool any longer. I had excused myself to go to the bathroom, and even though I'd already splashed my face with cold water, I felt nothing but anger sear through my consciousness, making camp somewhere in the pockets of my heart so that I was suddenly reminded of all the other times that Tori had had frustrated me so much I had to seriously think of leaving her side for good.
And by "for good," I really meant for good.
This was one of those times.
Before I could give in to the urge to break the mirror or throw some things around and make a mess out of Tyler's bathroom, I opened the door and left.
The message burned clear in my head, the words etching themselves on the walls of my mind so that no matter what I did, I couldn't help but see them.
reed hi hello it's tori!! i'm sorry about taking ur car.
No, she wasn't.
i promise i'll bring it back tom. don't come looking for me. i'll be fine, i promise.
No, she wouldn't be.
i know u'd probably be mad but don't worry about me ily pls pls pls try to get along with austin bc u two r really cute together. see u tom!!!!! (tell me EVERYTHING)
My hands clenched into tight fists. I knew I should have seen this coming. I knew I should have known all along that it was stupid for me to expect that we would ever actually find her, not when she had no intentions of being found in the first place.
When I returned to the living room, both Austin and Tyler jumped to their feet, turning to me with cautious looks fixed on their faces. I swallowed, doing my best to keep my composure. They must have already seen the message. I left the phone on the table when I stormed out to go to the bathroom, and judging from the looks on their faces, they must know just how much it had actually affected me.
"Come on, then," I said. "I guess there's no use running around town anymore."
Neither of the guys moved. They simply exchanged wary looks before turning back to me. I raised an eyebrow at both of them and waited for them to speak up.
Almost hesitantly, Austin said, "Now what?"
I couldn't read the expression on his face, but I was done. I simply had no more energy left to deal with this—to run around like an idiot wishing I could catch a butterfly even though I knew that there was a large, gaping hole in the net I'd been using.
That was how being friends with Tori felt like, and I guess I was done.
"I'm going home," I said.
One of Austin's eyebrows rose. "And what about me?"
"You should go, too."
"Yeah, I would have done that if I actually knew where I was supposed to go."
"God, Dick, what are you, five? Call them back or something. Tori must have used Lewis's phone." Bristling in frustration, I shook my head and looked him in the eye. "Figure it out yourself. I am done here."
He looked at me with a calm, cool gaze. I looked back with as much determination as I could muster until he finally heaved a sigh and looked away, lifting his shoulders in a terse shrug.
"Fine. Whatever."
He grabbed the phone from the table and, without another word, walked across the living room to the front door, leaving it open as he stepped back out into the night.
I suppressed the urge to groan, refusing to let my frustration burn me out even further. I closed my eyes, took a deep, calming breath, trying to convince myself that everything was under control.
When I opened my eyes, I found myself locking eye to eye with Tyler, and something about the way I looked at him must have told him that I was barely able to hold myself together, if the look on his face was any indication.
His kind, warm eyes were looking at me in concern and, tentatively, he said, "Is there... is there anything I can do to help?"
I let out the groan I'd been stifling, somehow unable to keep it in any longer. It felt like I had just snapped, and before I knew it, I was saying, "Stop it. Just—stop. Why, Tyler? Why do you keep acting like I hadn't done anything wrong to you? For fuck's sake, Tyler, have you forgotten? I slept with you and snuck out the next morning, left without so much as a note and never called you again."
"But you came," he retorted quickly. Then his cheeks began to burn and he corrected himself, "I mean, you came to the party tonight. Not that you, uh, came that night, though you did, but—fuck. Sorry, I didn't..." He shook his head, rubbed his face with his hands before promptly taking a deep breath. "What I'm trying to say is that I like you, Reed. I do. Ever since that night, I haven't been able to stop thinking about you, and—"
"But you can do so much better!" I was growing exasperated, and the guilt was creeping up on me like cold fingers wrapping around my throat. "You don't like me, Tyler. Trust me. One day you're going to regret ever thinking you actually liked someone like me."
"I do like you, Reed." He shook his head, looking almost as confused as a child wandering the aisles of a grocery store, looking for his parents. "When you told me about your dad and your—"
"I told you about my dad?"
He stopped short, pulling back a little. "You... you don't remember?"
"I never talk about my dad."
"But you did," he said. "That night."
"Then I must have been flat out drunk," I said, trying to take this new information in. "And that wasn't me, Tyler. I was drunk, and you should forget whatever I said or did that night because that wasn't me."
"It was you," he said. "It was perhaps the truest Reed I'd ever seen, and I liked her. I like you."
"I don't," I finally said. Averting my gaze, I bit my lower lip and tried to keep myself back on track. "I don't feel the same way about you, and I don't think I ever will."
I hadn't wanted it to come to this, but it felt as though I didn't have any choice, and he must have seen it coming. He should have seen it coming, but one look at his face told me that he hadn't. His shoulders had slumped, his eyes had lost the fight in them, and, for the first time that night, I saw his spirit wash out.
"I'm sorry," I murmured, trying, at the very least, to apologize for everything that I had done to him. "You're great, Tyler, and I meant it when I said you could do better. I'm just... not the kind of girl you should be falling for because I don't do love. I don't believe in it and I never want to fall in love—ever."
He looked at me then, raising his gaze from the floor to look into my eyes. Finally, with a disheartened smile, he shook his head and stepped back.
"Funny," he said. "That's not what you told me that night."
---
Even if somebody offered to give me a million dollars to remember what exactly had happened that night at the graduation party, I probably wouldn't be able to. It wasn't that I didn't want to, because I did, especially after what Tyler had just told me. It was more that I couldn't.
I remember drinking and throwing up and drinking all over again, and I remember hating myself for feeling sorry for myself just because my own father had been too busy to actually go to my own graduation.
I remember crying.
I remember feeling miserable because even though so many years had passed since the day my father walked out of that front door, never to return again, it still felt as though I was still sitting on the front porch steps, waiting—always, always waiting—to see his car pull into the driveway, to watch him get out of the car so that I could get up and run to give him a hug and welcome him back.
Except he never did, and I was stuck there on the front porch while he continued to drive away, farther and farther from me and the house I called home, and that night, when I looked on from that stage holding my rolled up diploma and saw the vacant seat where he should have been sitting, I realized there was no point waiting.
I drank and drank, trying to find an excuse to act stupid, at least for once, because I felt like I was the stupidest person ever to have lived in this planet.
I couldn't remember everything about that night, but after what Tyler had just told me, I thought hard about it, and I vaguely remember sitting side by side with him on the dim, quiet porch, talking in murmurs and whispers and hushed voices.
And, if Tyler had been telling the truth, I had told him that I wanted to fall in love.
"That's ridiculous," I had told him before leaving, confused and angry and tired of everything, walking out on him for the third and hopefully last time.
When I stepped past his front door, I had resolved that I was going home.
I had reveled in the thought of seeking the comfort of my bed and my room and sleep, convinced that when I woke up the next day, the world would be back on its axis.
When I found Austin waiting for me outside, however, it became clear that there was no way I could go home. He was leaning against Georgina, Tori's iPhone in hand, looking at me with an expression of wariness, then, without waiting for me to ask what was up, he said, "I called the number and Lewis picked up."
I raised an eyebrow.
Taking a deep breath, he said, "Tori isn't with him anymore. She left almost an hour ago."