Small Town Sinners (24 page)

We nod, and I’m afraid for her to continue but more afraid for her not to.

“Seems that while he was away he got himself in some trouble,” she says.

“What kind of trouble?” Starla Joy asks.

“I don’t like to spread gossip,” Doris says, contradicting everything we know to be true about her, “but I heard he got in a car accident last spring and was arrested for driving under the
in-flu-ence
.”

She practically stretches each syllable of “influence” into its own sentence.

Then she looks around the diner like she hasn’t told every table this already and whispers, “Drugs.”

None of us react, which isn’t what Doris expects.

“Well, that’s the word anyway.” Doris turns and walks back to the kitchen.

Dean and Starla Joy and I look at each other.

“Do you think it’s true?” asks Dean.

“Yes,” Starla Joy says immediately. “Didn’t you guys always feel like Ty was holding something back? Like he couldn’t tell us about a part of his life.”

“The truth always finds you,” Dean says.

“You sound like Oprah,” Starla Joy says.

“But he’s right,” I say.

“Did you know this, Lacey?” asks Starla Joy, looking at me intently.

“No,” I say, thinking that I wish I had, feeling like I
should
have known. He should have told me.

“It doesn’t seem like Ty,” Dean says. “He’s not a drunk-driving type.”

“What
is
a drunk-driving type?” I ask. “I mean, what does that mean?”

“Bleary eyes, bad grades, a who-cares attitude,” says Dean. Then he smiles. “Okay, I know I sound dumb. You’re right. It’s like in Hell House where the script calls for the drug guy to be goth. So stupid.”

“He’s just Ty,” I say. “He’s the same person we met again this summer.” I want to talk to Ty, want to find out what the real story is.

“I need to go,” I say.

Chapter Twenty-six

Starla Joy takes me straight to Ty’s house, and neither she nor Dean ask to come in. They know I need to talk with Ty alone.

As I head up the walk, I turn my phone to silent. I don’t want to be interrupted. I notice again how big and foreboding this house is, especially at night. But before I even ring the bell, Ty opens the door and warm light floods out from inside the entry. He looks rumpled in his pajama pants and a white undershirt, but he also looks extremely adorable. His hair is sticking up on one side.

“No polo shirt?” I ask.

“Not when I’m off duty at home,” he says, frowning.

I see Vivian Moss appear just past Ty, but she nods and makes a quick exit. I hope she won’t tell my dad she saw me here, but even that fear can’t distract me from the conversation I want to have with Ty. I have to find out the truth—where he’s been and what really happened.

“Can I come in?” I ask, realizing that Ty’s not going to offer that.

“I guess,” he says.

I follow him into the large living room.

“It’s kind of late for you to be out on a school night, right?” asks Ty, sitting down on one end of the brown leather couch and grabbing a throw pillow. He pulls it up into his chest protectively.

I choose an armchair where I can sit up straight.

“I needed to talk to you,” I say.

“Let me guess,” Ty says. “You finally heard …” His voice drops off. We sit there quietly for a moment, and I realize that I’m going to have to start this thing.

“What do you think I heard?” I ask.

“I guess you heard why I wasn’t at school,” Ty says. “I can tell by the look on your face that it’s ruined.”

“What is?” I ask.

“The image that you have of Ty Davis, the sweet little boy who’s into trains,” he says, a rueful smile playing on his lips.

“Is that an illusion?” I ask.

“It’s an outdated perception,” he says.

“Ty, what did happen?” I ask.

“What did you hear?” he asks.

“Just that you got arrested for driving under the influence,” I say. “That you were in an accident.”

“That’s right,” he says.

“It doesn’t seem like you,” I say.

“Who does it seem like?” he asks. “Geoff Parsons?”

“Maybe,” I say too quickly, thinking of Geoff’s dad. “Anyway, it doesn’t seem like
you
.”

“Well, I’m not really the person you think I am,” Ty says.

“Isn’t that exactly what you said to me the last time I saw you?” I ask. “That
I’m
not the person you thought I was?”

“Could be I was projecting,” Ty says, smiling a little. “Ever since I got here I’ve been trying to be someone else, to forget what happened.”

“That’s why you came back?” I ask.

“My parents thought that if I moved in with Aunt Vivian, here where things were safe and good, that I’d be able to leave the ‘bad influences’ behind,” he says.

“Bad influences? That sounds intense,” I say.

“Yeah, well, that’s my dad’s term but DUIs are intense,” says Ty. He picks at the corner of the throw pillow he’s holding. He looks like a lost little boy.

“Ty, what happened?” I ask again.

“It’s a boring story,” he says, but I don’t believe him for a second.

I stay quiet, wanting him to continue. I know he will. This is what he wanted to tell me when he brought me over to his house the day we found out Tessa was pregnant, what he’s been trying to tell me all those evenings at Ulster Park. He’s been listening to my thoughts and feelings, pushing back and challenging me gently, but I haven’t been listening hard enough to him. I didn’t know there was something he needed to say.

But I know now, and I’m not going to talk around it. I’m just going to listen.

“There was a party,” he says after a while, leaning back into the arm of the couch. He runs his hand through his mussed-up hair. I almost wish I were lying with him in his arms. Maybe that would make it easier to tell. But I stay still.

“It was pretty normal for everyone to be drinking,” he continues. “I thought I was fine to drive home. I’d done it before.”

I nod, consciously keeping any judgment off of my face.

“This time I wasn’t okay,” he says. “There was a sharp curve on the road, and I lost control of the car. We spun out and hit a tree. Totaled my dad’s Lexus.”

“We?” I ask.

“My ex-girlfriend was in the passenger seat,” he says.

“And everyone was okay?” I ask, pushing down the jealousy that flares up at the word “girlfriend.” Of course he would have had a girlfriend before. It’s normal. Nothing wrong with that.

He closes his eyes, and I feel my own start to fill with tears.

“She’s okay,” he says quietly. “She had a broken leg, but she’s fine now. I saw her last week.”

“That’s good,” I say, feeling relief at the well-being of the ex-girlfriend I’d been jealous of thirty seconds ago.

“Yup,” he says. And I see his mouth shut in that way that guys close their lips when they don’t want to say any more. I can see some sort of pain on his face, but I don’t understand what it is, and I need to.

“Ty, it’s okay,” I say. “I’m still here. I’m still your … friend. I know you’re sorry. I know God’s forgiven you.”

I think about the scene I just saw in Hell House with Zack Robbins—the one I was originally cast in. Pastor Frist told Zack to play his character, the drunk driver, like an oblivious jerk. A sinner who doesn’t care that he has his friends, his girlfriend, in the car. That character isn’t meant to be forgiven—he gets dragged into Hell by demons during the show. But that’s not who Ty is. The truth is much more complicated than that.

“I didn’t mean to,” Ty says. “I knew better.”

It’s like he’s not talking to me now. He’s looking somewhere to my right, out the big windows and into the woods.

I see a tear slip down his face and I have no idea what to do. I’ve never seen a guy cry like this before. It’s quiet and still. It’s terrifying. But I want to be strong. So I sit and wait for him to keep talking or to start crying harder or something. I don’t move, I don’t let myself think. If I think, I might want to run away, and I need to stay, because my dad’s always told me that being there is sometimes the most powerful thing you can do for someone. And I want to be there for Ty.

“Afterward, it was like I had taken a baseball bat to her leg myself,” he finally says. He wipes away the few tears that slipped out. “These guys—my former friends—threatened me. The girls stared at me like I’d intentionally hurt her.”

He looks over at me and I can see a mix of sadness and raw anger on his face. He snorts a little now, a choked laugh. “Lacey, all of them had done the same thing every weekend,” he says. “They’d just never gotten caught.”

He looks back out toward the woods. “I can’t take the double standard,” he says. “I can’t stand the hypocrisy. I did something wrong, and I’m being punished for it. I can take that. But why just me? Why do some people get to go on with their lives like nothing happened?”

I stand up, not sure where I’m going or what to do, but I head to the kitchen and pour myself a glass of water. Watching him in so much pain, feeling so much confusion myself, makes me feel weak. My shoulders start to shake and, on impulse, I drop to my knees by the refrigerator.

“God, please help me get through this moment. Please help me to understand Ty, and what happened, and how to move forward and how to do the right thing. God, please help me to act in your image, to know what that is and to believe in it fully. To—”

I fall silent. The relief I’m looking for isn’t coming. My own words are scaring me. So I stop praying and I stand up.

I turn around and walk back to the living room, heading straight for Ty. I put my arms around him and he doesn’t push me away. I lean against him, holding him close to me. We’re both letting tears fall.

We stay there for a long time, hardly moving except for the rhythm of our breath.

Later, I sit with Ty and hold his hand. I want to tell him that everything is okay, that he’s forgiven and he can move on. But I’m not sure what the rules are in this situation. So I tell him the one thing I know for sure. “I’m still here,” I say.

It’s two a.m. by the time I leave. Ty drives me home in his aunt’s car so we won’t wake my dad, but I already know that I’m in trouble. I have twelve missed calls.

Sure enough, the living room light is on.

“Do you want me to go in with you?” Ty asks. “I could explain or—”

“No,” I say. “I’ll handle it.”

I walk up the front steps feeling empty, hollowed out by the emotional wallop I experienced tonight.

When I sit across from my dad in the living room, he puts down his book slowly and takes off his reading glasses.

“I was at—” I start.

“I know where you were,” Dad says. “So don’t bother telling me you were with Starla Joy.”

“I wasn’t going to, Dad,” I say. “I was at Ty’s.”

“Well, that’s an honest beginning,” says Dad.

“How did you know?” I ask.

“Vivian called around ten thirty,” he says. “She wanted me to know you were okay.”

“Oh,” I say. “Well, I’m not sure that I am.”

“She also updated me on Ty’s …
situation
,” he says. “And she told me that you were counseling him through some of his grief about his transgressions.”

“I was being a good friend,” I say. Then I look in my father’s eyes. “A good Christian.”

“I know you were, Lacey,” Dad says. “You should have called—you know that—but I was proud to hear that you were helping Ty tonight.”

My heart softens a little and I smile at my father. “I learned it from you,” I say.

He smiles back, but it’s a tight-lipped version of his usually wide-open grin.

“Well, now I’m going to have to say something to you that you won’t want to hear,” he says.

“What?” I ask, my spine straightening.

“I don’t want you spending time with Ty Davis anymore,” he says.

My mouth opens in objection, but Dad holds his hand up and silences me with a motion, just like he does with rowdy kids in Sunday school.

“I know that you two have become close,” he continues. “I don’t object to a friendship.”

“Then what do you object to?” I ask, my skin prickling a little.

“Lacey, I know you’ve been out late at night with Ty,” he says.

I look down at the carpet.

“You’ve been deceiving your mother and me,” he adds. “I don’t know what else has been going on, but that’s enough evidence to tell me that you’re getting too close to a boy who has a history of problems.”

“A history?” I ask. “Dad, he made a mistake! He’s asked for forgiveness, Dad. And you should see how sorry he is.”

The words tumble out of my mouth and even I’m not sure how I feel about them. I find myself wishing I could talk to my dad, be open with him about the confusion I’ve felt, which is only getting bigger instead of smaller.