True (18 page)

Jessica had climbed onto the free sled but was having second thoughts. “I don’t want to crash.”

“You’ll be fine,” Kylie reassured her. “It’s fun.”

“But what if I hit the cement thing? I could break my ankle.”

It surprised me, but she really did sound anxious. I didn’t tend to think of Jess as being afraid of anything, but she was clutching the handles tightly and her shoulders were tense.

“You’re not going to break anything,” Kylie assured her.

“Either go or get off and let someone else have a turn” was Riley’s suggestion.

That clearly pissed Jessica off because she hunched forward, like she was steeling herself to go. “I’m going. Just give me a second.”

But Riley’s boot came out and he gave the sled a mighty shove, sending her flying down the hill, her screams of terror ripping through the quiet night. Clearly pleased with himself, he chuckled.

“Dude,” Tyler said in a vague reprimand, but it was clear he was struggling not to laugh himself.

“That was mean,” Kylie told Riley.

“What? She was hogging the sled.”

We all watched as Jessica tumbled off into the snow, clearly concerned enough about her ankle to arrange for an early exit from the plastic sled. She rolled about four times before coming to a stop with her arms and legs spread out like a snow angel. She was completely still for a second, long enough for me to take two steps, intent on running down the hill to see what she’d broken. But then she sprang up, yanking her hat off and throwing it on the ground.

“You’re an asshole!” she screamed up at Riley. “I could have been killed.”

This made him give up the fight and start laughing out loud. “You’re not that fragile,” he told her. “You look like you have a decent amount of padding.”

Uh-oh. Given that it was the furthest thing from the truth, he clearly was just yanking Jessica’s chain, but she wasn’t someone I would necessarily want to mess with.

“Ouch, bro, that was a little harsh,” Tyler told him. Yet he was chuckling under his breath.

“Screw. You.” Jessica stomped up the hill and threw the sled at Riley.

It bounced off Riley’s arm, his feeble attempt to block it marred by his laughter. He was practically doubled over, he was so entertained by himself. “Don’t. I could be killed.” Then he burst out laughing again after mimicking her words.

“Dick,” she said, walking right past him. Then with a speed that a ninja would envy, she scooped up one of her snowballs, turned, and smashed it right into Riley’s face.

His laughter cut out, and he swiped at his face. “Hey!”

Jessica smiled in pure satisfaction.

Tyler eyed me. “You’re not going to smash a snowball in my face, are you?”

“No. I’m more subtle than that.” I shivered. “Am I the only one who thinks its freezing out here?”

“You can go in if you want,” he told me, hugging me close. “I’ll stay out here with the boys.”

Easton and Jayden took another turn down the hill while Kylie and Nathan made out. Yeah, I wouldn’t mind going in and escaping the snow piling up on my eyelashes. I kissed Tyler and called to Jess, “I’m going in. Want to come with me?”

“God, yes.”

I glanced back at all the guys and Kylie, watching them laugh and urge Easton to go down the hill on his stomach. The night was almost perfect, filled with the people I cared about the most, minus my family. The air was crisp and clean, and the snow blanketed the dirty parking lot in pure white.

For one moment the world seemed beautiful, and I was happy.

But tomorrow the snow would most likely melt, leaving behind a slushy brown muck that we had to sludge through whether we liked it or not.

Chapter Eighteen

It is amazing what we can ignore. What we can compartmentalize and put in a box labeled Later. How we can let the motions of ordinary, everyday life distract us from real, looming problems. For two weeks Tyler and I ignored his upcoming hearing. We went to the coffee shop and I ordered lattes and he ordered black coffee, like we always did. We watched movies and studied and took turns sleeping in my dorm room or at his house if his mom was gone. I cooked. I went to my work-study job. Tyler went to the convenience store. Each day clipped along as it always had, and we laughed and talked and made love.

It was like if we just ignored the future and lived in the now, it would magically sort itself out.

Twice I tried to ask Tyler about the hearing, possible outcomes, and what his court-appointed lawyer had told him. Both times he brushed it off, saying, “It is what it is, no point in worrying about it.”

We took our finals and made plans for him to come up for a few hours on Christmas Eve when I was at home for break. I didn’t exactly have permission from my dad for that, but I figured once the hearing was over, we could work on damage control. He had said himself he liked Tyler.

The morning of the hearing, I was still arguing with Tyler about going to the courthouse with him. “I can talk to my professor.”

“Absolutely not,” he said as he put on a dress shirt he had borrowed from Bill. It was a little small, but it was preferable to wearing a Metallica T-shirt to court. “You have your lit final today, and we don’t know if we’ll be done in time for you to get back for it.”

We were in my room, and Kylie and Jessica had already left for their respective exams. I did have the lit final at one-thirty, and thanks to Tyler I actually felt somewhat prepared. Riley and Nathan were going to court with Tyler, but I still felt a pit of anxiety in my stomach. I wanted to be there. I couldn’t change the outcome in any way, but the control freak in me thought somehow I could. That I could ask the right questions. That I could support Tyler. That by the sheer force of my will I could make the outcome a positive one.

“I’m sure I can reschedule it.”

“No.” He gave me a firm look as he tucked the blue shirt into his black jeans. “That’s the last thing in the world I want is for you to be rearranging your exams because of me. You have your scholarship to think about, you can’t be risking your grades. Your dad will hate me more than he already does.”

He was right, about all of it. But I still wanted to be there. “Text me the minute you’re done. I’m going to be freaking out.”

Tyler smiled and brushed his hand across my cheek. “No freaking out. It’s all going to be cool. What’s the worst that can happen?”

We both knew the worst that could happen. He could get a year in prison.

“My lawyer says I won’t get the maximum sentence. Now I need to go before I’m late.”

Tyler kissed me, a long lingering kiss that made my tension loosen and my bare toes curl into the carpet. “Mm,” he said. “Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

***

I hadn’t heard anything by one, so I turned off my phone when it was time for my exam and took my seat. I floated my way through Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Williams. It amazed me that two parts of my brain could coexist so easily—one methodically plodding through symbolism, the other in a courtroom downtown with Tyler.

As I answered essay questions on
A Streetcar Named Desire
, I remembered my first conversation with Tyler about Stella’s reaction to Stanley throwing a shoe. Tyler had been right. I hadn’t understood then that love and passion weren’t logical, that you could stand outside and observe and say that someone was behaving ridiculously, but that when you were the one in the room, nothing made sense but the volcano of emotion that erupted when you were with your lover.

I still wasn’t convinced that tossing a shoe didn’t mean you harbored an anger-management problem, but I did understand love now. How it wrapped around you and made you more aware of the prickles on your skin, the roots of your hair, the intensity of every touch and every inch of you. It was like life on hi-def. Everything was sharper.

After I turned in the exam and left the room, the first thing I did was turn on my phone. I walked down the hallway, impatiently waiting for it to make its various tech noises as it fired up, then as I received texts and e-mails.

There was no text from Tyler.

But there was one from Nathan.

Got 30 days and 1500 fine. Starts serving now.

Relief that he had not gotten a year was immediately replaced by panic. Wait a minute. Did Nathan mean he had been taken straight to prison? For thirty days? That meant I wouldn’t be able to see him. He would be behind bars for Christmas, too.

I dialed Nathan’s number and he answered. “Hey.”

“Hey. What does that mean? Tyler’s in jail already?”

“Yeah. They took him into custody to immediately start serving his sentence. His lawyer said he could do weekend jail for the next four months but that he was more likely to not serve the full time if he just went right in. He decided to just get it over with.”

I stopped walking, sinking onto a bench by the water fountain. Students moved up and down the hallway and I tried to think, tried to process what I was hearing. “So they clearly didn’t believe he was innocent?”

“He pleaded guilty. His lawyer took a plea for him that they worked out with the prosecutor last week. He knew he’d be going to jail today unless the judge decided to suspend the sentence, which wasn’t very likely.”

“He took a plea? He didn’t tell me that.”

There was an awkward silence as we both realized Tyler had kept fairly important information from me, which he had shared with Nathan. “He probably didn’t want you to worry. Taking a plea is pretty standard, I guess.”

“He kept telling me it was going to be okay.” My throat tightened. “He told me not to come today.”

“Tyler is a protector, Rory. That’s his personality. He didn’t want you to blow your exams.”

“I didn’t get to say good-bye or anything.” I was crying now.

Nathan swore, probably pissed that he was forced to deal with Tyler’s hysterical girlfriend. “He didn’t die, for fuck’s sake. It’s okay. You probably said good-bye to him this morning, right? It’s like if someone goes out of town for a few weeks. It’s no different. He’ll be back before classes restart in January.”

“Do you promise?” I asked, which was absolutely a ridiculous thing to ask of Nathan. He had no control over any of this.

But he laughed. “Yes, I promise. Thirty days is thirty days. They don’t tack on more to your sentence. The truth is, he was lucky to get off so easy. And he was lucky he didn’t have any more pills on him than he did. If that had been a whole bottle, he’d be gone for a year, no question about it.”

Somehow I wasn’t feeling that any of this was particularly lucky, given they weren’t even his drugs. But there was no point in being bitter.

“Can I go see him?” Though the thought of entering a prison made my palms sweat, I wanted to show Tyler I supported him.

“No. He won’t be in long enough. Besides, he would rip my balls off and stuff them down my throat if I let you go.”

That made me laugh a little through my tears. Nathan was probably right. “Maybe Tyler should trust I’m not going to flip out.”

“You’re crying, aren’t you?” Nathan teased. Then he said, seriously, “Look, Rory, don’t take it personally. Some things a guy just has to deal with himself, and this is one of those times. Tyler is ashamed, you know, and you seeing him behind bars would only make it worse. He needs to keep his pride, that’s all.”

I knew Nathan was right. I stared down at the cracked tile of the floor. “You’re right. Thanks, Nathan. Hey, can I have Riley’s number? I was planning to talk to Tyler about getting Jayden a present for his birthday on Sunday. I still want to get Jayden something, even if Tyler isn’t here.”

“Sure. And don’t worry. It’s all a lot better than it could have been.”

“Thanks.”

I ended the call and stared at the screen, not sure what the next logical step was. After sitting there for ten minutes, trying to calm down, trying to fit the pieces of the legal puzzle into place, I concluded that the only thing I could do was go back to my room and study for my final exam, a nine a.m. bio test the next day.

Because I couldn’t make Tyler’s mother go to rehab, and I couldn’t turn back the clock and have her take her pills into the store with her, or have the cop drive down a different street. I couldn’t wipe Tyler’s record clean and have him stay in the EMT program. Nor could I drive down to the county jail and see him.

It felt like once again I was the girl behind the glass wall, walking alongside and watching everyone around me, but unable to interact with them. The other students all moved down the hallway, some talking and laughing in groups, others studying their phones, some hurrying, some lingering. For me, it felt like I had stopped moving and the world was spinning around me, a noisy whirlpool of confusion, and I couldn’t make any sense of it.

But I decided that if Tyler could sit in prison for a month, I could hold my shit together for the same amount of time in my relatively easy existence. I only had three days before my dad was picking me up for winter break, and after my bio final, I felt myself seized by motivation to get everything done before I left. I packed a few weeks’ worth of clothes and toiletries into a jumbo suitcase and propped it up by my closet. I cleaned all the food out of our mini-fridge. I bought a Christmas gift for Tyler, a hand-stamped metal disc on a chain. The letters spelled
TRUE
across the worn metal, and I thought it was cool and personal and his style. I got excited every time I glanced at it, tucked in a resealable plastic bag in my purse.

I also called Riley and made arrangements to go to the house to give Jayden a birthday gift and to bake them Christmas cookies. I had always been planning to do that, but now it felt more urgent.

It was odd to spend time with Riley, who offered to drive me to the grocery store to get the ingredients, though he did shake his head and say, “I don’t think U needs cookies. He’s getting a little thick in the middle.”

“Who cares?” I asked. “He likes sugar, and it’s not like he’s going to be dating a whole bunch of hotties and he needs six-pack abs. Let him have a Christmas cookie.”

Riley still looked skeptical. “Alright. But I’m not buying him new pants when his jeans don’t fit.”

“It’s his birthday. Give the guy a break.” I clutched my purse tightly to my chest in the cold car and hoped I had enough money for everything I was planning to do. It was going to be an expensive day. “Did you make the appointment?”

“Yes, for the third time. It’s at eight. You’re one of those organized people, aren’t you? I would have just shown up as a walk-in.”

“I like to be prepared.”

He glanced over at me. “Tyler’s lucky to have found you.”

The compliment caused my cheeks to burn. Riley wasn’t one to blow smoke up anyone’s ass. “Thanks.”

I bought cookie cutters in the shape of Santa and a snowman, and sprinkles and decorative icing in a squirt bottle. Riley scoffed, but an hour and a half later, I was quick to note that he spent a huge amount of time decorating the crap out of a Santa cookie.

“My Santa is pimped out,” he declared, holding up his handiwork for everyone to admire. He had filled in the beard and the hat with icing and shaken sprinkles on top of the iced cap. It was impressive.

“Whoa,” was Jayden’s opinion. He was biting his lip as he tossed sprinkles on a snowman until it looked like it had repeatedly rolled in a field of red and green grass clippings.

Easton was wearing more icing than his cookie, and I noticed that he kept slipping his finger into the mixing bowl to scrape up the remaining bits of dough and pop them in his mouth.

The kitchen smelled delicious, and the boys were happy. The only thing missing was Tyler, but I took pictures on my phone to show him.

Riley glanced at his phone. “We should get going here soon. We have a birthday surprise for U.”

“Really?” Jayden abandoned his cookie. “What is it?”

“It’s not a freaking surprise if I tell you, now is it? Let’s put these cookies away in your room so Mom doesn’t toss them, then we’ll go.” Riley helped me collect all the masterpiece creations and put them in a plastic storage container. I gingerly made layers so I didn’t mess them up.

“Okay, Easton, you take them in your room and lock the door behind you. I’ll be waiting to catch you.”

“What?” I asked, bewildered as Easton ran down the hall, the cookie container tucked under his arm. He went into his room, and I distinctly heard the lock click in place.

“If he locks the door from the inside, our mom can’t get in. Easton jumps out the window and I catch him. Then when we get home, I toss him back up. It’s foolproof.”

“Ingenious,” I agreed, giving him a grin. I could learn a thing or two from their survival techniques. They repeatedly just made the best of their situation.

“It’s how we hide food and money from her. Once she tried to kick the door down, but she broke her big toe so she never did that again.”

Jayden and I followed Riley out the back door and into the yard. Easton was sitting on the window ledge, legs dangling. When he saw Riley, he turned around so his backside was facing us.

“Alright,” Riley told him. “Jump.”

He dropped down and his brother caught him. Riley reached up and pulled the window down until it was almost closed.

“She doesn’t just try to go in the window?” I asked.

Riley scoffed. “That would require a ladder and coordination. Strength and ambition, none of which she has.”

“These guys are lucky they have you,” I told Riley quietly. “I can’t imagine what would happen to them without you and Tyler.”

“I can’t even think about it,” Riley said, his jaw set as we walked down the drive to his car. “Or I’ll punch a wall.”

Jayden immediately realized what was happening when we pulled up to the tattoo parlor. “Am I getting a tattoo?” he asked, bouncing in the backseat with excitement.