True (True Believers #1)(59)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“We’re not doing this again,” I told him firmly, quietly. “We’ve already had this talk and I told you that you can’t make my choices for me. Not you, not my father. I make my decisions.”

“That was before!” he said, finally looking at me, the ember of his cigarette glowing in the dark. “I’m a criminal now, don’t you understand that? If I’m lucky, Riley can get me some construction work, but that’s it. My only option. I lost my job, shitty job that it was. We’re nine months behind on paying the mortgage on the house, and as soon as the bank weeds through their red tape, they’re going to kick us out on the street. That is the reality of the situation.”

I blinked back tears. I could feel his worry, the tension emanating from him. “Which is why I want to stick by you. Relationships aren’t for good times only.”

But he scoffed and shook his head. “You don’t get it. I’m a loser, a capital L loser.” He formed the letter with his fingers on his forehead, just in case I didn’t get it, apparently. “And that’s all I am ever f**king going to be. You have so much more potential and I won’t be able to stand myself if I ruin all of that for you.”

“Stop being so f**king noble!” I told him, furious. I never swore, and he looked startled that I did. “So you’re broke! I am too, you know. If I’m telling you I don’t give a shit, then I don’t give a shit.”

“Don’t make this harder on me than it is.”

I laughed, tears in my eyes. “Hard on you? You’re the one dumping me on Christmas.”

“I had to see you. I couldn’t let it go on longer than this so that we both wind up even more hurt. It’s better to just get it over with.”

My eyes narrowed at him. “Just get it over with? Like it was nothing. What happened to us being the real deal? Forever? I love you?”

His fist tightened on the steering wheel and he pitched the cigarette butt out the window. “I meant those things. But I need to do what’s right.”

“What’s right is what we have. You and me.”

“Rory, go in the house. Please. I can’t do this.” He sounded agonized, but I had no sympathy.

So that was supposed to be it? He was going to leave because he couldn’t deal with it?

Screw that. “No. I’m not getting out of this car until you stop acting like an idiot.” I folded my arms to prove my point.

“Your father is watching out the window. You need to go in.” Then he opened up his door and retrieved the butt he’d thrown, like he had suddenly remembered where he was. He stuffed it into his ashtray, slamming the door shut. “Please. Just go.”

I shivered in the cold, tears streaking down my cheeks. “I trusted you, Tyler. I gave you my virginity.”

“Don’t put that on me. That was your choice,” he said, his voice distant, and a little impatient. “I tried to stop you. I told you that you would regret it.”

That made me furious. I smacked his shoulder with the gift bag. “Don’t dismiss me like that! If your goal was to be an ass**le, you’ve achieved it.”

His response was to lean across me and shove my door open.

That shattered me. I had no fight left. He really was dumping me on Christmas. He had driven an hour right out of prison to tell me he never wanted to see me again.

For a second, I couldn’t actually breathe. I thought I was going to faint. But I swallowed the bile that was rising in my throat and turned to get out. With shaking fingers, I dumped the colorful gift bag on his gearshift. “Merry Christmas.”

He stared down at the green bag, red tissue popping out of it, then tried to shove it back at me, looking stricken. “I can’t accept this. I don’t deserve this.”

“No, you don’t,” I told him, flatly. “But it’s meaningless to me. I have no use for it.”

I climbed out of the car and slammed the door shut, my lip trembling, teeth chattering.

Without looking back, I ran into the house. My dad was standing there, waiting, clearly having been watching.

“I hope you’re happy!” I screamed at him. “Tyler just broke up with me, and it’s partly your fault!” Maybe that wasn’t fair. Tyler had come to the conclusion we couldn’t be together before he’d pulled in the driveway, but I don’t think my father’s threat to cut me off had helped the situation.

Running up the doors, still in my muddy boots, I slammed my door shut as hard as I could, locking it. With a scream, I slapped a pillow off my bed and onto the floor. Then I screamed again and threw another pillow. I did it again and again until there was nothing on the bed but the fitted sheet, while my dad pounded on my door. When my throat was raw from screaming, I fell on the torn-apart bed and sobbed.

I cried until my eyes were swollen and tears ran down my cheek, soaking my sleeve. I cried until I was choking on my own mucus and my head was throbbing and there was no liquid coming from my eyes anyway, and I was just a snuffling, painful, congested sobbing mess.

I cried until I heard my father and Susan talking in the hallway.

“I should take the door off. I need to talk to her,” Dad said to Susan, his voice anxious.

“Leave her be. She’s had her heart broken. Don’t you remember having your first love break your heart?”

“No. I married my first love.”

Which only made me start crying all over again.

Then I tortured myself by looking at all the pictures on my phone of Tyler. There weren’t many, because he hated having his picture taken, but there was one of him in bed, asleep, his face relaxed, his chest bare. I loved that picture. It showed him as tough, yet vulnerable. I clutched the phone to my chest and stared out my bedroom window into the black night, the hurt so overwhelming it took effort to breathe.

When my mother died, when I saw my father crying as he came out of that hospital room for the last time, and I realized what had happened, I bawled into my grandmother’s arms in the waiting area, as nurses stopped to whisper words of comfort and other people around the hospital shot sympathetic glances our way. I remember thinking that this was wrong, this couldn’t be right, that we couldn’t live in a world that was so mean, that moms shouldn’t just die. As my grandmother picked me up and rocked me on the hard chair in that waiting area, tears on her cheeks, her scent of rosewater surrounding me, she had murmured to me that the world had stopped for a moment and gone dark, but tomorrow, the sun would rise all over again. It would do that every day, until one day we were okay.