Though I’d said goodbye to Prophet, I knew I had to be respectful and pay the same homage to Alma, Gerald, and Cherish.
Outside I allowed all three of them to hug me and say goodbye.
As Nandy and I prepared to go, while Alma was shoving Tupperware into Nandy’s arms, Asiah pulled me aside. Read was at the table talking with Khalil, and I spotted him eyeing us.
“So this is it?” Asiah asked as she crossed her arms.
I nodded. “It has to be.”
Her brows furrowed. “What happened to five months?”
“Reality.”
She eyed Nandy. “So you’re choosing the uppity bitch?”
“You’ve got Read.”
Asiah frowned. “I lost my virginity to you. I gave my trust to you, I fell in love with you.” She almost seemed to be pleading.
“And I tried to love you back. I do care about you, I have love for you, it’s just that—”
She took a step back, not wanting to hear me. “You don’t want to love me. You never did.”
“I gave an honest effort. It’s not like I have a lot of experience outside of you and what we had.”
“You act like you were ashamed to let me in.”
“I’m sorry, Asiah. It’s not only you I’m like that with.”
She peeked at Nandy, who was looking our way now. “I doubt that.” Asiah peered into my eyes, and I could see just how much I’d hurt her. She swallowed, gathering what was left of her pride. “I guess I should wish you both luck, you’re going to need it. Goodbye, Trice.”
Asiah went back over to Read and leaned down to whisper something in his ear, and in moments they were getting ready to leave as well.
Nandy came over to me and reached out to caress my bicep. “You okay?”
I moved away from her. “We’re heading out.”
She gathered the Tupperware and said her goodbyes before following me out to my truck.
I tried to let music blur out all the tension, but of course Nandy wanted to talk.
“You don’t look so good,” she noted.
I glanced her way. “I bet you wouldn’t look so hot either if you never got to go home again and see your friends. If that option left you homeless altogether.”
Boldly, she reached out and placed her hand on my free one. “You’re not alone nor homeless, Tyson. Your home’s with my family back in Pacific Hills.”
It wasn’t the same, and so I didn’t reply. Not that I had to, because it was always a short drive or walk from Prophet’s place to my house.
Nandy stared at my house, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out where we were.
When she let out a small gasp, I took the initiative to get out of the car.
Nandy got out as well and came to stand beside me, looking up at the three-story home. “Do you wanna go inside?”
From the street it looked like the house was completely boarded up. “There’s no way in.”
Nandy tossed me a smirk as she took off toward the backyard, where the grass was overgrown due to being unkept for months.
“Correction, I don’t think this is a good idea,” I said as I followed her.
Nandy wasn’t hearing me as she jogged up our back-porch steps. To my surprise, someone had beaten her to the punch. The board that had been nailed over the back door lay on the porch, as if someone had come by with a crowbar to make their way in.
“Probably was some looters,” I told her as I opened the back door and peeked inside.
Nandy went on by me into the house, and I couldn’t grasp her bravery or brashness.
Soon I wasn’t paying attention to her as I took in the abysmal state my former home was currently in. Furniture remained, but trash littered the floor, giving me an idea of kids or the homeless using the place as refuge. Not to mention the repugnant odor that hung in the air.
“Ugh,” Nandy complained as she covered her nose. “Smells like—”
“Something died in here?” I challenged as I looked her way. “Well, guess what, you’re right.”
She frowned. “That’s not what I was going to say.” She peered down at the floor. “I have more sense than that.”
Nandy observed the decaying kitchen, and I watched as disgust overtook her expression.
“Asiah doesn’t know anything about my family’s history before the shooting. Neither does Shayne,” I spoke up. “I didn’t want Asiah to know about my parents or demons. Shayne, either. With you, I just feel like I have—need you to understand me. You drive me insane, but the only reason we’re here now is because I obviously like your crazy.”
“I’m happy you brought me here.”
She took out her cell phone and turned on her flashlight to guide her from the kitchen to the front room, the living room.
My nerves did me in as my steps became heavy.
There were brown stains on the white carpet. Brown, rust-like stains from their blood...our blood. I could see the spot where my mother had died and where Tyson had lain after he’d shot himself. I could see where I’d been, too far from her to save her. Before I could stop myself, I leaned against the wall farthest from the faint memory of the massacre, my breathing becoming harsh.
I could see it, playing in my head again. As the scene unfolded in front of me, I was left feeling the way I did every morning when I woke up, and every night while I lay in bed trying to get some sleep.
Angry.
Weak.
Powerless.
Guilty.
Lonely.
I closed my eyes and rocked back and forth for a moment, trying to fight the sensations churning through me, trying to push forward.
“Th-this is where it happened,” I let out as I opened my eyes to find Nandy staring at me with worry and wonder. “I came here that night you pissed me off, and I swear I could see it. Being here now, I can see it all over again. I was standing where you are when he got ready to shoot her. I was so far away.”
“He had a gun,” Nandy tried to reason with me.
She couldn’t see it. “Years—I had years to do something to protect her, and I failed.” I shook my head and stood from the wall. “I don’t sleep much at night because of this room, and the scene I see in my head right now that you will never understand. I don’t feel anything good, because I can’t. I carry this room with me all the time, and the scene never stops. It’s like an endless loop.”
I stared down at the spot where I was supposed to have died before our neighbors burst through the door and called the police. “Sometimes it gets better, and then nights like last Tuesday happen, where Chad throws it in my face, or today. Just when I think I’ve escaped it, it creeps back up on me.”
Nandy cautiously moved closer to me. “You can’t continue to relive this. It’s not fair or healthy.”
“Healthy?” I chuckled to myself. “None of this was ever healthy.”
She opened her mouth but soon shut it and bit down on her lip. She looked up toward the staircase and soon had her phone out once more as she moved on to the second floor.
I took another glimpse at the stains and the scene of that night before following her up the steps.
My room was the first on the right, and she had guessed accurately as she stepped inside it.
My room was simple, almost vacant. There was the bed, the dresser, the closet, and a desk and a small box TV. No pictures, posters, or other artifacts showed who I was—or who I used to be. It was as if I’d been preparing for the life I lived now, a life with a void.
Nandy held up her phone and peered around my room, and I could see the dissatisfaction on her face.
But then she went toward my tiny closet.
“Hmm,” she said as she peeked inside, and my breath caught. Just when she was about to shut the door, she saw it, and to my embarrassment, she raise
d her light to illuminate my corniness. Nandy looked back at me and barely hid her smile as she nodded toward the T + N carving I’d made years before. “Most people do that kind of thing on trees.”
I smirked. “Don’t worry. I got a good ass-whupping for that when Tyson found it.”
To this, Nandy frowned and ran her hand over the inscription. “You’ll get better, Tyson.”
That was what every therapist I’d seen had said, as well as Lydia. “No, I won’t.”
Nandy faced me, appearing serious. “There are five stages to grief. It takes a while for you to get to acceptance, but you will get there, and you will heal. Right now, I know that you feel—”
She was psychoanalyzing me, which pissed me off as she sounded just like the rest of them.
“You don’t know how I feel,” I snapped at her.
“I bet you blame yourself.”
“I blame God, I blame Tyson, but most of all, yes, I blame myself, and I’ll never stop. There will never be a day where I don’t feel like I let it happen. Lydia thinks this—” I gestured to myself “—is fixable. But you know what, it’s not. This is it, Nandy, get a good hard look. You should make it work with Chad, because we will never be. I can’t be that guy, and I don’t want to be.”
She frowned. “You don’t want to try to move forward?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You should really watch Shaka Zulu.” I paced the floor, feeling everything come back. It was like irony was taunting me the moment Nandy entered my life.
“Why?”
“Nandi was Shaka’s mother and his Achilles’ heel. When she died, he lost his mind, and that was the beginning of his downfall.” I took a step back and gestured around us. “I’m hanging on by a thread. I loved her—” my voice strained with the hurt of it all “—and she’s gone. I don’t know what to do with myself anymore. Everything I ever did, it was all for her, and I don’t know what to do now.”
I turned my back. “I always thought I would die before I turned twenty-one, and now that I’ve got the opportunity to excel, I’m not sure I want to see twenty-one. I don’t have a purpose without her.” Bowing my head, I let my shoulders sag. “I can’t do that again. I can’t get that attached to another person. I can’t feel loss again. I’m not built for it.”
There was nothing more weakening than having something in your grasp one moment, and having it snatched from you the next without you being able to put up a fight. I didn’t want to fall in love, I didn’t want to have companions who were close to me like siblings, I didn’t want connections. I didn’t want to feel, because feeling led to pain, and I’d carried too much of that on my shoulders since the night my father shot me.
It was inevitable.
I was just like every other guy out there. I had given in to my hardness, put up a front to avoid revealing my vulnerabilities. I couldn’t be that guy, and I wouldn’t be. Not for anyone.
“I guess my town’s a perfect fit for you, then,” Nandy said bitterly.
“Why’s that?”
“You’re a knight, Tyson. You’ve got armor on over your heart and mind, and you won’t take it off. Your damaged soul is impenetrable.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Funny, it didn’t even take collagen or Botox to give you such a mask.” She walked past me, ready to go.
“I’m sorry, Nandy.”
“I know.”
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I had brought her to my house to show her who I was and where I came from, and yet I froze up the moment I revealed a wound and she tried to touch me. It was like we had taken a step forward only to jump a hundred back. I couldn’t help it, but with Nandy, withdrawing didn’t feel right. She was probably the only person whom I felt the need to push further with, to explain myself so that she could understand.
There was a part of me that, whenever I saw her, wanted to be a kid again, free and happy like I used to be when I visited her in the Hills.
But I was seventeen, and I couldn’t get those days back.
It wasn’t fair to her, and it wasn’t fair to me, but she had to understand that this was how it had to be.
Nandy paused in the doorway, pity and hurt in her eyes. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you afraid?”
I didn’t bullshit her and ask of what. “Yes.”
“So am I.” Nandy looked around my damaged past. “I’m so afraid of starting something new outside of Chad, the norm, everything, but I can’t be stagnant, Tyson. I feel like I have no idea where I’m going in life anymore. The page is unwritten, and that scares me, but I’m going to be strong and face it head-on with a pen, not a pencil. Mistakes are bound to happen, but that’s life—you grow and you learn from it. Hurt, that’s inevitable, and so is growth. You have to let yourself grow and be happy—you can’t wallow in this state that you’re in.”
“I’m mad,” I told her.
“You will be, for a while.”
I shook my head. “I want to break things. It’s building inside of me, and I want to let it out.”
Nandy came to me and placed her hand on my chest, above my wound. “I think you just did.”
“It’s not enough.”
“What do you write about in that composition book?”
“I went back to the beginning.”
“And how does that feel?”
“Calming.”
“See?”
It stunned me to realize she had gotten through, had touched me far deeper than her hand on my chest.
I placed my hand over hers. “You know what your problem is, Nandy?”
The corners of her lips began to turn up. “What?”
“You always get what you want.”
28 | Nandy
My parents were waiting for me in the foyer when we got home. Tyson slipped on by me to go to his room, the traitor.
“Oh thank God.” My mother heaved a sigh of relief and placed her hand to her heart as she set eyes on me.
My father looked momentarily comforted before his expression morphed into anger. “There you are!”
I folded my arms as the weight of the past two days settled on my shoulders. “I’m sorry about running off and wasting your money on cotillion.”
“Is that all you have to say?” my mother asked.
“Seriously? We couldn’t care less about the money,” my father fumed. “We were worried sick you were lying in a ditch somewhere. And honestly, I have half a mind to wring Trice’s neck, because I know he’s known where you’ve been.”
My mother stepped up to pacify my father’s angst. “Nandy, what has gotten into you? This behavior you’ve exhibited all summer isn’t you.”
How could I begin to tell them I was into Tyson? That my world had tilted upside down the moment he’d stepped back into my life? That my heart felt as if it had been on pause for him all this time? It was so treacherous, I hadn’t wanted to believe it until it was staring me right in the face as everything I thought I knew and cared about blew up in front of me.
“I’m sorry, Mom, Dad, I really am. I was lost for a minute, and now I’m finding my way. If I’m grounded, I understand. I should’ve called,” I said. “I was just going through a lot. Chad and I broke up, and I felt overwhelmed and had to get away.”
My father’s anger seemed to lessen with this explanation. “And you couldn’t tell us?”
“I should’ve,” I agreed. “It just happened so fast. Don’t blame Tyson, this is all on me. I had a rough start to my summer, and now I’m going to work on communicating better and being better.”
My parents faced each other and spoke with their eyes, seeming to come to some silent agreement.
“This won’t happen again, Alyssa,” my father stated adamantly. “The shit you’ve bee
n pulling this summer has gotten on our last nerves. Think about the example you’re setting for Jordy.”
I should’ve behaved better for my brother, but really, Jordy was already on the right path. He’d accepted Tyson without question. Jordy was a saint.
“I know, I’m going to be better, I promise,” I said.
“Honestly,” my father huffed, “you owe me big. I had to deal with Laura Bradley and Charlotte Ray and all their incessant whining about you not being there.”
From experience, I knew that there was nothing worse than that duo coming down on you. “Sorry, Dad.”
“Not yet you aren’t. I promised them you’d make it up to them. Whatever schmoozefest charity event they throw together next, you’re theirs.”
Cringing, I conceded. “I deserve that.”
“You deserve GPS tracking, but I’m just glad you’re okay.”
While I was sure Mrs. Bradley and Ms. Ray would be unbearable due to my skipping out on cotillion, at least what mattered most to my parents was my safety.
“I know this is asking a lot, but I really need to talk to Chad,” I told them.
My father folded his arms, inhaling deep to practice the utmost patience. “You know what? Go ahead. I’m sure he’s been worried, too. Let him know you’re still breathing before we ground you until graduation.”
I blinked, knowing he wasn’t serious, but still. Talk about extreme. “Thanks, Dad.”
My mother released a sigh, at once appearing sympathetic. “Now, how are you?”
My father softened as well. “Yes, how are you dealing with this? You worked really hard toward cotillion.”
Sure, in a way, I was bummed I’d missed out. We’d all worked hard for that night—a night neither Shayne nor I could ever get back.
“It sucks that I missed out, but I guess it never really mattered,” I said. What did I gain from putting on that dress, that tiara, and presenting myself in front of most of this snobby town? It would’ve been cool to have that moment with my friends, but we’d have more moments come the school year and life in general. I would be okay. There was more to life than image.
Yes, I would be okay.
A Love Hate Thing Page 24
