Tied (All Torn Up 2)

“I should go…” I say. “So you two can talk.”

“No,” Tyler barks. “You’re staying.”

Tanner puts his hands up. “I’m gonna go, man. I’m sorry…you’re always alone, so I thought I could crash here.”

Ty grabs his arm. “Fuck you. And you’re not leaving either.” He coughs. “Do you need to talk or you just need somewhere to sleep?”

His brother picks up Boomer and throws him over his shoulder like a ragdoll, stroking his hand down his back. Boomer starts to chew on his hair. “I don’t wanna talk, Ty, but I gotta say it’s good to hear you talking so much. My brains just too fucked right now. I need to sleep and I’ll be out of here tomorrow.”

“All right. We were just about to go up to the loft anyway.” Our eyes meet across the room and I nod as my heart does a little trot. “You can try to squeeze your ass on the couch.”

Tanner shrugs. “I’ve slept in much worse places than this.”

I stand and shyly offer him the blanket. “If you sleep with this, you’ll feel better. Its magic.”

Smiling with charm I didn’t think such a towering, brooding man could have, he takes the blanket from me. “Thanks, sweetheart. I need all the help I can get right now.”

Don’t we all?

28

Tyler

She cries in her sleep, and her body twitches as if it hurts. I watch her, wondering what’s happening in her mind right now—what she’s seeing and feeling. I worry about what demons could be brainwashing her.

I lie on my side and watch her sleep, taking in every delicate detail of her face, the length of her eyelashes and how they rest on her cheeks like little feathers, the way her lips part as she breathes. I want her in my bed like this every day, with the sun shining down on her golden hair like a halo.

Earlier, I teetered on the edge of letting guilt and regret consume me. First my father, and now this…this insane fucking regret that’s eating me like a virus. The night of the fire is still a haze in my memories, but I keep going back there, replaying every moment. If Wendy wasn’t such a self-centered bitch, she probably wouldn’t have laughed and ignored a terrified little girl. If I had been sober, I probably wouldn’t have fallen when he pushed me. If I had just remembered everything when they questioned me at the hospital, maybe they would have found her.

So many fucking ifs.

The escape of drugs is so fucking tempting. To go back to that place where nothing hurts, where I don’t have to face all these unfair twists and turns of life, to go down that rabbit hole of numbness would be a great vacation right now.

But if I put myself in that place again, I’ll let Holly down. And this time, knowingly so. I’ll lose her, and all the happiness that comes with her. I’ll drag her happiness down with me. If I don’t hide how much the guilt is killing me inside, it will tear her apart.

For her, I’ll stay sober and straight.

For her, I’ll put on the strong and happy mask.

For whatever crazy reason, she loves and trusts me. She sees past all my fuckups and ugliness and just bad shit. Is she so lost in her fairy tale that she’s blind to it all? Or does she honestly love me enough to accept it?

I don’t even fucking care. As long as she’s here, in my life and in my arms.

She’s everything. My past. My present. My future. My twin flame—the one who shares the path of my soul.

Tanner’s already gone by the time we go downstairs for breakfast, and now she’s staring at her food, lifting the pancakes with her fork, flipping them over. She catches me watching her from across the small table and quickly puts her fork down.

“I wasn’t doing that,” she says. “I was just looking at them.

I raise my brows at her. “You think I would drug you? Or try to bribe you?”

She looks down at her plate in guilt. “I can’t help it. I just do it.”

“I know, sugar. I just want you to be able to eat without being afraid of it.”

“I do too.”

She slowly cuts up her food into tiny pieces and takes a cautious bite from her fork.

“Can I ask you something?” she asks.

“Of course.”

“If I asked you to, would you stop doing the fighting?”

That’s the last thing I expected her to ask me. “Maybe. Why?”

“Because I love your face. And I don’t want it getting hurt anymore.”

You skeeve me out.

Her words rock me, right into my soul. Right now, she doesn’t know how much those words mean to me, but I know she’s the only person I’ll ever meet that has the true capacity to understand. We’re kinda made of the same ripped-up cloth.