Tyed - Chapter 28: Chapter 28

Tyler doesn't know what it means to be in trouble yet, and he supposes it might be too much to ask to find out now. He's pretty confident his limits will be respected- they have been respected well so far- and, as he discovered during that event just then, he trusts Colby. Probably shouldn't have jerked off without permission, but he accepts that there are consequences for it.
It's mid-afternoon, but Colby asks Tyler if he's hungry and it's difficult to say no. An early dinner won't do any harm. They ended up choosing the same place in the food court, an Italian place that Tyler's familiar with from less fancy shopping centres, and while they're waiting, Colby excuses himself to go outside and smoke.
"My best friend- her uncle died a few weeks ago from lung cancer," Tyler says.
Colby sighs. "I know. I'm working on it. I'm down to one or two a week, which you've got to admit is pretty good."
Tyler shrugs. Colby was smoking the night they met, so it's not like Tyler didn't know. It's just, he supposes, that he cares about Colby's health. Colby's fifteen years older than him, so he's almost certainly going to die first as it is, it's just that-
Tyler stops himself when he realises he's being insane, imagining a future together. He's known this guy for barely a week, he must remind himself.
Colby leaves, and Tyler stands alone as he waits, flushed red and unsure what to think. He stares solidly at the ground and wonders how he's suddenly gotten it into his head that this is gonna last years. Someday Colby's gonna discover that Tyler's a fucking freak and realise he isn't worth it anyway. Imagine having those in-laws. Colby couldn't possibly want the real Tyler, no matter what he says. He doesn't know what he's saying. So why does Tyler feel so attached so quickly? Is Tyler making the same kind of dumb mistake he sees people around him making so often, deciding it's love before it's barely even more than acquaintances?
"May I speak with you for a moment?"
Tyler hears it, but doesn't think it could possibly be directed to him until there's a gentle touch on his shoulder. He jumps out of his skin, because his thoughts were knee-deep in the future with Colby and he's not prepared to speak to anyone, let alone a stranger right now. He's been caught at a rare vulnerable moment. He's quick to harden up once he realises the situation, but she's seen his vulnerability underneath the mask.
"I'm sorry to bother you." The woman speaking is not short, although she's shorter than Tyler is. She has long, slender arms and hands, and Tyler's eyes are immediately drawn to them, because she wears long, silk gloves like a debutante. It's the middle of summer, and Tyler's only wearing a jacket because he's indoors and the air conditioner is blasting in here. Gloves would be weird enough, but she looks like she forgot to take them off after the ball with Prince Charming. Other than that, she looks relatively normal, if posh; a set of expensive sunglasses hide her eyes, and her shiny brown hair is pulled into a bun that's probably meant to look casual and simple without being anything of the sort. She's wearing a white lacy top and jean shorts that tell the same story as her hair, upper-class casual. What reason could she possibly have to associate with Tyler? Shit, is his fly down, or does he have cum on his face? Colby would've told him if he did, right?
"Is something wrong?" Tyler asks, slightly worried, but managing to cover it up with a smile when he remembers he's supposed to be chill. "Can I help you with something?"
"Nothing's wrong," she says in a completely indecipherable way. She slides her sunglasses up onto her hair; her eyes are a dark brown, and Tyler wonders if she's supposed to be familiar. He hasn't slept with her, has he? It's hard to tell her age, but he'd guess she's older than him by a few years, although she's probably not older than Colby. "What's your name?"
Tyler considers lying, but hesitates a second too long and can't come up with a name. "Uh- Tyler. What do you want?"
Tyler's afraid he comes across a little aggressive, but the woman only nods. "It's nice to meet you. I have somewhere to be very soon, and-" is Tyler mistaken, or is she glancing at the door Colby just went through? "-I'm not sure I have much time, but I'd like to give you my number."
Okay, Tyler very much misunderstood the reason he was being approached. "I'm- actually in a relationship, I'm sorry-"
"I'm not trying to intrude on that," she says quietly. "This is not anything of that sort. In fact, I want to talk to you about Colby."
She drops his name so easily, and Tyler's eyes narrow. She definitely knows him, and he has a suspicion. "What's your name?"
"I have to go," she says, glancing over Tyler's shoulder. "I'm sorry I can't give you my number, but- my name is Scarlett Marie Jackson. Please look me up on Facebook so we can talk."
She turns on her heel before Tyler has a chance to respond. All he can do is stare at her retreating back and scoff under his breath, "who uses Facebook these days?"
Still, he finds himself opening up that app and blowing the dust off of it as Colby returns. He greets Colby with a grin, a little weirded out by what just happened. He's thinking over it as he's typing the name into his search bar, and as his two brain cells rub together and he connects the dots, Colby looks over at his phone. "How did you- what?"
"I just realised who she is," Tyler mutters as he hits 'search'. "She just came up to me and told me she wanted to talk to me. She ran off as you were coming back in."
"I thought I saw a woman wearing gloves." Colby sighs lowly. "I'm not going to stop you talking to her, but I can save you the time for sure. For as much as she still tries to hang around me, she blames me for many things that happened. I will admit, there are things I did wrong, but I can assure you I'm-"
"You don't need to convince me you're a good guy," Tyler mutters. "I believe you are, and for the moment, you've done nothing to contradict that. Why would you think I need convincing?"
The wind falls from Colby's sails. "I've... never quite viewed things the same as many others. For as confident as I am in a lot of things, I know that what I feel is normal isn't reflected in everyone's views. Scarlett and I, we... disagreed on that point. I realise that you aren't her, but I suppose the point I'm then making is that she will not approve of what's normal for us."
Colby's avoiding mentioning it too directly in a public place, but Tyler can fill in the blanks and tell he's talking about BDSM. He could talk to Scarlett secretly, but as kind of a litmus test, he asks Colby, "do you think it's worth talking to her?"
"Do I think you'll gain anything? No, probably not. Anything she could tell you, I can tell you. But I won't stop you, if you want to hear it from her. All I'll ask is that anything she tells you about me, you get my side of the story, too."
Tyler sends her a friend request and closes his phone. That was the right answer. "Okay."
----
Tyler's window is knocked on in the middle of the night, and Trey's snoring through the noise. Tyler wasn't able to sleep; he's spent the whole night thinking about the next time he gets to see Kevin, and it's so weird, because once upon a time they hated each other. So when he hears the knocking on his window, of course he hopes it's Kevin.
He opens the curtains to see Kali's face, streaked with tears. He quickly opens the window, concern leaking from his voice as he asks, "what happened? Are you okay?"
"Can you come out here?" she asks, barely audible.
Tyler looks over at Trey, fast asleep, and gently pushes the window far enough open that he can slide out of it. He takes a few steps away from the house, and Kali anxiously follows like a nervous dog, tail between her legs, quivering. He slowly begins the walk towards the forest, making sure their voices won't drift inside and reach Trey. "Kali, what happened?"
"It was- it was worse than usual tonight," she says, clutching close to Tyler's arm. "I don't- there was someone else- usually it's just my dad."
"Oh?" Tyler forces disgust down. He wishes it wasn't so common for him to feel that gut-wrenching horror. It's normal, almost, that sickness.
"He was- it hurt more than usual."
"Oh, Kali." When she leans into him, crying into his shoulder, Tyler lets her, because at least she can let herself be touched right now. Pretty often, Tyler can't manage that himself.
"How do you- how does anyone want this?" she chokes. "How do you deal with it? How does anyone?"
"I- I wish I knew," Tyler mutters. "It's not- I don't like it either."
"He said I wanted it," Kali whispers. "I hated it more than anything."
"I know." Tyler pats her back numbly, as if that would help. "I hate it too."
"So why do they do it? What's the point?"
Tyler struggles for an answer. "Because-" anger rises. "Because they like it, and they're just selfish, they're selfish horrible fucking people and I'm sick of pretending they're not!"
The sounds of birds fluttering away and the words echoing against wood tell Tyler he yelled that louder than he should have. He winces. Kali flinches, but stays close in to his shoulder.
"I-" Tyler tries to express his anger a little better- "you know what Kevin says?"
"What does he say?"
"He says- and remember Nora? She told him this before she left- he says that it's so bad and awful because it's your family doing it and you're a kid. It's good if it's with a girlfriend or a boyfriend and they care about you."
"It's never going to be good," Kali shakes her head fervently. "It's not ever good for girls. It's only good for boys."
"That's not true," Tyler argues. "I hate it."
"Well you get- made to do the girl thing, right?"
"I mean, sorta," Tyler shrugs. "Daddy says he could fuck me like a girl but I'm too pretty and he doesn't want to hurt me. He says he will when I'm thirteen."
"You won't like it," Kali sniffles.
"Apparently that's not why it's bad though," Tyler tells her. "It's cause they're adults and our parents that it's bad."
"That doesn't make any sense, though. Why would it be bad to do something with your parents when you can do it with other people? I think it's all bad."
"No, like- like, you know cars?" The priest has one, and Kali's dad used to before it broke. She nods. "Only adults can drive those, right? Kids can't. And alcohol?"
"Nobody's supposed to drink alcohol."
"Yeah, but it's a lot more bad for kids than adults to do it. It's cause of how your brain works. I dunno, but your dad is being selfish and doing it wrong and that's why it's bad."
"But-" at least this thread of conversation has gotten Kali to stop crying, which Tyler can be happy about- "why," she asks, "wouldn't it be just as bad with anyone else?"
"Uh..." Tyler's not sure how to answer. "I dunno why, but it's cause people aren't meant to do that with their family. It messes with our brains?"
"So we're broken now?"
"I dunno." Tyler wishes he could say no, but he feels broken. He feels empty and cold, and the only times he doesn't are when he's burning things with Kevin.
"But- but- it was, it wasn't any better because he wasn't related to me." And shit, Kali's crying again. All Tyler can do is pull her close. "It was awful. It hurt so much, Tyler, it-"
"I'm sorry," Tyler mutters, just as empty and just as cold as he felt, although he tried to make it better for her, he really did. "Maybe he was just more mean."
"Why do you think it's better, Tyler? It's not. It's always bad. It's always, always bad."
"Well," Tyler mutters, "can I tell you a secret?"
Kali nods against his shoulder.
"You can't tell anyone," Tyler prefaces, "but you know how, like, kissing people on the lips is kinda weird? Like, it's just uncomfortable when my dad makes me do it, I don't know about you."
"It's gross," Kali mutters.
"Yeah, right? It's really gross, it's like licking a dead rat or something." Kali makes a face, and lets out a low laugh. Tyler smiles at that. "But let me tell you a secret. I kissed Kevin the other day and it was actually really nice."
"Really?" Kali's eyes go wide. "How's it nice?"
"It's like... there's this sort of feeling in my stomach, kind of... almost like being nervous but in a good way. And like, my skin feels very sensitive and it's kind of nice in the way a hug is but more exciting, I dunno, it's... hard to explain."
"No, wait, I think I get it." Kali looks up at him suddenly. "I like hugging you but I don't like hugging my dad, even though it's the same, right?"
"Kind of," Tyler says.
"So does that mean kissing you would be nice?"
"I dunno," Tyler admits. "We could try it, but it might not be as nice. Apparently for it to be really nice you're supposed to want it already."
Kali thinks it over for a moment. "Let me try it."
She leans back enough that she can lean up and press her lips to his. Tyler takes the moment to truly consider it, closing his eyes like he did with Kevin, but it's just kind of... another touch. It's not as gross as kissing his dad is, but he doesn't feel the magnetic pull like he does with Kevin.
Kali pulls away. "I guess that was better," she says, unconvinced.
Tyler frowns. "It wasn't like that with Kevin. It was better with Kevin."
"Is something wrong with me?" Kali mutters, stepping away and drawing her arms around herself. "Is everything like that always going to be bad for me?"
"I dunno," Tyler shrugs, "but also maybe it's just not supposed to be a thing between us, right? Maybe it's like you're my sister."
Kali shrugs. "I know you wouldn't lie to me but it really sounds like you're just making this up. Like it's supposed to be good but it isn't."
"It's not always good, but it can be."
"Have you tried it, with Kevin? Not kissing." She doesn't refer to it by name because she doesn't know how to. Tyler's never known how to either.
"No," Tyler shakes his head. "I haven't brought it up."
"And it wouldn't- you don't think it'd be weird? Even if it's different with him?"
"I dunno," Tyler says for what feels like the thousandth time. "I guess I'll see."