Small Town Sinners Part 20

"Lacey was saying that all the *s.l.u.t' lines must remind me of my sister," say Starla Joy.

"That is not what I was saying!" I say.

"I know, I know," Starla Joy says, waving her hand to calm me down. "I'm kidding. And okay, that part is a little bit hard for me, to be honest."

"You were so good," I say. "I mean, I could hardly recognize you."

"That's what I do," she says. "It's like I feel what I feel and even if it's upset or sad or whatever, I can turn it into anger."

"That's good for the role," Dean says.

"I know," says Starla Joy. She smiles at us and I envy her strength. I don't know how she does it.

Doris, a waitress who's worked here since way before we were born, comes over without menus.

She puts three waters in front of us and says, "Cheese fries."

We nod our heads in affirmation, and Doris starts to walk away, but then she turns on her heels, like she forgot something important.

"Did ya hear?" she asks.

"Hear what?" I ask.

She leans in to our table and starts to whisper. "Turns out that Tyson Davis-that boy I hear you've been hanging around with lately, Lacey-the one who moved out of town and then came back ..."

We nod, and I'm afraid for her to continue but more afraid for her not to.

"Seems that while he was away he got himself in some trouble," she says.

"What kind of trouble?" Starla Joy asks.

"I don't like to spread gossip," Doris says, contradicting everything we know to be true about her, "but I heard he got in a car accident last spring and was arrested for driving under the in-flu-ence."

She practically stretches each syllable of "influence" into its own sentence.

Then she looks around the diner like she hasn't told every table this already and whispers, "Drugs."

None of us react, which isn't what Doris expects.

"Well, that's the word anyway." Doris turns and walks back to the kitchen.

Dean and Starla Joy and I look at each other.

"Do you think it's true?" asks Dean.

"Yes," Starla Joy says immediately. "Didn't you guys always feel like Ty was holding something back? Like he couldn't tell us about a part of his life."

"The truth always finds you," Dean says.

"You sound like Oprah," Starla Joy says.

"But he's right," I say.

"Did you know this, Lacey?" asks Starla Joy, looking at me intently.

"No," I say, thinking that I wish I had, feeling like I should have known. He should have told me.

"It doesn't seem like Ty," Dean says. "He's not a drunk-driving type."

"What is a drunk-driving type?" I ask. "I mean, what does that mean?"

"Bleary eyes, bad grades, a who-cares att.i.tude," says Dean. Then he smiles. "Okay, I know I sound dumb. You're right. It's like in h.e.l.l House where the script calls for the drug guy to be goth. So stupid."

"He's just Ty," I say. "He's the same person we met again this summer." I want to talk to Ty, want to find out what the real story is.

"I need to go," I say.

Chapter Twenty-six.

Starla Joy takes me straight to Ty's house, and neither she nor Dean ask to come in. They know I need to talk with Ty alone.

As I head up the walk, I turn my phone to silent. I don't want to be interrupted. I notice again how big and foreboding this house is, especially at night. But before I even ring the bell, Ty opens the door and warm light floods out from inside the entry. He looks rumpled in his pajama pants and a white unders.h.i.+rt, but he also looks extremely adorable. His hair is sticking up on one side.

"No polo s.h.i.+rt?" I ask.

"Not when I'm off duty at home," he says, frowning.

I see Vivian Moss appear just past Ty, but she nods and makes a quick exit. I hope she won't tell my dad she saw me here, but even that fear can't distract me from the conversation I want to have with Ty. I have to find out the truth-where he's been and what really happened.

"Can I come in?" I ask, realizing that Ty's not going to offer that.

"I guess," he says.

I follow him into the large living room.

"It's kind of late for you to be out on a school night, right?" asks Ty, sitting down on one end of the brown leather couch and grabbing a throw pillow. He pulls it up into his chest protectively.

I choose an armchair where I can sit up straight.

"I needed to talk to you," I say.

"Let me guess," Ty says. "You finally heard ..." His voice drops off. We sit there quietly for a moment, and I realize that I'm going to have to start this thing.

"What do you think I heard?" I ask.

"I guess you heard why I wasn't at school," Ty says. "I can tell by the look on your face that it's ruined."

"What is?" I ask.

"The image that you have of Ty Davis, the sweet little boy who's into trains," he says, a rueful smile playing on his lips.

"Is that an illusion?" I ask.

"It's an outdated perception," he says.

"Ty, what did happen?" I ask.

"What did you hear?" he asks.

"Just that you got arrested for driving under the influence," I say. "That you were in an accident."

"That's right," he says.

"It doesn't seem like you," I say.

"Who does it seem like?" he asks. "Geoff Parsons?"

"Maybe," I say too quickly, thinking of Geoff's dad. "Anyway, it doesn't seem like you."

"Well, I'm not really the person you think I am," Ty says.

"Isn't that exactly what you said to me the last time I saw you?" I ask. "That I'm not the person you thought I was?"

"Could be I was projecting," Ty says, smiling a little. "Ever since I got here I've been trying to be someone else, to forget what happened."

"That's why you came back?" I ask.

"My parents thought that if I moved in with Aunt Vivian, here where things were safe and good, that I'd be able to leave the *bad influences' behind," he says.

"Bad influences? That sounds intense," I say.

"Yeah, well, that's my dad's term but DUIs are intense," says Ty. He picks at the corner of the throw pillow he's holding. He looks like a lost little boy.

"Ty, what happened?" I ask again.

"It's a boring story," he says, but I don't believe him for a second.

I stay quiet, wanting him to continue. I know he will. This is what he wanted to tell me when he brought me over to his house the day we found out Tessa was pregnant, what he's been trying to tell me all those evenings at Ulster Park. He's been listening to my thoughts and feelings, pus.h.i.+ng back and challenging me gently, but I haven't been listening hard enough to him. I didn't know there was something he needed to say.

But I know now, and I'm not going to talk around it. I'm just going to listen.

"There was a party," he says after a while, leaning back into the arm of the couch. He runs his hand through his mussed-up hair. I almost wish I were lying with him in his arms. Maybe that would make it easier to tell. But I stay still.

"It was pretty normal for everyone to be drinking," he continues. "I thought I was fine to drive home. I'd done it before."

I nod, consciously keeping any judgment off of my face.

"This time I wasn't okay," he says. "There was a sharp curve on the road, and I lost control of the car. We spun out and hit a tree. Totaled my dad's Lexus."

"We?" I ask.

"My ex-girlfriend was in the pa.s.senger seat," he says.

"And everyone was okay?" I ask, pus.h.i.+ng down the jealousy that flares up at the word "girlfriend." Of course he would have had a girlfriend before. It's normal. Nothing wrong with that.

He closes his eyes, and I feel my own start to fill with tears.

"She's okay," he says quietly. "She had a broken leg, but she's fine now. I saw her last week."

"That's good," I say, feeling relief at the well-being of the ex-girlfriend I'd been jealous of thirty seconds ago.

"Yup," he says. And I see his mouth shut in that way that guys close their lips when they don't want to say any more. I can see some sort of pain on his face, but I don't understand what it is, and I need to.

"Ty, it's okay," I say. "I'm still here. I'm still your ... friend. I know you're sorry. I know G.o.d's forgiven you."

I think about the scene I just saw in h.e.l.l House with Zack Robbins-the one I was originally cast in. Pastor Frist told Zack to play his character, the drunk driver, like an oblivious jerk. A sinner who doesn't care that he has his friends, his girlfriend, in the car. That character isn't meant to be forgiven-he gets dragged into h.e.l.l by demons during the show. But that's not who Ty is. The truth is much more complicated than that.

"I didn't mean to," Ty says. "I knew better."

It's like he's not talking to me now. He's looking somewhere to my right, out the big windows and into the woods.

I see a tear slip down his face and I have no idea what to do. I've never seen a guy cry like this before. It's quiet and still. It's terrifying. But I want to be strong. So I sit and wait for him to keep talking or to start crying harder or something. I don't move, I don't let myself think. If I think, I might want to run away, and I need to stay, because my dad's always told me that being there is sometimes the most powerful thing you can do for someone. And I want to be there for Ty.

"Afterward, it was like I had taken a baseball bat to her leg myself," he finally says. He wipes away the few tears that slipped out. "These guys-my former friends-threatened me. The girls stared at me like I'd intentionally hurt her."

He looks over at me and I can see a mix of sadness and raw anger on his face. He snorts a little now, a choked laugh. "Lacey, all of them had done the same thing every weekend," he says. "They'd just never gotten caught."

He looks back out toward the woods. "I can't take the double standard," he says. "I can't stand the hypocrisy. I did something wrong, and I'm being punished for it. I can take that. But why just me? Why do some people get to go on with their lives like nothing happened?"

I stand up, not sure where I'm going or what to do, but I head to the kitchen and pour myself a gla.s.s of water. Watching him in so much pain, feeling so much confusion myself, makes me feel weak. My shoulders start to shake and, on impulse, I drop to my knees by the refrigerator.

"G.o.d, please help me get through this moment. Please help me to understand Ty, and what happened, and how to move forward and how to do the right thing. G.o.d, please help me to act in your image, to know what that is and to believe in it fully. To-"

I fall silent. The relief I'm looking for isn't coming. My own words are scaring me. So I stop praying and I stand up.

I turn around and walk back to the living room, heading straight for Ty. I put my arms around him and he doesn't push me away. I lean against him, holding him close to me. We're both letting tears fall.

We stay there for a long time, hardly moving except for the rhythm of our breath.

Later, I sit with Ty and hold his hand. I want to tell him that everything is okay, that he's forgiven and he can move on. But I'm not sure what the rules are in this situation. So I tell him the one thing I know for sure. "I'm still here," I say.