"Don't make promises you can't keep." I told him.
"But I can, and will, keep it. I will do anything and everything I need to just to make sure your life is better starting now." Tyler placed his hand on my head and ran his fingers through my hair.
"Tyler," I tried to argue because I knew there was nothing he could do to really ensure my life would get better, but instead I just let him have his moment. "I love you."
He kissed my forehead gently, "and I love you." For a moment, everything seemed perfect. But, as I had already learned, the world was never perfect for long. There was a loud knock on the bedroom door. "Come in." Tyler called. Mr. Joseph slowly opened the door, with an apologetic look on his face.
"Y/n, could you come out here for a minute?" I walked out to the living room, followed by Tyler. I found Rayna standing in the living room, completely distraught. I rushed over to her side.
"Rayna, what happened? What's wrong?" She looked up at me and wiped tears from her eyes.
"Mom-" she inhaled sharply to compose herself, "mom got in a car accident." She was clearly tore up over this, she always had been closer to my mom than the boys and I. Maybe it made me a terrible person, but I had stopped caring about her wellbeing the moment she blamed me for my brother's death.
"Oh. This concerns me how?" Tyler elbowed me in the side at my sarcastic remark.
"You may hate her now, but that doesn't mean she isn't your mother." I rolled my eyes even though I knew Rayna was right
"Is she okay?"
"I don't know. She just left in an ambulance. I came over here to take you to the hospital to see her." I rolled my eyes again and went to the front door with Tyler in tow. We unenthusiastically sat in the back of Rayna's car. Seconds later, she came out and got in the driver's seat. She started the car and pulled out of the driveway.
Without a word from any of us, we arrived at the hospital. I was hesitant to get out of the car, but Rayna burned me a dirty look and I knew that I might be the next one in a hospital bed if I didn't go in. Rayna stopped by a nurses station to get my mom's room number, but apparently she was still in trauma. Rayna sat down in a waiting room chair, and I sat on the opposite side. Tyler plopped down next to me, and leaned his head on my shoulder. "You okay?" He asked.
"Oh I'm fine. I just want to leave."
"C'mon, your mom was in an accident, you should care."
"But I don't. She didn't care when I was in an accident, why should I care that she was?"
"She did care, she just didn't show it. I know you care deep down, but I don't want you to become cold-hearted."
"And what if I do?" I asked him hoping for a response, but he didn't say anything. Another twenty minutes went by before we were allowed to go see my mom. We took the elevator to the third floor and found her room: 339. As we walked in, we were greeted by an overpowered smell of hand sanitizer. Hospitals all smell so weird.
Rayna ran to my mother's side, "oh my god, are you okay?" My mother nodded slowly. Everyone else was concerned with her how she was, but I was apoplectic.
"Oh look, we came right here for you when something bad happened to you, but Tyler was the only one who cared enough to stay with me." My dad was trying to keep quiet, probably because he knew I was right, my mom just looked down, and Rayna went off on me.
"How can you sit there and make this about you? You are such a little bitch!"
"Rayna, that's enough. She is right." My mom, surprisingly, admitted that she had done wrong. "I have been so torn with grief of losing two of my babies that I lost all concern for the two I still have, and I am so sorry. I hope you two can forgive me."
"Well would you look at that! You're finally sober enough to understand just what the hell is going on around you! You called Rayna a dropout today, but she started going back to school weeks ago!" She looked shocked at the "new" information. "And you blamed me for Axel and Aaron dying, just what the hell is wrong with you?!" I was finally letting out all the feelings I kept bottled inside for so long. Since the day the twins died, sure I had cried about it, but I never really acknowledged the fact that a lot of terrible things happened in a very short amount of time. I sank to the hospital floor and Tyler sat down with me and held me.
Despite not being able to see it, I could sense Rayna rolling her eyes. "Save us your sob story, attention whore. What, is your boyfriend's attention not enough for you, so you have to make us all feel bad for you too?" She directed her next statement towards Tyler, "you should just get out while you can. That girl is a trainwreck."
"Don't you say that about her!" Tyler stood up and almost shouted. "She has been through so much, as have all of you. You have no room to be talking bad about your baby sister!" I looked up and saw Tyler standing in front of me an Rayna across from him, staring at her feet. For a while, no one said a word. Most likely because they were too surprised by how loud Tyler was. They only knew him as a shy, quiet kid.
After a few minutes, I could no longer stand the quiet. "So, what exactly happened?"
My mom sighed, "your father can tell it better, I don't remember much of anything from the past weeks."
My dad spoke up from his chair beside my mom's bed, "I told her that you," he gestured to me, "were going to stay at Tyler's for a while. She got angry and said she was going to drive over there to 'straighten you out.' Her words. I don't know why she wouldn't just walk, given her drunken state, but she got in the car and started it then drove off. About 3 blocks down the road, she swerved into a tree and here we are." He told the story as if he were reading a book. "Now your mom is looking at a broken nose and two cracked ribs." I could tell he was at least slightly angry at my mom for getting herself into this, because his tone was more passive-aggressive than the average teenager.
"Wow," was all I could manage to say. It was hard for me to believe that my mom, the one who raised me and hadn't done a thing that hurt me or my siblings in our entire lives, had gotten into a drunk driving accident.
"Honey, I am so sorry. I don't have an excuse for how I've been lately. I promise you I will never drink again."
Little time skip
Well into March, she had kept her promise. Everything at home seemed to have calmed down, everyone was happy, we rarely fought, it was nice. I was still living with Tyler; we even changed my official address to his.
"Y/n, why won't you move back home?" My mother asked as we set the last of my stuff in the back of her car. "Are you still mad at me?"
"No, mom, I'm not mad. I just really like living with Tyler and I don't want to have to get all my crap and bring it back here."
She sighed, "if that is what you want. Now I'll just have to endure your father's begging to make the basement a man-cave." We both laughed a little. We drove over to Tyler's, where he was anxiously sitting on his front porch. When we pulled up, he jumped to his feet and ran over to the car. I opened my door and was soon enveloped in a hug.
"Hello, Tyler. You're acting as if we've been apart for years. I literally saw you twenty minutes ago."
He pulled away. "I know, but this is your last box. This makes it official."
"I'm no expert, but I am pretty sure it was official when your parents became my legal guardians."
"No, then you still had your," he peeked in the box, "band posters still at your house, therefore you lived at both places." I could tell he wasn't giving up so I just went with it.
"Oh of course. How silly of me." I took the box into Tyle- my house and set it down on my bed. I went back outside to say goodbye to my mom and saw that she and Tyler were talking.
"You probably already know this, but sometimes y/n snores. Pretty loud, too."
"MOM!" I could feel my cheeks set on fire.
"Oh, y/n, we were just talking about you." Tyler turned around to say.
"I can see that. What I don't see is why my mom decided to say the embarrassing things about me. Why don't you just show him my old school pictures as well?" I never photographed well.
"What a great idea! Next time you come over I'll be sure to have them out."
I grabbed Tyler's arm and started pulling him to the house. "Goodbye mom!" I closed the front door and pressed my forehead against it. "What else did she tell you?" I could only imagine the terrible things she said about me.
"Nothing, I swear." He brushed my hair aside and kissed the back of my neck. "Besides, even if she said something you might find embarrassing, I love hearing new things about you. The more I know about you, the more I want to. And I already know you snore." My cheeks burned yet again.
"That's great."
AUTHOR'S NOTE
YAY! Happy chapter ending! I promise that everything stays good for a while, and I don't ruin y/n's life anymore for a few more chapters. BAIIIII