Misadventures of a College Girl (Misadventures #9)(49)

I come. Hard. And right after I do, Tyler follows. Clearly, he’d been hanging on solely for my benefit.

After our bodies have quieted down, we pull our disheveled clothes back together and sit cuddled together in the backseat, gazing at the glittering view.

“I didn’t say all that stuff about Elphaba just to say it,” Tyler says after a while. “That actress was amazing tonight—she gave me chills. But you’re better than her, Zooey. That’s an objective fact.”

“Oh, Tyler.” I sigh happily and lace my fingers in his. “Thank you.”

“Sing me a little something,” he coos. He leans forward and turns off the car radio. “I want to hear your magnificent voice while I look at this magnificent view.”

To my surprise, his request doesn’t cause me the slightest bit of anxiety. On the contrary, I want to sing for him. And so, I do. I sing him my favorite song in the world, Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” And when I’m done, Tyler puts his finger underneath my chin and kisses my lips with what can only be described as reverence.

“Where did you get that voice of yours?” he asks. “Are your parents amazing singers, too?”

My stomach clenches. “My dad has a pleasant voice. He sings on-key, unlike someone else I know.” I nudge Tyler’s arm and he chuckles.

“So your mom is the one who gave you your voice, then?”

My heart lurches into my mouth. I clear my throat. “Yeah, definitely. From what I’ve seen on videos, my mother had an absolutely glorious voice.”

Tyler stiffens next to me.

Time stops.

I take a deep breath. “My mom died in a car accident when I was two.”

Tyler looks down at his lap. His shoulders droop. He puts his arm around my shoulders and pulls me into him. “I’m really sorry to hear that, Zooey.”

I pause to allow Tyler to say more. If my hunch about Tyler losing his mom to breast cancer is correct, now would be an obvious time for him to tell me about it. But, nope, Tyler doesn’t say a word. So I continue. “It’s been hard to grow up without a mother, but I sometimes think it would have been even harder if I’d been older at the time of her death—if I’d been aware of losing her.” I await Tyler’s reply again. But, still, he says nothing. Huh. Maybe I’ve jumped to the wrong conclusion about his mom? “Tyler, can I ask you something?” I ask cautiously. “Why did you say your father and sister text you on game days, but you didn’t mention your mom?”

Tyler looks out the far window. He exhales. “Because my mom died when I was eleven.”

My heart pangs. “Breast cancer?” I ask softly.

“Yeah.”

I wait for what seems like a long time. “I’m sorry, Tyler,” I finally say.

“I think about her every day,” Tyler says.

“Will you tell me about her?” I ask.

Tyler takes a deep breath. He clears his throat. “I don’t normally talk about her. I get too choked up.”

“I understand.”

“But I’ll tell you.” He pauses. Exhales. “She was generally kind of quiet. Unless she was watching football. And then she was the loudest person in any room.” He smiles at some memory, and moonlight glints off his beautiful eyes. “She didn’t tell a lot of jokes, but she laughed at everyone else’s, especially mine, even the lame ones. Especially the lame ones.” He pauses again. “She loved music, even though she couldn’t sing worth a damn, just like me. She used to roll down the windows in her car and sing along to her favorite songs at top volume, not caring if she was in key or not. My sister and I would sit in the backseat and sing along with her and laugh and laugh.” He smiles, even though tears have quite obviously pooled in the bottoms of his eyes. “My favorite thing was to watch her eyes in the rearview mirror when she was singing. They were the most beautiful blue eyes. Sometimes, she’d catch me looking at her and wink at me, and I’d wink back.” His voice quavers. He wipes his eyes. “Lots of times, I could feel her looking at me when I was doing nothing, like maybe sitting at the kitchen table doing homework. I’d look up and she’d just be standing there watching me with this look of pure love on her face.” He sighs. “And I could physically feel her love for me.”

I squeeze his hand. “Was she sick for a long time?”

He nods. “I was eight the first time she got sick. When it came back, I was ten. That second time, it didn’t even occur to me she wouldn’t beat it again. And then one day she told me she was going to the hospital again—but that she’d never come home.”

“Oh, Tyler.”

“And you know what I did? I yelled at her. I accused her of not fighting hard enough.” His voice cracks. “She knew she was going to die that day, and I made her feel like she was being a terrible mom for leaving us. For leaving me.” He turns his face away from mine and looks out the far window. He exhales a trembling breath. “When she died, I was so angry. I sat there and felt this inexplicable rage. I felt like God had just taken the most gigantic shit right on my head. I didn’t think about my dad’s pain. Or my sister’s. Or even about my mom’s. All I thought about was me and what I’d just lost. That nobody would ever wink at me in a rearview mirror again. Or laugh at my lame jokes. Or make me feel loved like that, ever again.”