Page 17 of Can't Help Falling

Now, as he ran on this unusually sunny November afternoon, Tyler had to admit that there were perks to the Midwest. But that didn’t mean he wanted to live there.

He ran hard, unforgivingly, feeling like if he went fast enough, he could propel himself right back into his normal life.

Half an hour after he’d set out for his run, T-shirt sticking to him, aching for an afternoon cup of coffee, Tyler stood again on the front step of this weird, vacuous house.

It was like it sucked the essence of him right out of his chest the second he walked in. He stood on the threshold as Tyler Leshuski and then he entered and became just some primate who barely knew what to do with his two thumbs.

He’d had a similar reaction the first time he’d ever been here just a few years before. It had been a strange time in his life. Only days after their father’s funeral and a week after his unexpected death. But that hadn’t been the strangest part of it. The first time Tyler had stepped foot in this house had been less than seventy-two hours after he’d found out that Kylie even existed.

Apparently his father had had a second family, for over a decade, and had chosen not to even mention it to Tyler. He’d first heard the name Kylie Leshuski out of the lips of his father’s lawyer, in a bright office, during the reading of the will.

Less than three days after that, he’d been here. In Columbus, meeting his little sister who was almost three decades younger than he was. He hadn’t felt like himself then either. He hadn’t been able to think of a single thing to say to an eleven-year-old girl. Much less a joke to make. She’d been just as weirded out as he’d been.

The whole thing had been even worse because of Lorraine’s behavior. Seemingly unaffected by her ex-husband’s death, she’d preened for Tyler. Basically hitting on him the entire time and straight-up ignoring Kylie. He’d only visited one more time before he realized that his presence was simply painful for Kylie. She obviously hated seeing her mother press her boobs against Tyler’s arm, whispering in his ear, and it wasn’t like Kylie and Tyler had had some sort of preternatural sibling connection. They were just a forty-year-old guy and an eleven-year-old with very little to talk about. Genetics be damned. Since then their contact had mostly been limited to a weekly phone call and the occasional text message.

And now this. Shoving Kylie into a tin can in the sky and taking her to a place she’d never been before. All so that he could take a crack at figuring out guardianing her.

He had to believe that things would be better in Brooklyn. Brooklyn, where he knew the way around his kitchen. Where his best friends were only forty blocks away. Where the silence at night didn’t threaten to eat him alive.

Speaking of silence, Tyler stepped inside the house to find it eerily silent, except for the sound of quiet crying coming from the downstairs bathroom.

He proceeded with caution. “Kylie?” he called.

There were a few seconds of strained silence and then the lock on the downstairs bathroom turned and she slammed out, her arms crossed over her chest, raw anger cindered in her reddened eyes.

“Where were you?”

“A run.” He pointed to his sweaty clothes and running shoes.

She glared at him accusatorially but didn’t say anything, just let her anger singe his edges.

He almost, almost asked her what the problem was. But then it hit him. The deal with her shutting herself in a room with no windows and a lock on the door. He thought of the nest of blankets he’d found in the bathroom upstairs when he’d first arrived. She’d been sleeping up there the whole time her mother had been gone. Because she’d been afraid to be alone and wanted a lock on the door between her and the world.

He’d already loaded his bags into the car. She must have come downstairs, seen that he wasn’t there, panicked and thought he’d left. She thought he’d left her just like her mother had.

Pain, sympathy, anger, tenderness, all of it swelled within him so quickly he almost gasped against the feeling. He wouldn’t have thought there was enough room in his chest for this much emotion. His eyes zeroed in on his little sister’s face, screwed into a knot, her hair messy and making her look like she was about ten years old.

She was just a kid.

“Kylie—”

“I’m not going to New York.”

“Kylie,” he repeated, but in a very different tone this time. “Please don’t do this.”

“There’s no reason for me to go,” she said, arms still crossed.

Feeling the same way he had watching her pour the rest of the cereal into her own bowl, he gritted his teeth. It was not the time to let his ego get in the way. “Actually, there’s lots of reasons.”

“Mom is back.” Her face was stubborn but her voice quavered, just enough to have that tenderness swelling in his chest again. It was the first time that either of them were acknowledging that Myra had dropped a total bomb on them. “She left for a while, but now she’s back. This doesn’t have to be such a big deal. It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

Or haven’t handled before, Tyler finished the thought for her.

He knew that she didn’t know him from Elvis, not really. Up to now, the extent of their relationship had been ten-minute phone calls on Thursday nights in which he methodically asked her questions about school, the seasons, and then prattled on a bit about his life before he hung up. But anything had to be better than Lorraine. Couldn’t she see that? “Kylie, hate to break it to you, but you have no idea what you can or can’t handle. You’re a kid. You literally can’t comprehend it yet.”

It was the wrong thing to say.

“Oh, and just because you’re an adult, you understand the entire situation? You know exactly what’s best for me, Tyler? Is that right? Just because you’re old you can magically see the future and know exactly what I should or shouldn’t do, even though you don’t even know me at all?”

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