Twenty-One: Trauma

Sweeping the remaining pieces of glass up off the floor of the office into the dustpan, I let out a breath of relief. Never have I ever seen so much broke glass in one place.

Sure, I had broken a few glasses in the kitchen when I was young, but that was a small dent in how much glass was on the floor of Tyler's office and living room.

Whoever it was that did this, they made sure to break every piece of glass out, leaving none stuck in the panes of the window or door.

I dump the dust pan into the garbage can before leaning the broom and dustpan against the wall. I would put it up, but I had no idea where Tyler kept it stored and since he was in the shower, I thought it would be best to just wait.

Unless I just joined him in the shower.

He tried multiple times to get me to wait for him to clean it up, even begged me to just let him do it. After failing multiple times, he finally let me convince him to take a shower and let me clean up.

With how tore up he is about all this, the last thing I needed him to do is deal with the mess. After how good he's treated me and how much money he spent on the gala, the least I could do was clean up a mess.

After finally cleaning the floor up, I sit at the chair behind Tyler's desk. I didn't know where everything went, so I left the papers and folders in a stack on his desk. It wouldn't be hard to just organize them like he had before.

I begin putting some of the fallen books back on the shelf. I didn't know why Tyler had so many, considering I've never seen him read before.

Then again, I tend to keep him busy whenever I come over.

I pick up a book, examining it before I put it on the shelf. The front of it doesn't have a title, nor does the binding. The difference of this book with the others catches my attention, and I find myself flipping through the pages.

When I opened the book up, I quickly found that it wasn't a book at all. Instead, it's a photo album full of pictures, picture of Tyler when he was younger.

My eyes skim the pages, taking in all the pictures of young Tyler. He wasn't the only ones in the pictures. I assume the older man and woman are his mom and dad, and the two young girls are his sisters.

I didn't even know he had sisters.

A huge grin spreads over my face at a picture of Tyler at Halloween time, dressed as a pirate. He didn't look happy at all, the frown and hateful look on his face was apparent. The girl beside him, still assuming it's his sister, is dressed as Sleeping Beauty, while the baby in the stroller, assuming another sister, is dressed as a pumpkin.

The more I flip, the older Tyler and his family get, until I'm at the end. The last pictures added was Tyler in high school. Pictures of him in his football uniform and homecoming dances filled the page, and I tried to imagine what Tyler was like in high school.

If he was anything like how he is now, I'm sure he was very well liked. He probably made average grades and probably got in trouble from time to time, but easily got out of it. Tyler had a way about it that he could talk himself out of any situation.

The last picture in the album is a picture of the family together. Tyler's dad stood behind him, his hair turning gray and his glasses hanging at the end of his nose, nearly falling off. I try to see if he has any of Tyler's features, but besides facial structure and eye color, they look hardly anything alike.

Beside his father is his mother, and that's who he got his looks from. She's very pretty. You could tell she was aging in this picture compared to all the other ones. Her hair had began to turn gray and her face was beginning to droop with wrinkles.

Standing to the left of his mother is Tyler, looking as handsome as ever. He looks so young in the picture, probably sixteen years old. The large smile on his face is cute, and it made a smile appear on my own face.

In front of his mom and dad is his two sisters, one looking much older than the other, meaning Tyler was most likely the middle child.

Both his sisters look a lot like him. They're pretty much the female versions of him, with dark brown hair and hazel eyes. I wonder if they still look like him, or if the ever changing fashion world made them dye their hair and get contacts.

"Octavia," I hear Tyler's voice say, making me snap my head up.

Standing in the door way is Tyler. His hair is still slightly wet, the wet pieces in the front sticking to his forehead. He's changed out of his tux and is now wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, a common and causal look for him.

"Why don't you talk about your family? You look so cute in these!" I exclaim, pulling out a picture of him as a baby, playing in the sand.

Tyler walks over to me grabs the stack of papers and folders. He sits them in the floor before sitting at the edge of his desk, right in front of me.

I put the picture back in its slot, looking over some more of him again.

Tyler pulls a picture of his whole family from one of the sleeves. He stares at it for a moment, his eyes darting from face to face.

"What's their names?" I ask him.

"My younger sister is Emily and my older is Allison," he whispers, eyes still fixated on the photo in his hands.

"And your parents?" I ask, hoping he'll continue.

"Catherine and Allen," He answers.

Tyler's quietness has me thrown off. Usually, he's all smiles and laughter, now he's quiet and distant. I've seen this side of him before, back when he told me about his businesses, but I haven't seen it since.

Something tells me there's a reason he doesn't talk about them.

I don't press with anymore questions. Instead, I grab ahold of his hand, trying to offer a bit of comfort. He pulls his hand away, rejecting any sort of comfort from me.

Standing from his seat on the desk, I fear he's going to walk out of the office and shut me out. I didn't need more walls to be built up when I have spent all my time tearing them down.

My eyes follow Tyler, who's moved from the desk to the corner of the room. He reaches up to the top of the book shelf, pulling out another book, similar to the size and shape of the photo album.

Another photo album, maybe?

He sits back down on the desk, and flips through the book, coming to a certain page before he places it on the desk in front of me.

I look at the page displayed in front of me. This time, it's not photos. Instead, it's newspaper stories.

Family Murdered After Business Deal Goes Wrong.

Popular Businessman and Family Murdered in Home.

Bodies of 4 found in Philadelphia Home.

The more I flip, the more articles I found. All of them had similar titles, some showing pictures of Tyler's family, some showing pictures of the house itself.

I don't know what to say. How do you even react to someone telling you something like this?

"Tyler, I am so sorry. I didn't know," I say.

"I wasn't home. I was at my friends house," Tyler says, avoiding all eye contact with me. "I was the one that found all of them. My sisters first, then my parents. I found them all dead."

This must be the childhood trauma that Rose was referring to. I couldn't imagine Tyler dealing with something as big as that. The death of a loved one is hard to cope with enough. The death of your entire family by murder is extreme.

That's the kind of things that cause serious mental problems. Yet, Tyler seemed normal. He gave no signs of mental illness. He could be hard to open up at times, but with skeletons like this in the closet I can understand why.

"They never found out who did it. It became a cold case," he informs me. "I ended up living with my grandparents. They sold everything dad had, which was a lot, and left me everything. A millionaire at only sixteen was ideal for anybody, but I wanted my family."

I could feel the tears in my eyes begin to form. Hearing the pain in his voice as he retells the events of his past is enough to make me whimper like a baby. I couldn't let myself cry, though. If Tyler can keep it together then I can too.

"I became obsessive over finding out who killed my family. It got so serious that I was getting involved with some pretty bad people, just to see if they had any information. I was arrested a couple of times. I knew I had to get away," he tells me.

"That's when the story you told me before picks up, right?" I ask, remembering him telling me about his move to Madison.

He nods. "It hurts to think about still, but I manage. I just have to tell myself that wherever they are now, they're happy."

I couldn't take it any long. In a quick flash, I spring up from my seat to pull Tyler into a hug. My arms wrap around his waist and my chin rests on top of his shoulder.

I can tell by his frozen state that he didn't expect my sudden movements, but it doesn't take long for his arms to wrap around me and his face to bury in my neck.

"You mean so much to me, Tyler. I'm here for you," I whisper as I continue to hug him, my hands rubbing his back.

Tyler doesn't say anything, but I hear the sniffling sounds and feel the wetness on my neck. He's crying. The sound of it is enough for me to be hit with a wave of sadness. I wanted nothing more than to take his pain away, but I couldn't.

I could help ease it, but I can't erase the pain of something that traumatic from his life.

All I can do is be there for Tyler whenever he needed it. I vowed to do that. No matter what it took, I won't let Tyler feel any more pain.

*

The warm water trails down my body, washing away the soap that I had lathered all over myself. The soap falls off my body, collecting at my feet before slipping down the drain.

The events of today replay in my mind. From getting ready with Haley and Evan over, to the gala, to the break in and then the childhood trauma story, I could feel how tense my muscles were.

My nerves are completely shot, and I can't handle any other big news tonight. I needed a break from it all. I love that Tyler is opening up to me more, but it was still a lot to take in.

The door to the shower opens up, and a make Tyler steps inside the small space with me, a goofy grin on his face.

That's the Tyler I like to see.

"It's just a shower. My dick can't handle round two just yet," he says, putting his hands up in defense.

He shuts the door behind him and comes closer to me, so the water is hitting him as well. He leans up against the marble tiles of the shower wall, his eyes fixed on me.

"You've already showered," I remind him, my hands moving along my body to get off the remaining parts of soap.

"Yeah, then you made me sweaty," he replies, leaning off the wall to come stand in front of me.

I roll my eyes at him, but secretly loved it. I loved that he knew exactly what to say and when to say it.

I step out of the spray of the water, squeezing my hair the best I can to get the excess out. Tyler took my place, beginning to shower for the second time tonight.

I look at him, admiring his body as the water drips down him. His tattoos stuck out the most, the black ink contrasting off his tan skin and the white walls of the shower. Beautiful artworks covered the skin of his arm, the lion portrait being the focal point.

His eyes are closed as he lets the water hit his face, and he has no idea that I'm standing here watching him, completely mesmerized by him doing the simplest of tasks.

I feel drunk, light headed, dizzy. I didn't know what this feeling I feel is called, but I know it's a feeling I haven't felt since I was with Ryan.

I feel love.

I'm in love with Tyler.

My knees feel weak, and I knew I couldn't stand here any longer. I step out of the shower and shut the door behind me before I wrap my body up in a towel. I go back into the bedroom, ready to change into some clean clothes.

My eyes are drawn to the nightstand beside Tyler's bed, where my phone is currently lit up. It's on silent, but I can still see the screen lit up from someone call me.

Scrambling to get to the phone before the caller hangs up, I crawl across the bed and grab it, hitting the answer button before I even had a chance to see who the caller was.

"Hello?" I say with a questioning voice.

"Do you just not check your phone anymore? I have been calling you for the past hour!" I hear Haley shout.

I could tell she was mad and I immediately felt regret for not checking my phone sooner.

"I was just with Tyler," I try and explain.

"Yeah, Yeah. Heard that line plenty of times," she snapped.

Ouch.

"I really was. A lot of things happened tonight. I'll tell you about it later. I promise," I try and reason with her.

"Save it, Octavia. Whatever you do in your free time doesn't matter. Maybe if you'd check your phone every once in a while you would know what's going on," she continues, her tone going from angry to more annoyed.

"What happened?" I ask, growing worried.

"Jace and Kristen broke up."

A/N: a lot happened this chapter yikes. pls remember to vote and comment. especially comment i would love feedback !!