Riptide (8 page)

CHAPTER
13

~TRYSTAN~

Rehearsal
was much more enjoyable with Mari in his arms and Brie god-knows-where. Trystan tried as hard as he could to live in the now, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that it would all slip between his fingers at any moment. The more time he spent with Mari, the more
t
he
y
kissed,
the more he realized he wanted her—and not in a temporary kind of way. There was something about
Mari
that made him come alive when she was around. All the years of jaded
cynicism
melted into giddy glee around her.

Tucker barely corrected Mari. She remembered everything
,
because she’d been prompting the entire time. She’d only lost a couple of days when Tucker threw her out. The cast had a different feel with Mari
among
them. She affected Trystan’s performance for the better and everyone around him strove to be as charismatic as Trystan. It was a domino effect and it started with Mari.

When Tucker first announced Brie’s replacement, no one though Mari could do it. She sat in the shadows, reading books—she wasn’t an actor—but Mari proved them wrong by the end of the first scene. Tucker didn’t stop the play, he let the entire thing run from start to end and when they finished, Tucker just sat there, staring at them with one eyebrow lifted too high.

The entire cast stood on stage, waiting for him to say something.

“Did he have a stroke?” Tia
whispered
out of the side of her mouth to the girl standing next to her.

Tucker laughed one sharp
,
“
HA!
”
And then stood in his seat, clapping his beefy hands until they were all deaf. “I couldn’t have imagined that a high school cast was capable of this skill level. Trystan and Mari, I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about you two that pull
ed
the whole performance up
a few notches
. I did
n’t think this was possible.” Tucker
stood there, arms folded across his chest, shaking his head.

Trystan spoke to Tia out of
the side of his mouth, “We must have
really sucked before.” All the girls instantly fell into a fit of giggles. Trystan waggled his eyebrows at Mari, who grinned at him in return.

Everyone looked around, wondering if they could take a break, or if they needed to do another run through. Tucker finally realized this and said, “We’re done. It can’t get better than this!”
Murmuring
to himself, Tucker turned and grabbed his folders and jacket.

The lights were turned off as Tucker made his way to the door. The stage lights remained on for another moment while the kid in the lighting cage got his books. Everyone ran from the
room
like rats fr
om a sinking ship, except
Mari
who
hung back in the wing, waiting for Trystan.

“You ready?”
he asked.

She nodded. “Yeah.”

They walked out of the school farther apart than either of them wanted to be. Mari looked over her shoulder and smiled at
Trystan
. Her dark curls blew like ribbons in the wind. Trystan and Mari already discussed walking places together. They decided that they’d act the way they usually did. He walked her to her block sometimes, before crossing the railroad tracks and heading towards his house. Mari knew he lived in the condos in the rough part of town, but she’d never been there.

“That went well.” Trystan smirked at her. Mari smiled back
, her dark eyes caressing his face as soft as a touch. His stomach dropped. God, he wanted to kiss her.

“I was surprised it went that well.”

“I wasn’t. I knew you’d rock it. I mean, you have a natural talent for this kind of stuff. You always have.” Trystan stood at the
street
corner waiting for the light
to change
,
when he felt Mari’s eyes on the side of his face. “What?”

She shook her head, “Nothing, it’s just every time I think I know you, something else comes out.”

“I
adore
you. You know that.”

“It’s not that. It’s your conviction. You said that with total
certainty
, like you knew I could do it when I didn’t even know that. How can you talk like that?”

“How can I not? Did you see you up there? It was amazing. Why haven’t you tried out for a part before?”

Mari shrugged, “Daddy doesn’t think it’s a productive use of my time.”

“I know he thinks he’s helping you, but he’s holding you back.” Trystan looked at her as they crossed the street. “You have so much potential and he’s channeling it into this little tunnel that sucks the light out of you.”

Mari’s gaze was on the ground in front of her. “There are some
things that can’t be changed—like parent
s
—
I’m stuck with mine.” She glanced up at him.

Trystan knew what she meant. It pierced him at his core. “No, you can’t pick your parents, but you get to cho
o
se what life you live. Mari,
I don’t know what’s going to happen
, but I want you to know this… y
ou’re capable of so much more.” They’d stopped walking and were standing face to face in front of Mari’s house. Trystan wanted to touch her face and pull her in and feel her lips against his.

“So are you, Day Jones,” she said
,
knocking him
off kilter
. “What’s holding you back?”
Those brown eyes searched his face.

Trystan
tensed. “That’s different.”

“Is it?
‘Cause it looks kind of the same. You get a choice.
You’re beyond exceptional. You’re pure magic, Trystan
,
and yet, you hide it from everyone. No one really knows who you are. For some reason you let me see, and I can’t look away. I can
’t understand why you’d leave your musical talent hidden
. It’s a solid future, enough money for college,
and a solid way to get your life started, but
you won’t take it. Why won’t you take it? What are you afraid of?” Mari said these things looking into his eyes. She spoke softly, like she was afraid he’d run.

Trystan’s heart beat harder and harder as she spoke. Every truth she struck rang out with pristine clarity.
She saw him clearly, which was both amazing and terrifying at the same time.
He felt his hands shake and slipped them in his pockets. He wanted to tell her. He wanted to say that it was his father, that he’d been beaten and neglected his entire life, but he couldn’t. Trystan’s sardonic smile laced across his lips.

Mari’s gaze narrowed in response. “Don’t say something witty right now. You’re asking me to do the same thing, to
tell
them that the life they picked out for me isn’t the one I want, but you won’t do it yourself. You’re not a hypo
crite, Trystan, so there’s got to
be another reason for it, one you won’
t tell me—one I can’t figure out on my own
.”

Before Trystan
had a chance to respond, Mari’s front door opened and a man stood there.
He was tall and thin with waves of dark hair slicked back neatly.
He had on dress slacks the color of
caramel
and a
dark
silk sweater that did nothing to block out the cold. The man was covered in subtle status symbols. From the way he looked at them, Trystan knew this was Mari’s father.

“Mari! Get in here!” His tone was clipped. Trystan watched him
go
back into the house, instantly disliking him.
He snapped at Mari like she was a dog.

Mari looked over her shoulder when she was called, then said
to Trystan
, “I have to go. Come later, okay? After 7:00pm.”

“I wouldn’t miss it.”

__

Trystan avoided his home at all cost, but he needed a s
hower and clean clothes. When Trystan
arrived, his dad wasn’t home.
Thank God.
It was still too early, but you never knew with him. Some days dad would show up early and Trystan didn’t know why. The way Trystan figured it, he had just enough time to take a shower and get out.

Trystan washed
quickly
, happy to get clean before seeing Mari again.
He
pulled on the same pair of jeans he wore earlier
, but he had no shirt
.
Rummaging through his dad’s closet, Trystan pulled out a tee shirt and put it on.
Trystan combed his damp hair, pushing it out of his eyes. Thoughts about Mari and
what she said
kept drifting through his head. When Mari
spoke like that it was contagious.
She believed he could make it as Day Jones. Her confidence made Trystan
feel like he could do anything, be anything, that there were no limits.

The Day Jones
phenomenon
was still raging and getting more i
nsane by the day. Rabid fans
wanted more. They wouldn’t let it die, and since Trystan’s computer was gone, he
didn’t know what level of insanity things had grown to
. Last he looked
,
the number of comments had
more than
tripled.
Agents and record labels were begging him to contact them.
T
here was no way Trystan could read the comments
all in one sitting. It would take days.

Maybe
Mari
was right. Mayb
e confessing that he was Day Jones was
the best option, the best way out of this hell hole.
Trystan liked the idea of pe
r
forming, of sin
g
ing on a stage,
and
of everything that goes with being in the limelight—except the paparazzi. They’d dig into his past and find out everything. It was too much to even think about. Mari was right. There was something holding him back, something that prevented him from ever coming forward as Day Jones. His father.

As if he conjured the old man from thin air, T
rystan heard the front door slam
shut
. Trystan
swore and ducked into his room quickly. His dad wasn’t supposed to be home for another hour, at least.

His father’s garbled words rang out. “I busted my ass with the company for twenty years!” There was a loud crash, the sound of something heavy hitting the wall. “And how do they thank me for it?” Another crash, followed by the sound of shattering glass.

Trystan’s eyes grew wide. He knew he had to get out now, but his
father was blocking the exit. Trystan
turned toward the window, wondering if the bars falling to the ground would make too much no
ise. Looking back at the door, Trystan
decided that it was too risky. Besides, his father would know tha
t he’d left his room if
the rusted bars
were
on the ground.
Like it or not, Trystan was stuck here for a few more weeks. He had to make it through.
The sounds of things being destroyed suddenly stopped.
The apartment was silent.
The hairs on the back of Trystan’s neck stood on end as
a shadow stretched across the floor. His
father step
ped into the
doorway
, irate
.
His muscles were corded tight, ready to explode.

Glar
ing
at Trystan
,
his dad growled,
“You little shit, you’re home? You hear me yelling and screaming and you didn’t bother to come see what was wrong?” His father’s bloodshot eyes locked on his.
Dad
was still wearing his dress shirt, but the tie and jacket were gone. It was unlike him to get plastere
d before heading home. That kind of awesomeness was reserved for Trystan alone.

Trystan didn’t answer. There was nothing he could say that would make this better. His father’s gaze swept over his
son’s
damp hair and clean
T-
shirt.
Recognition formed on Dad’s face.
“Who said you could take my shirt?”

Trystan knew his silence was being taken as defiance. Everything in his body told
Trystan
to run, but he was trapped in his hell-hole of a room with his dad barring the exit. “All my clothes seem to have been thrown out.”

“So you steal my stuff? That’s your solution to everything, isn’t it? You see what you want and take it. There’s no talking to you. Even now, with the way you look at m
e like your better
.” As his dad spoke, he walked into the room. With every step his dad took forward, Trystan took a step back.