twisted // tyler seguin

twenty two

(tyler's pov)

Jessica ended up taking me to a nearby cafe with outdoor seating. She insisted that we sat outside. It was around dusk on a Thursday afternoon, and the air was sticky and a bit humid. A couple of people were out and around town, passing us by. Jessica was sitting across from me, smoking a cigarette. It would've been a blunt if we weren't in public.

She took a drag before exhaling a long cloud of fumes. "I don't want to see you anymore, Tyler."

Jessica had on huge, flashy sunglasses that covered most of her face. A simple grey dress drooped off of her sharp shoulders. She breathed in the toxic smoke from her cigarette, waiting for my response.

"Why's that?"

She shrugged. Another long pause sat in the air. I took a bite out of my untouched panini that Jessica bought me. She watched as a couple walked by, before lowering her head.

"You look like there's more on your mind than what you're saying." I said quietly. Jessica's head snapped to me, releasing a cynical chuckle.

"Yeah, there is. Way to read me." She took another hit of her cigarette, coughing in the process. "Shit," she mumbled.

"Wanna talk about it?" I tried to get more out of her. Jessica chucked the rest of her cigarette to the ground, grinding it out with her foot.

"What's there to talk about?"

"The way you've been acting?"

Her head cocked to the side as she rubbed her neck. She was quiet the whole night, smoking blunt after blunt, cigarette after cigarette. A faint smell of alcohol reeked off of her frail body.

She sighed. "Tyler, I'm not even supposed to be here, in this state." Jessica leaned in, her elbows now on the table. Her sharp face rested in one of her palms, while the other stirred her drink. "I told you how I'm from Camden. I decided to fly down to here for a week or so... to escape some troubles at home." A slender hand ran through her hair.

"What do you mean by troubles?" I raised my eyebrows.

Jessica took a small pause before continuing. "I have this guy back home. He's.." Her voice trailed off as a man walked by. "He's not, ideal. In the least. I thought he was."

"So you have a boyfriend?" I couldn't help but ask. She could've used the word boyfriend instead of 'guy back home'. A grimace appeared on her face.

"You'd pity me if I'd used that word." Jessica's voice was full of sadness. "He's been causing too many problems at home. So I saved up some money, and took a plane down here. It was nice and far away from home."

"He wouldn't care if you left?"

"He didn't care about me in the first place."

Another pause occurred. I didn't expect Jessica to be this type of person behind her ravishing exterior. She looked away again before returning to speak.

"It really fucking sucks when you're always someone's second choice, you know that?" Jessica yanked out another cigarette and lit it, taking a long, tedious drag. "Every day, I would wait around in our apartment, expecting him to come home after school. I didn't go to college, but he did. We lived close to his campus. I would sit around, and wait. Wait for him to get home. He wouldn't come home until 12 am. It was so rare that bastard came straight home after classes. It was just me, living in that shitty apartment."

She took another drag, her hands shaking as they adjusted her sunglasses. "He was cheating on me. He would come home drunk, and fuck me out of pure lust. He wouldn't even call me my name. It was a new name every night. Sarah. Lucy. Brianna. Ally. All different. Every name but mine. I was so tired of being someone to release his shitty semen into when he came home. I wanted more."