twisted // tyler seguin

seventy two

"Give me a good reason not to drive you back home." Steve leaned against his small kitchen counter and stared at me as I hunched over in his living room.

"Well, I think I'm about to throw up since I walked here." My stomach was churning and I was overheated. I lifted my arms up to stretch, hoping that focusing on something else would make the stomach ache go away.

"Why the fuck did you walk here drunk? Near midnight?" Steve was whispering at a loud volume.

I hiccuped, as I began to shift my weight between my legs. "'Cause I can't live with Tyler anymore. I left him."

Steve stared at me and sighed. He grabbed his car keys and headed towards his room. "Sav, get out of my apartment, you're was-"

"I'm not leaving Steve." I interrupted. "And I'm not wasted, I meant what I said, I'm not talking to Tyler." I burped and a watery feeling coated my mouth, making me hurry to his bathroom.

I puked in his toilet a lot quicker than it felt I would. Dry heaving followed after the alcohol left my system. Steve watched me from his doorway with a pair of sweatpants in his hands.

"And I'm supposed to believe you after you just threw up in my toilet?" He said.

After I wiped my mouth, I stood up coughing. "Steve, I promise you I'm not drunk. Honestly. I'm buzzed. But I'm not drunk." I walked into his living room and flopped down on his couch.

"So you're seriously here because you left Tyler. After you told me you and him were doing great." Steve stared at me with crossed arms.

I nodded my head. "Can we just talk about this in the morning?"

"Whatever." Steve headed back into his room and shut his door quietly.

-

When I woke up, Steve's cat purred at me before it stepped on my head to get to the window sill. The sun was peaking through the half-open blinds, leaving lines of shadows on the ground.

My back throbbed with pain as I sat up. I checked my phone; no new notifications, and the time was 9:32. A small noise came from Steve's door as it opened. He came out with the same crewneck from last night, wearing the pair of sweatpants. A yawn left his mouth, and he jumped slightly when he saw me.

"So that wasn't a dream." He mumbled, walking towards the kitchen.

"Fuck off." I said.

"So do you want to tell me everything that happened now, and why you think it's acceptable to show up to my place near midnight and puke without even being here for 10 minutes?" Steve said as he poured himself a bowl of cereal in the kitchen.

I sighed. "Well, I was watching the game last night, and I came to a realization." I paused to search for the right words. "I've known him 3 months short of a year now, and I'm starting to realize that Tyler doesn't want to be tied down. He makes it look like he does because 'taking care of me is the right thing to do'. But there's a lot of right things to do that we don't want to do but we have to do, you know?"

Steve gave me a confused look. He shuffled into the living room and sat in the open chair next to me. As he sat down, his cat leaped off the window sill and hurried onto his lap. "So you're telling me, that Tyler doesn't like you."

"I'm saying that Tyler doesn't want to carry the burden of taking care of me, and he won't say that because he thinks it's wrong." A headache started to come on as I watched Steve take another spoonful of his cereal.

"And where did you get that idea from? Considering all that he's done for you?"

I sighed as I rubbed my face. "I just know him Steve. He can't leave that lifestyle alone, where all he does is party and get paid millions of dollars. If that's what he wants to do, then hey, I'm gonna let him do it. I can't sit here and be affected by him because he doesn't want to say the truth."

There was a small pause. "That doesn't make any fucking sense, Savannah. At all. And I'm just being honest." Steve shrugged.

"What doesn't make sense about that?" My annoyance began to rise. It wasn't a hard concept to understand.

"So you and Tyler break up, you come here, in the middle of the night, not one tear is shed, and he doesn't come looking for you?" He shrugged again. "It makes no sense. You should at least be upset."

"Why would I be upset?" I asked furrowing my eyebrows.

"What? Because this is Tyler, we're talking about. The love of your life." Steve drank his milk and sat the bowl on the coffee table. "I'd thought you'd come to me in hysteric tears, not... drenched in sweat."

I shrugged. "Maybe because I know what I'm doing is right."

"Right, you say that about a lot of things. Does he even know you're here?"

I shook my head. Steve's eyes widened.

"Jesus Savannah, where does he think you are?"

I shrugged. "I don't know, and as far as I'm concerned, he probably doesn't care, alright? So there's no need to give me that look."

"Uh, I should be giving you that look. If he does care, which, I think he does believe it or not, he might report you missing. And if he does, what the fuck are you going to do?"

"Nothing, because he's not going to report me missing. He's a fucking 23 year old hockey player. How's it gonna look in the media if he reports a girl like me missing?" I narrowed my eyes at Steve. Tyler would get someone I knew to find me before he would ever bring that much attention to himself.

Steve sighed as he pet his cat. "Just don't fucking drag me into shit I don't need to be in Savannah. I don't need the damn owner of the NHL knocking at my door to arrest me." He glanced over at my two bags in the corner. "And how long is it going to take before you two get back together so you can get the hell out of my place?"

I shrugged. "Who knows." And I genuinely didn't. All I knew was that it felt good to get out of that huge mansion, and to leave him behind.