Coming home to the lights on was a surprise. They were normally all off when he came home. But today, after dropping everyone home, he was surprised to find his parents had come home early. Tyler wasn’t really sure how to feel about it.

  “Where have you been?” The words are the first thing that greet him as he walks through the front door. There’s a movie pying in the background, but he doesn’t feel nearly curious enough to see which.

  “Out,” he says with a shrug, looping the car keys over one of the hooks by the kitchen.

  Apparently that’s not good enough for his mother. She gives him a unimpressed look. “Out where? And why are you only getting back now? It’s almost 10!”

  Alright. That’s fair enough. It is very te to get back. “I locked the doors, didn’t I?”

  They spent most of the time after cutting the cake catching up on what they’d missed withTori. He feels exhausted from the weight of the information. Apparently, her aunt had taken her in for as long as it took for the funeral pass before dropping her off at the nearest foster home.

  Something about not wanting to have another mouth to feed, if his memory served him right. It had taken more self control than he normally had to stop from calling them up and giving them a piece of his mind. It didn’t stop the girls from fuming though, althoughTorigot them to give up on the idea retively quickly.

  Even now, the fury bubbled underneath his skin. At bay since the target was nowhere to be found. They had skipped town shortly after, only they’d all assumed she had been with them. He gritted his teeth, ignoring the look on his mother’s face and whatever it was they said to slump into the couch, an arm covering his eyes.

  Tyler was gd she had Jade now.

  “What’s wrong, son?” A tap on his shoulder had him moving his arms to meet two pairs of concerned eyes. Mum was now standing at the side, earlier annoyance forgotten. He looked between the both of them, considering.

  Should he bring her up? They’d probably know what happened to her retives better than he did. But he wasn’t sure whether she would want them to know. But he was so confused! How was he supposed to sleep today with everything that had happened?

  Restlessness had him fidgeting in pce. “I…” He hesitates. “You remember Tori, right?”

  They both blink, exchanging a gnce he doesn’t catch before they turn to him with partly confused expressions. He realises the TV has been paused now. He doesn’t know when it happened, but the room is now too quiet.

  “Victoria Jones? Your friend? Yes, of course we remember her,” Dad says slowly.

  Mum takes a seat beside him, a hand going to rest on his arm, “What about her?”

  “Well…” Again, he hesitates. This time because he isn’t really sure what to say. He can’t exactly say he wants to know her retives are doing, can he?

  “She’s back,” he says on an impulse and regrets it immediately, wincing at the ck of prelude. They blink at him. Once. Twice. Then he watches in fascination as their eyes widen in unison. Tyler isn’t sure when the st time was that he saw them so surprised.

  “What?” His dad manages to recover first.

  Having already ripped of thebandaid, he doesn’t see any further need for hesitation. “Yeah. She actually moved back at the beginning of the year.”

  “And you didn’t mention it?”

  “I…um,” he feels heat rushing to his ears, “Well, I didn’t reallyrecogniseher at first and…Ahem. Anyway, she came back to finish high school and…” Tyler isn’t entirely sure where he’s going with this.

  His mother gives him a bewildered look, “you didn’trecogniseher? Tyler, this was one of your best friends!”

  Still is. Not that this is the time to correct her though. He holds his hands up in surrender. “In mydefence, she goes by a different name in school, so it could have just been someone who looks like her.”

  She still looks a little pained by him not recognising her but it’s slowly repced by a look of confusion. “A different name?”

  “Yeah,” he nods, “the teachers all introduced her as “Vicky Fleming” and it’s the name she gave me too.”

  “Vicky Fleming?” Dad frowns, “Where did that name come from?”

  “I um…” He thinks back to her expnation, “She used a nickname for Victoria, and the st name is from her adoptive mother.”

  Tyler had wondered why she had chosen Vicky and had been told in no uncertain terms that it was a way to create enough distance without getting rid of her old identity entirely. Although, Jade had mentioned her name was still Victoria Jones for legal reasons. And because they weren’t trying to repce her parents.

  “Adoptive mother!?” His mother stands up in her shock, “I thought she was living with her aunt!”

  “Um…” If she’s this angry now, she’s probably going to be even more so after she learns what Tori told them. Maybe he shouldn’t say anything? But then again…“She only stayed with them for a week after the funeral.”

  A low pitched whistling sound comes out of her mouth, like she’s trying to restrain her rage and questions at once. “What do you mean,” Dad asks for her. Although, Tyler recognises the tone to mean he’s anything but calm.

  Oh. He might enjoy this. “According to Tori, her aunt got into an argument with her husband and dropped her off at the nearest orphanage or something cause they didn’t want another mouth to feed.”

  “Those absolute monsters!” His mother starts pacing and heads towards the kitchen in what he recognises as her go to method of trying to regain her composure. She didn’t like letting her rage out in front of him because she didn’t think he needed to witness. However, there’s no blocking the stream ofcolourfulcurses streaming back.

  “They did what!?” His father sounds only slightly more calm with the gritted tone the question is asked in. But that might just be because he’s trying to process the words.

  “Yep,” he nods, “They just dropped her off. And they haven’t contacted her in the years after either. She was in there for months before Jade found her.”

  “Months!?” He hears a muffled scream from the kitchen and knows his mother is still listening in. His father just looks at him in disbelief.

  “That was my reaction too. But it’s fine now. Jade is super nice and she absolutely adores her. She also has an adoptive sister. She’s just a baby though.” Tyler smiles, thinking back to her holdingRaine. It might have started out with pain, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some happy moments in there as well.

  “Jade? Isn’t that the woman you were telling me about the other day,” Dad asks, still trying to process it all.

  “Yep,” Tyler grins. He had mentioned her as the person who had given them food. His parents had spotted the containers and wanted to know who’d made the delicious cake. He was only happy to oblige. Although he hadn’t mentioned Tori at the time.

  “She’s her adoptive mother?”

  “Yes,” Tyler confirms. “They have a great retionship, so there’s nothing to worry about there. I was kind of just leading up to asking whether you knew anything else?”

  “Anything else?” Dad frowns, mouth opening and closing before he runs a hand through his hair roughly, sighing. “That’s good. I’m gd the kid has someone looking after her,” he says quietly. “Although, I can’t say I kept in touch after the funeral. I wanted to give them room to grieve when they wouldn’t answer our calls.”

  He’s pretty sure the st sentence wasn’t meant to be heard by how quiet his dad says it, but he still does. “You called them?”

  Identical brown eyes lock onto his and his father gives him a strained smile. “Yes. I’m not sure if you remember, but you got very withdrawn after she left. We could barely get you to eat or come out of your room some days. So we thought seeing her would help. But…”

  Grimacing, he lets out a pained sigh. “But her aunt told us they were busy and not to call again. I’d thought it meant she didn’t want to come back. You seemed to be getting over it by then, so we just gave up after a while.”

  “When was this?” He only vaguely remembers the months after the accident. However he does remember wanting to forget everything at one point. And that it was only pushing back the sense of loss that had allowed him to start acting normal. After a while, it was no longer an act.

  His father’s lips thin and he knows the answer even before he says the words. “A month after the funeral,” he says quietly.

  “She was already gone by then,” Tyler says back in the same solemn quiet tone, a sinking feeling in his stomach.

  “Yes,” his father confirms in a defeated sigh.

  “It was a mistake,” his mother says in the same defeated tone. “We should have tried harder to see her.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Tyler finds himself repeating the wordsTorihad said to them when they’d reacted in a simir fashion earlier, “you couldn’t have known.”

  He understands their regrets only too well. But likeTorisaid, there was no point dwelling on it now. You can’t change the past, only the present and future. He hadn’t felt all that better hearing it. It didn’t make anything better, they’d still failed her.

  Which obviously were feelings his parents shared if the regret lingering on their faces is anything to go by. They slump into the seats beside him, movie now entirely forgotten.

  “What did you want to know,” his mother murmurs after a while.

  “It doesn’t really matter anymore. I was just gonna ask if you knew anything about her retives.” More importantly, he wanted to know if karma had hit them for their actions.

  “No,” his mother says sadly, “We didn’t see the point. But,” rage seeps into her expression, “I’m going to find out. Surely monsters who’d leave their orphaned niece at an orphanage would be people to look into.”

  “Yes,” his dad says, mirroring the sharklike grin now on mum’s face. “I’d like to know what’s so important that they couldn’t look after a child despite having one of their own.” He tsks. “And after they refused our offers to take her instead by pulling the blood retive card.”

  They had? Tyler blinked at that. He hadn’t even known his parents had offered to look after her. But now…He felt an ache in his chest of what could have been if Tori had never moved away.

  It probably wouldn’t have been easy, he knows. How could it? She’d just lost her parents, but at the very least she wouldn’t have been alone. Wouldn’t have had her whole life ripped out from under her and gone to an unknown unfamiliar pce. He wouldn’t have lost her for so long.

  “Do you know if they have access to her inheritance?” His mother has clearly gone into wyer mode now. “I don’t remember a will being read, but I know they had one.”

  “I…er. I don’t know. It didn’t really come up.” Although, it is something to consider. He knows they’d paid off the mortgage on the house in full because of a inheritance or something because Tori had mentioned it in their childhood. So, reasonably it belonged to her. “I could ask her…Or, maybe you could ask her yourself?”

  “That’s a great idea,” his mother says, leaning over to press a kiss to his head. “Bring her over whenever.”

  “Won’t you be busy?” He waves away another attempt, jumping to his feet.

  “I’ll make time.” Tyler blinks, but doesn’t linger on it for much longer. It’s a good thing anyway.

  “Okay,” he shrugs. “I’ll let her know.” The st sentence is interrupted by a surprise yawn. He blinks in surprise. Where did that come from?

  “Good,” his mum says with a smile. “Now off to bed. Clearly it’s been a long day for you.” She practically shoves him in the direction of his room. “However, I expect you to tell me what you’ve been up to in the morning.”

  “I can’t,” he says over his shoulder, yawning again. “We’re pnning to go to the beach tomorrow.”

  “You can still tell me before you go, ” she says in a tone of voice that tells him she won’t accept anything to the contrary.

  Well…He shrugs. “Okay, Mum. Night.” He pauses and turns his gaze to his father who’s now tapping away at his phone. “Night, Dad.”

  “Goodnight, Kiddo,” he replies without looking up.

  Tyler briefly considers taking a shower but ultimately decides against it. He figures getting soaked by the rain has to count for one in some capacity. Also, he’s tired as fuck and simply cannot be bothered.

  He still changes out of the borrowed clothes though, throwing the wet ones into his undry basket before lying back in bed. They’re nice, but would be a nightmare to sleep in. His eyes feel heavier by the second as he pulls up the covers and gets comfortable.

  What a day. He can’t remember the st time he felt so physically and emotionally drained. But he supposes scrambling after your friend around town and having several difficult conversations would do that.

  He’s gd his parents know. Tyler can’t even remember why he was so hesitant to tell them in the first pce. And they sounded angry enough that he has no doubt they’ll giveTori’sretives hell for him. Yes, he thinks vindictively, it was a very good decision.

  Even if she didn’t sound too bothered by it when talking, that didn’t mean it didn’t effect her. How could it not? She lost her parents in a horrible car crash and her only retives abandoned her. Her grandparents weren’t in the country and were practically estranged from her family, so they didn’t count.

  And he wasn’t entirely sure they’d checked in on them either. He hopes they didn’t know anything about this, for her sake. Even if she seems fine, Tyler knows she’d like to have some connection with her blood retives.

  However, even if they turned out to be shit, it’d be fine. Tyler smiles at the thought. She has a new family now and she has them. She has people who love her, so she’ll never be alone. He just also wants to give her back a connection to her parents.

  Tyler has no pns of letting her go. Not again. At this point, if she left, he’d probably follow her. So, he guesses its a good thing none of them have mentioned any pns to move. What an odd tracks for his thoughts to go on.

  Focus on sleeping, brain. The rest of the holidays were going to be great.