The Race Car that was Tyler Scott

Chapter Eighteen

When I woke up in the morning Tyler was gone. I opened my eyes and felt the other side of the bed, but he wasn't there. I turned to look at where he should have been. There was a note on his pillow. "My beloved Amelia, Jake needs me at the recording studio in London and so I had to leave early this morning, I am sorry my love. I will be back in tomorrow afternoon, I love you xx", his message read. His handwriting was so elegant and old fashioned, another one of his many beautiful qualities.
That afternoon my world went to a stop. It had definitely come close to this feeling before, like when I read that article or when that man attacked me but this really brought everything down. I couldn't breathe.
Toni had turned on the television because we thought it would be interesting if I was on MTV. That's when it happened.
A photo had been taken of Tyler kissing another girl that same day. I sat in front of the screen completely and utterly paralysed. I couldn't move, I couldn't speak, I couldn't breathe, my eyes filled with water but they were locked on the screen. From not breathing for so long I had passed out. I woke up back upstairs in my bed where Toni and Anna had carried me to. Toni walked in a few minutes after me waking up. "Meem! Oh my God! Are you okay? you scared me to death!", she was deeply concerned, much more than she had been at the hospital. She ran over to my side of the bed and sat down. "I- I- What happened...I- I loved him, Ty-", I couldn't manage many words before my entire face crumbled into one massive upside down smile. I was freezing and shivering and yet I felt boiling at the same time, the exact same feeling had had at the hospital before I'd passed out. I sobbed loudly and breathed in sharply. "Hey, Meem, don't even think about him right now...don't!", she was insistent, I agreed.
I thought that I would have wanted to see him, but I didn't. Every emotion in my body was all concentrating into one - hate. I hated him, the one most aggressive emotion in my mind was overriding all the others. I hated him. I had given Tyler my trust, I'd trusted him, the most powerful and deepest form of love, I'd given it to him and he'd gone and thrown it away by kissing someone else.
Toni left me be after I'd told her I wanted to be alone. I walked to the window of the room and stared out over the tennis courts and the main drive, over to the wood. At the front of the wood there was a large oak tree, I squinted my eyes and focused on its bark and the texture it had. The concentration and accuracy of my focus was the same I had for Tyler at that moment. For some reason in my mind the tree had become Tyler; under scrutiny.
I heard shouting down in the kitchen, it was Toni. A man shouted back; Tyler. They argued. The syllables of their words were blurred by the floor and the ceiling below. I made out a few words as they moved closer to the bottom of the stairs, "Get out. She doesn't want to see you, you shallow piece of celebrity trash, get out!", Toni shouted, her voice breaking a little, "Toni, you don't understand. I need to see her. Get out of my way", Tyler spoke forcefully without breaking into a shout. Feet thumped on the stairs as someone ran up them, taking steps in threes. Toni shouted after Tyler from the bottom of the stairs.
Within seconds he was standing in front of me. He stood there, just in from the doorway and stared at my anguished face. I was hurt, to the point where I could feel it physically. Heartbroken. The sight of him confused my emotions; I didn't know how to feel. I loved him and I wanted to run to him but I also hated him; he had betrayed me and fooled me into trusting him. A trust more powerful than i had ever felt before.
I tried to speak under the weight of emotion I carried, "Why?", it came out as a weak whisper. He stepped forward quickly but I mirrored him and took a step back. He stopped as he understood my body language. "Amelia, that wasn't real", he pointed to the door behind him as he spoke, "I didn't even know her, I don't know who she was", I sniffed as I took in his soft words, he spoke delicately. "She was a paid actress, a paid actress Mimi", he  put his arm back by his side and stood up straight, he walked slowly towards me. "You are the woman I love, I love you Amelia", a tear ran down his cheek as he watched my face unchanged. How could I choose to believe him. How could I trust him. He had made me question if I really could trust anyone or whether I had just been conning myself all this time. "You don't believe me", he whispered, just inches away from my face now. He looked down to the floor, this time his eyes didn't look up. He came back up to face me and his eyes were filled with tears, red-rimmed and glistening. I stared at him for a few seconds before he sniffed and turned away, he strode towards the door. "Wait", perhaps it was the truth, maybe I could still trust him. He stopped, his back towards me. I walked slowly up to him, placing both my hands on his shoulders, I whispered to the back of his neck, "I love you too, Tyler". I pulled gently on his shoulder and turned him to face me. He pressed his lips against my forehead and then brought me into a tight embrace. I buried my head in his shoulder and cried a little, my emotions starting to calm down again. He spoke quietly over my shoulder, "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry. I love you, I'd never hurt you". I didn't answer. Just stayed there for a while. I felt safe again, secure, strong because Tyler was back.
It took Toni a little while longer to forgive Tyler for the emotional damage he had caused me. She had liked Tyler, I was worried that she would never trust him again and never forgive him completely. I knew Tyler was telling the truth, that he didn't just come up with an excuse because of the emotional damage it had caused him.