The Race Car that was Tyler Scott

Chapter Nineteen

Toni's parents had come back for the weekend and so Tyler couldn't stay, we took the train to London, the next day. It was a quiet journey, not because we had nothing to say to each other and that we though it might be awkward, because it wasn't. It wasn't awkward at all. We simply sat, staring opposite each other, holding hands over the table. It was comforting. For the rest of the journey I looked pensively out of the train window, at the passing landscape. There were no hills anymore, as we moved closer to the city there were more and more buildings. We passed by a school, I saw kids about my age playing netball and I saw a church, a small counsel estate, a park, another school. I wondered how different it would all be in America. Would the schools look the same? How many people went to church? Did they even play netball? I wasn't sad though; to be leaving it all behind. I would miss it all, but I was more excited to see a new country. I thought of the ranch in Nevada. It was what I was looking forward to most. My mind filled with images of desert and sand, cacti, horses and cattle and the heat. The heat in contrast to rain that was streaming horizontally across the train window. It brought me back to reality, back from my day dream. "What are you smiling about?", Tyler asked, laughing a little, "I'm day dreaming". "What about?", "About what we're going to do, where we're going to go, what we're going to see. Together", I answered, he smiled. He then took my hand and kissed it.
Josh picked us up from the station. We sat in the back of the car smiling at eachother and chatting. Josh said something that made us all fall about laughing. Tyler laughed and then he smiled as he looked at me. He searched my face again, as he'd done before. I looked back him. The moment of silence was shattered, both literally and metaphorically. My car door window smashed in to thousands of tiny pieces. A bullet had gone straight through it. The car screeched to a holt before speeding off again. What had just happened? I had instinctively grabbed Tyler's hand in my fear. "Someone tried to kill you!", I said, still in shock. Josh spoke from the front, "No, they're trying to kill you", I breathed in and out quicker now. "What?", I was confused, "The people, his fans. They don't like you. I didn't think they'd take it to extremes though. Holy shit!", Josh explained. I turned to Tyler, he wouldn't look at me, because he already knew this. He already knew what he had to do. That's why he didn't say anything back on the train when I spoke about our future, it's because he knew that we weren't going to have one. He lied. He kept that from me. He had betrayed me for real this time. I felt like crying. 
The car pulled up quickly outside the hotel. Josh opened my car door and we both got out, he walked briskly in between us and put his arms over our backs as we made our way into the building. I followed Tyler to the elevator and we went up to his room. He opened the door, slowly. We stood inside the room in silence, I placed my bag silently down on the floor, when I would have normally slung it or just dropped it, I placed it with care.