Jenalyn: Crossing Lines (#4) [Complete]

Chapter 1: Hayden

Friday, 4:21 P.M. PST

Tyler is growing more and more frustrated with how I’ve been acting since I came home from inpatient. It’s been three weeks, and I guess that he feels like I should be over everything because we’ve been living together.

Well, existing together. 

I always have to remind him that I only did this because I thought that dealing with Mama G’s reaction to him cheating on yet another one of her daughters seemed way more stressful. 

I may have been wrong, looking back on these last three weeks. Dealing with Mama G’s bullshit might have been the better option had I known what I’d go through with Ty!

If we’re not fighting, we’re having angry and complicated sex. And that’s of course, between keeping up the facade with everybody but Gage and Harper, that we’re in a happy relationship expecting our first baby in a little over two months.

It’s… a rollercoaster, to say the least. And definitely not what I would have expected to come home to after leaving the hospital. I was trying to do better; I was trying to make up for everything I did in there! And what I caused…

I can’t do better when I’m around all of this chaos though! Jena feeds on chaos!

“Can you please just come?” Tyler asks, pulling me from my head as he emerges from the bathroom to find me still lying on my bed. “Paul is a great friend of mine, and there’s going to be media coverage. How is it going to look if I go to my best friend’s birthday dinner without you? Everyone is bringing their girls!”

I roll my eyes. “You’re allowed to go places without me, Ty,” I say with a huff. “Stop being dramatic.”

Ty finishes putting on his shirt and makes his way over to my bed. He pulls the blanket off of me, tossing it onto the floor before crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Hayden, lets go,” he says after a second, trying to be stern. “I would like you to come to my best friend’s birthday dinner with me so that I don’t look like a douche. Is it really too much to ask?”

I roll my eyes again and pull the flat sheet from beside me. I replace the blanket he just ripped off of me, and turn to him with my brows flattened.

“You are a douche,” I state matter-of-factly. I redirect my gaze to the giant TV on the other side of my bedroom, folding my arms across my chest. “Perhaps you’d have someone to take to your best friend’s dinner if you didn’t cheat on your pregnant girlfriend while she was in the hospital.”

Ty takes a deep breath before letting out a long sigh. “Hayden, I told you-” he goes to say.

I interrupt him, knowing all to well how I could end this conversation in my favor using his guilt. We’ve been in a vicious cycle, and I picked up a few hacks on the way.

“No, you didn’t tell me anything,” I snap, furrowing my brows. “Your brother did, because you couldn’t bring yourself to give me even that much!” 

He shifts his weight to the opposite leg. “You know that’s not what I was saying,” he tells me, his brows flattened as he grows frustrated. “Stop trying to use that against me every chance you get! I said I was sorry! Have I not proven it you? You aren’t innocent eith-”

I cut him off again, turning from the TV to face him. 

Okay, so the guilt card isn’t working today? I’ve got another hack up my sleeve. And this one is even better, because it’ll soothe Jena’s monster still aching in the back of my mind.

“Get me off, and I’ll think about going to the dinner,” I tell him, my expression unimpressed. 

He rolls his eyes, annoyance clear on his face. “We don’t have time for that,” he says. “We’ve got to be out of here in the next half hour, and you’ve still got to get ready!”

“So do it fast,” I tell him without missing a beat. Jena is already starting to crawl down the long dark hallways in my head. 

He looks uncomfortable. A series of emotions pass over his face as he searches for a response. 

“I don’t want to hurt the baby…” he says after a second, his voice both reluctant and resigned. “I don’t like the way you-”

“The baby will be fine,” I snap, cutting him off. “You’re wasting time. Let’s go.”

He runs his hand through his hair as he contemplates his next action. I can tell that he wants to do it to get me to go to this stupid dinner…

But he hates having to “fuck me,” and that’s the only way I’ll allow him to have sex with me anymore.

“Can’t it be normal sex?” he asks, his voice pained as he continues. “You’re not just… an object Hayden. I don’t like to treat you like that!” 

I force myself to ignore it. He cheated on with me Sophie… I can never have "normal” sex with him again!

“This is the new normal,” I tell him, crossing my arms over my chest. “Take it or leave it.”