Here We Go Again ✓

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - Emotions

Angel POV

Tyson sat in the passenger seat of my mom’s car, shutting the door to it forcefully.

“Sorry,” he growled quietly when he saw me wince.

“I take it you’re still upset,” I commented, trying not to sound judgmental.

“What’s there to be upset about?” He countered, a sneer in his tone.

I sighed.

Guess he will never change!

Apparently a friend of Alex came to visit her over the weekend. A guy friend of Alex. And she’d invited him to stay over at her apartment for a while. So for the past few days my own friend was being in the worst mood possible.

He was jealous, that was obvious. He was angry, more than he usually was, that I could also see clearly.

And what was he doing about it?

Nothing.

He just sulked into his own misery, blaming everyone that his life had turned sour, all the while pretending he didn’t give a damn.

I knew Tyson since we were kids and I knew him well; that was how I realized this reaction was his self-defense mechanism. Faking that he didn’t care was easier for him than admitting he got hurt.

Again.

Throughout his life, every singe person who should’ve been close to him had turned their backs on Tyson.

His mother had gotten pregnant early, only as a teenager in fact, and by a guy who was known as the local screw up. Tyson’s father, in his twenties at the time, had a record as a petty thief and was infamous for his drunken outrages. What my best friend’s mom saw in him, I could really not tell, but somehow she got a child by that man. Her parents wanted her to abort this baby that brought them nothing but shame.

But she had refused.

So they had kicked her out.

How she’d survived being pregnant at that age and all alone since Tyson’s father wanted nothing to do with her either, I also did not know. But somehow she gave birth to Tyson and raised him up. Apparently she was a loving figure. Unfortunately, he barely remembered her.

He was five when she died of cancer.

He went into the foster system for a while and child services contacted his grandparents. They did not want him. His social worker then contacted Tyson’s father. He wasn’t keen on taking his son in at first but once he’d heard that each month he would be getting a check for the boy, he’d agreed.

But he was a horrible father to say the least.

Even when Tyson was very young, he’d leave him on his own for days with no money or food and when he came back home, he’d be drunk most of the time. And once Tyson’s father got drunk, he’d often get violent. He’d trash around the house, breaking furniture, hitting whatever came in his sight, Tyson including.

My friend quickly learned how and when to duck. Then he quickly learned how to block the punches. Then he learned how to hit back. It was what made him a good fighter, one of the best at the Ring – a place I absolutely abhorred and often begged Ty to stop working at.

But living with his father taught him one more thing: don’t get close to anyone, don’t trust people, they’ll only end up hurting you.

I tried to preach the opposite giving him an example of me and my family; he was happy with us. But Tyson had easily countered that one: he’d said that he loved us and that was the reason he’d felt pain once my dad died, not physical pain, but it still hurt him. That had been one of the few times my friend had spoken about his feelings and allowed himself to be vulnerable. After my dad’s funeral, he’d shut down and it took us months to get him to open up to us once more.