7: Perfectly Fine Taste

I was stunned but I composed myself. “I am Tyler.” I was not lying. I was Tyler, just not 17-year-old Tyler.

“No, you’re like a different person. We all knew Tyler was a wanna-be, a copycat—”

“Wait, hold on a minute,” I interrupted. 

“Sorry,” he smiled sheepishly. “I wastrying to make my point. I liked this version of you. This confident Tyler.”

I secretly sighed in relief. I didn’t want to do start explaining if everybody thought suspicious of me. Besides, they’d only think I was out of my mind if I told them the truth.

“I like this version of you much more than the girl you used to be be.” He laced fingers on the table. “This is not me flattering you.”

“You doing that again?” I rest my chin on my palm and he gazed at me.

“I’m not doing that. I’m serious.” He paused for a long time and when he spoke, he stammered. I had never seen him stammered. Chase was usually so smooth. “I have s-some—I have some issues with my family, Tyler. Whenever I go back home, I can’t deal with that. I spend my time with so many girls that don’t matter to me.”

He looked at me tentatively. He had stormy gray eyes. It was an odd contrast to his ginger hair.

When I stayed silent, he added. “Sorry for oversharing. I guess you couldn’t trust me and that was totally understandable.” 

The strange thing was that he was telling me the truth even though he was a pathological liar. I had known a bit about his home life. Both of his parents kinda hated him, and I hadn’t been able to figure out why in my previous life.

“You do lie a lot, Chase, but I’d trust you on this one.”

Unfortunately, that encouraged him. His hand reached out to hold my hand. Before they touched though, a ruckus interrupted.

A group of guys entered the cafe, laughing so loudly. The only one who wasn’t was… Louie. 

His thin black tee shirt hugged him snuggly, boasting off his abs. Navy blue jeans and well worn brown leather shoes. Okay, that question again, I didn’t get why he looked like a gang leader. Like Michael Corleone in the Godfather, but with jeans instead of a suit? Yeah, that type.

“Oh no. No. No. No.” Chase ducked his head down.

“What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing.”

“Lo— ”I almost called but he interrupted. 

“Please. Please don’t call him, Tyler. He’s gonna kill me,” he practically whimpered.

“Why? What did you do? Louie is… ahem…nice.”

He could’ve whispered his answer but he kept his mouth shut. Since he was finishing the senior year, he was only a year younger than my stepbrother. As intimidating as Louie was, he wasn’t a small guy either. I didn’t see a reason why he should be this scared of him.

His three friends were at the counter, talking to a waitress but he was looking at the street they had walked in. 

Since our table was hidden by patrons sitting next to us, my stepbrother couldn’t have seen us as long as Chase didn’t get up or did something stupid. But looked like he was about to do exactly either of that.

“Hey, sit down,” I whisper-yelled, grabbing his hand.

There was only one door, Louie was less than three meters away from it. But he jerked his head in our direction, like a bird of prey, as though searching for someone, or us, but he couldn’t see us.

“You don’t understand.” With that, Chase ran.

“Son of a bitch!” I cursed.

He sprinted to the back of the cafe, climbing over tables and crashing stuff.

Chaos broke out. The friends sprinted after him, but Louie strode towards me. So… while his friends were hunting down someone before possibly beating him up, he wanted to spend some time with me. Probably to lecture me about life. Got it. 

He straddled the seat sideways. He was paying attention to two places simultaneously: me and something else.

“So you’re growing up. Doing the dating thing.” He shrugged his shoulder. And gave me a look, ‘I know everything’, it suggested, but he knew nothing. “You have bad taste in men. Could have chosen somebody else other than Chase.”

“I have perfectly fine taste in men.” I tilted my head. “I’m not with him.”

That sounded flirty and I swear to God, I had no intention to flirt with Louie.

“Is that so?” He didn’t seem to care my tone. I replayed his words from yesterday. Remarking about my attraction to him or my dating life was merely casual, dull and boring to him. He wasn’t interested in me, not in that way.

“Don’t be like that,” he frowned. I stared at the little dent between his eyebrows, what was caused by that frown. 

“Like what?” 

“Like you’re disappointed or embarrassed. You’ll find someone better.”

“Than Chase?” I leaned back in my seat. “Easily. Course I—”

“Than me, sweetheart. Look, it’s perfectly normal. You’re 17, you have hormones and I am—”

“Eww, stop talking.” He was a little too much, even for me. “Why you analyzing me like a lab experiment or something?”

“I’m sorry.” He raised his hands. “I care about you, Tyler. I didn’t want you to do some crazy shits the girls in your age did when they felt humiliated or I don’t know… You’re too precious to end up with a wrong guy or waste your life away like some losers.”

I gazed at him. He sounded too mature for a 19-year-old. Besides, his words sounded like he knew exactly what had happened in my previous lifetime. As though he was talking about me and Issac. But he couldn’t have known that. No way.

A pandemonium pursued at the back of the cafe. A waitress and another staff came running out. Somebody was shouting the shit at another somebody, “STOP!”

“What did Chase do? Did he sleep with your girlfriend? The one from yesterday, Jennifer?”

He winced. “Not particularly.”

“Not particularly? How many girlfriends do you have? Five?” I teased. He didn’t laugh. “Wait. More than five? Ten? I mean not simultaneously, right?”

I almost snapped at him like he was just like Chase, but he gave me the arrogant-ass vibe that all his girlfriends knew about one another. Not a fan of open relationships, to be honest.

“Don’t judge me, girl. It’s grownups’ business. Stay about of it.”

“God, you’re older than me. By two years, Louie.” I grabbed hold of his lose fist on the table, clasping it with both hands. He flicked his eyes to them briefly before looking at the tip of my nose. “Please don’t hurt Chase. Badly. He has a problem at home.”

“What problem?” He narrowed his eyes. “You don’t know what that is. Stay out of this, Tyler.” He got to his feet. And turned around.

I didn’t like his bossy tone as much as I was attracted to it. That was contradictory but that was how it was. Like he expected me to obey him.

“I’ll stay out of this if I want to! If not, I will stick to this very much!” I smacked the table.

“Don’t be a brat,” he muttered, before heading to the entrance. At that moment, his friends were dragging Chase out of the back room, seizing his both arms. Louie looked over his shoulder, giving a menacing, very chilling stare. I wouldn’t be so surprised if Chase disappeared tomorrow. 

He begged profusely but Louie didn’t care, marching out of the cafe.

I covered my mouth, thinking furiously about what had happened around this time in my previous lifetime. Chase obviously hadn’t died this year. 

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have ended up killing his girlfriend’s parents years later. The problem was, as a 30-year-old adult, I was a little aware of psychological complications caused by traumatic experiences. 

I wondered if Louie had traumatized him and that was why he had transformed from a casual cheater to a murderer.

Despite that, I headed back to home. I watched a horror film, an convenient choice and timing I know but I was in the mood for some horror so what the hell. Watching murder scenes, I got crazy ideas. Dumb choice, dumb choice. I started imagining horrifying scenarios that involved Louie and Chase. Excluding death, a lot of things still could happen.

“Is Louie bloodthirsty?” The words escaped my mouth faster than I could think.

“I’m sorry. What?” Ed looked confused. From the couch, he picked up the remote and paused the film before turning to me fully as though he was ready to listen to my very important speech. But my mom, smacked at his shoulder before robbing the remote and clicked ‘play’.

The film was at a very critical point. Somebody was about to die. But, I couldn’t hold in my words.

“Is Louie bloodthirsty?” I repeated. Since I had already said it, no point in stopping. Better letting it all out.

He laughed. He wiped his tears from the corners of his eyes after a while. 

I crossed my arms.

“Okay, assuming you’re joking, no he’s definitely not the Ripper. But if you are serious…” He stopped laughing. “Is he caught up in something? Did you find him doing something?”

“I’m just kidding.”

“Oh, right.” He went back to the film.

I thought I should better find out myself. With that plan, I was about to steal the sedan from the garage. I didn’t watch many sci-fi films, not a fan, but I knew how ‘butterfly effect’ worked. 

I was guessing there might have already been changes I wasn’t aware of since I had done things differently. Like going to the cafe with Chase who had never followed me in my previous lifetime at the time. I couldn’t rule out his death as much as I didn’t believe Louie could kill somebody.

I put on a hoodie, ready for action…I smiled to myself, and nearly stole the car in the garage but jumped nearly one meter high into the air, seeing a crouching shadow in the darkness.