My knuckles were raw and chapped from the frigid air as I pounded on Tyler's door. Already the light was being leeched from the sky as the short winter day came to close. I shivered violently, regretting going without my coat, and wondering if I would be shivering anyway with the thought of what I had to do.

The door opened, revealing Tyler freshly showered and dressed in clean sweatpants and a baseball tee. His face registered surprise and confusion. I gave no thought to the fact that I was still in the same clothes from this morning, my hair in a messy bun on the top of my head. I gave no thought to anything.

"Hey—I thought I was coming to pick you up later?"

"How could you?" I asked. The venom in my voice juxtaposed the tears welling in my eyes. I rubbed them away angrily.

"What are you talking about?" he said, bewildered.

I shoved the folder into his hands. He had to scramble to keep the crumpled, snow-flecked pages from falling out. One escaped and fluttered to the ground. Tyler stooped to pick it up, flipping it over so he could read the title. His face darkened.

"Where did you get these?" he asked with an edge to his voice.

"Does it matter where I got them?"

He glared at me, and I realized in the whole time I had known him I had never been on the receiving end of his anger. Even more goosebumps rose on my arms in the concentrated heat from his eyes, searing my skin and setting my heart crashing painfully against my ribs. Compared to the high I had been on last night, I now felt like I was trying to crawl up from the deepest pits of hell, where the Devil remained immobile in his frozen lake. My teeth chattered loudly in the cold.

Tyler seemed to remember himself and his expression softened a bit. He took a step to the side. "Do you want to come in so we can talk?" he asked.

"No," I snapped. "I want you to tell me why you lied to me."

"I didn't lie to you—"

"Well you certainly didn't tell me the truth!" I swayed slightly on the spot, buzzed, angry, and frozen. There was a reddish haze around him that made me slightly nauseous. Or perhaps that was the wine burning its way through my system.

Tyler's eyes flared and his free hand balled into a fist at his side.

"What was I supposed to say, Dash? 'My girlfriend's dead and oh, by the way, they think I killed her?' That's not exactly first date conversation."

"We've had much more than just one date, Tyler," I returned, narrowing my eyes. "I trusted you."

"When exactly would have been a good time to bring this up? When we were talking about my dead ex or yours?"

I flinched at the harshness of his words, feeling them drive even deeper into my chest then the cold.

"You should've told me," I said, blinking back more tears before they could fall and continue to freeze me in place.

"Dash, these papers and the people who wrote and read them know nothing. They don't define who I was or who I am," he said, shaking the folder so even more papers slipped out and fell to the ground. The ink began to bleed almost immediately as the snow soaked into them. "This shouldn't change anything."

"It changes everything!" I cried. I wrapped my arms tightly around my middle and looked down at my boots. I shook my head slowly, as if that could help clear things up, as if it could make everything go away.

When Tyler spoke, it was with a mixture of anger and hurt. "Does it change what you think about me? Does it change everything I tried to do? Because it shouldn't if you believe that I didn't do it."

I swallowed hard and looked back up at him. "I don't believe you killed her," I said through gritted teeth.

"But you agree with everyone that I could've stopped it," he said, reading my face and all the words I left unsaid.

"I—"

The truth was, I didn't know what I thought. If he knew, if what the papers said was true, then he could have said something. To Mia, to her parents, to her friends, to anyone, to stop her from jumping off that bridge. He knew, and he didn't say anything. So, what did that say about him?

Tyler gave a harsh laugh and I jumped. It sounded nothing like him.

"Here I thought you might be the one person who could understand. If someone is determined to do something, they're going to do it. No matter what."

He looked away at something unseen before his gaze clicked back to me. His voice was a bit softer this time. "The thing is, everyone else seems to have an answer to what happened that night except for me. And I was the one who was there."

I was shaking so hard I could feel my bones rattling, so that I couldn't catch my own thoughts. I looked Tyler over one more time, at the anger still taut in the line of his jaw and closed fist, at the strange emotion clouding his eyes. It might have been another form of anger or it could have been pleading. Either way, I was too tired to try and decipher it. I shook my head and turned to leave, having nothing else to say.

"Dash, wait!"

I looked over my shoulder. It was definitely pleading now, but I had become too numb to care.

"Goodbye, Tyler." And I walked away.

______________________________________

So what do you think of this confrontation? It's the first time we've seen Dash and Tyler really fight--is Dash justified in confronting him? Was Tyler at fault?

I always love hearing your thoughts, so please share them :) Don't forget to vote too if you liked it! Thanks everyone! :)