Twisted

In order to ensure his plans are not derailed, Tyler takes an early bus home, mows the lawn, showers and dresses before his parents can get home. When he arrives at the bonfire, Bethany is not yet there but she soon arrives with some friends. She is dressed as an angel, complete with wings. When she greets him, he leans down and kisses her. 

Tyler and Bethany sit next to each other at the game, though Tyler is preoccupied thinking about the kiss and how good Bethany smells. After the game, Bethany is unable to offer Tyler a ride but kisses him goodbye (in front of her friends) and gives him directions to the party.

Without a car or driver’s license, Tyler has to walk to the party, which he estimates will take half an hour. Instead, it takes two hours, which is long enough for Bethany to get a head start on her drinking. When Tyler arrives, he and Bethany wander around the house as she gets drunker.

To his dismay, Tyler finds that Hannah and Yoda are also at the party. Tyler insists that Yoda take his little sister home, but Hannah strikes a bargain: “You don’t tell, I won’t tell” (121).

Bethany returns to Tyler’s side and leads him up the stairs. 

After some awkward small talk, Bethany reveals that she and her friends used to make fun of Tyler for his high-pitched voice. But now, she thinks of him as sweet, handsome, and, since the Foul Deed, a little dangerous. They begin making out in earnest, when Tyler begins to have a conversation with himself:

[Tyler’s] Brain: You don’t want this.

[Tyler’s] Hormones: Dude this is EXACTLY what I want.

Brain: No, not like this—she’s wasted.

Hormones: What’s your point?

Brain: She won’t remember this, and if she does, she’ll be angry.

Hormones: Can you see where her hand is? God, that feels good. Can’t you feel that?

Brain: She’s drunk. You can’t do this. It’s wrong (124).

Tyler has a few more back-and-forths with himself before pushing himself away from Bethany and saying he wants to go see if they have nachos downstairs. Bethany questions why Tyler doesn’t want to have sex; he explains that he wants to be with her, but not while she’s drunk. Humiliated and angry, Bethany exits, calling Tyler a “stupid freak” (126). 

Back downstairs, Bethany has gone off to parts unknown while Tyler sulks with Yoda. Hannah tells Tyler that Bethany is really upset and that he should talk to her, but Tyler refuses. A drunken fight breaks out behind them and Tyler again insists that Yoda take Hannah home.

An hour later, the lights go out and people start screaming. It turns out the student at whose house they are gathered knew nothing about the party. He was with his girlfriend and his friends took the opportunity to use the vacant house. Tyler begrudgingly goes to find Bethany before the police arrive.

As they leave the party and Tyler is trying to determine how he will get Bethany home, Bethany stops Chip, who is driving his Jeep. Upon seeing Tyler and his sister together, Chip smiles, cluing Tyler in to how drunk he actually is. Tyler shoves Bethany onto the back seat with Parker and puts Chip in the front passenger seat, where he throws up in the foot well.

Before they pull into the Milbury’s driveway, Tyler notices Parker and Bethany making out in the backseat. Tyler swerves and shouts at them, but they keep going. Tyler throws the keys on the roof of the house and leaves the three of them in the driveway, Chip asleep and Bethany and Parker making out. 

Tyler goes through the weekend in a daze, visiting his grandfather’s grave to sit on the cold ground, crying. It doesn’t make him feel any better. 

Monday morning, Tyler skips homeroom, fails a Calculus quiz, accidentally nails a fellow student in the stomach with a kickball, and gets dressed down in English class. When he gets called to the office for skipping homeroom, he runs into Bethany.

Tyler is about to turn in the opposite direction, but, “[t]hey were watching, the kids who fed the rumor mill. I should have walked away right then, right there. If we had been alone, maybe I would have. But they were watching” (136).

He calls after Bethany, taunting her about the party, how drunk she was, and how many guys she brought upstairs. Bethany shouts at Tyler to leave her alone and Chip intercedes. Principal Hughes comes out of the office to break up the trio. As they walk away Tyler notices that he has made Bethany cry. 

Tyler is playing Tophet after school when Hannah bursts into his room to show him photos of Bethany online. It’s evident the photos were taken at the party they attended, and in them Bethany is partially naked and passed out. “Sucks to be her,” Hannah says (139).

Bethany does not go to school the following day. The rumor mill begins the day passing around rumors about Bethany, including that she posed for the photos and leaked them on purpose, “to get into Playboy. Or to get out of midterms” (40). Tyler at first tries to stay out of the conversations he overhears, then tries to insist the photos must be fake, as he was with Bethany the whole time. By the end of the day, the general consensus is that it must have been Tyler who took the photos. 

Tyler is called in to Principal Hughes’ office. As he waits to see Hughes, he goes over the events that led him here in his head. He reasons, “I thought about her looking like that, lying like that. But no. I did not take a picture. And I didn’t destroy the school, either. It was just spray paint” (141).Finally, Hughes calls him into the office where Tyler asserts his innocence. He laments, “I did not hurt Bethany, I knew that. But nobody else did” (142).

During dinnertime, the Millers are working on their separate chores when the doorbell rings. Linda exclaims that the police are at the door. Bill jumps up and commands that everyone stay where they are. When he returns, he asks Linda and Tyler to join him in the living room and sends Hannah upstairs.

Officer Adams and Tyler’s probation officer, Mr. Benson, are there to question Tyler about the incident involving Bethany. Though Officer Adams asks leading questions, Tyler tells the story of what happened while watching his parents’ reactions. It’s then that Officer Adams asks, “[a]nd how long have you been stalking her?” (147). Tyler reacts, denying that is true. Officer Adams lists a series of interactions between the two that Tyler knows were innocent, but that are made to sound sinister, particularly the incident at the pool party, when Bethany was injured.

Officer Adams tallies a list of possible charges Tyler could be facing, when Bill says, “[o]kay, good job, you’ve terrified him—congratulations. We both know you can lie about anything you want right now, so let’s cut to it. What evidence do you have?” (148). Officer Adams is forced to admit that all they have is hearsay from other students at the party.

Officer Adams takes Tyler’s computer to search for evidence and after the cruiser drives away, Bill lays into Tyler for several hours, threatening to kick him out of the house if he gets arrested.