Chapter 19
After three days of radio silence, I felt like I had finally cleared my head. I couldn’t stay pissed at Shane forever, and if I was being honest with myself, I wasn’t entirely innocent in this whole mess. I should have let him explain. I should have called him back.
I threw my stuff together to head home for Thanksgiving, excited to see Shane again, to tell him how sorry I was for shutting him out.
When I got into my car, I plugged my phone into the charger and turned it on for the first time in days. Lights flashed and bloops sounded out. Fifteen voicemails and twice as many texts.
The most recent was from Reid. Ice flowed in my veins as I opened the message. Two words stabbed me in the chest.
He’s gone.
I couldn’t go there yet. Maybe Reid simply meant that Shane ran away.
He’d said as much before we had our fight.
That’s what it had to be. I tried to remain calm as I scrolled through the rest of the text messages.
There were lots of “I’m sorrys” and “We need to talks” from Shane right after he’d left, but after the second day, his texts stopped.
I broke in a cold sweat when I saw the next set of messages were only from Reid.
Where are you?
Turn your phone on.
Dylan, come home.
And then the final one, He’s gone.
My fingers trembled as I dialed into my voice mail. Most of the messages were the same as the texts. I scrolled down to the longest one, figuring that’s where I’d get the most information.
Chills raced over my skin when I heard Shane’s sad voice, raspy and dry. “Please believe me. I wasn’t with her. It was all a cover to get my father off my back. I love you. Only you. I want to be with you. Please call me. Please forgive me. Please come back to me. I’m nothing without you.”
A sickening feeling filled the cabin of my car as I clicked on the last voicemail attached to Shane’s number. “Dylan, I’m sorry I couldn’t be everything you needed, everything you deserved. I love you. I always will. I’m sorry.”
A loud sob roared from my chest.
My mind needed the confirmation that my heart already had. I did a quick check of the time stamps on Shane’s voicemails and Reid’s text. The text had come in hours after the final voicemail.
There was one more voicemail from a number I didn’t recognize. Hope filled my chest. Maybe it wasn’t true, after all. Maybe Shane had run away and Reid only thought he was gone. I clicked on it and listened to the most insidious slew of vehemence I had ever heard in my life.
Shane’s father.
“Stay away, you fucking fag. If you show your face around here, around my home, if you for one single second think about showing up at the funeral, just know that I’ll be waiting. I’ll put you in a box right next to him. It’s all your fault he’s there in the first place.”
I opened the door before the vomit came out. It splattered in a loud, wet sound on the pavement.
He was gone.
It was my fault.
I could have saved him.
Instead, I shut him out, let him fall to his own fears; let him do the unthinkable.
I had called him weak, a coward. I had been no better than his father.
I wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. All that came was a bitterness like no other.
I’d lost the only person I’d ever loved because I was too proud to listen to him.
So I did the only thing I could think of.
I got in my car and drove. I drove out into the middle of nowhere, hoping that I could escape the sadness.
Turned out, it was sitting next to me the whole ride.