Chapter Fourteen
Back at Jazz’s later that evening, Dylan’s rental jeep was parked out front, but when Vicky called out, no one answered.
Her stomach rumbled. Dinner for one, just like every night back in Manhattan.
She opened the fridge, eyeing the kale and frozen wild blueberries she’d bought in an attempt at healthiness. Cooking had never been a strength.
Giving up, Vicky trudged upstairs toward her bedroom.
Dylan had whipped up quite a few delicious healthy meals since they’d arrived, turning a handful of limp vegetables and some rice into a mouthwatering risotto or a few eggs and some salmon into a savory fish pie.
They just had a knack for it. If only they could magically appear now, bearing some form of life-giving dinner, Vicky thought wistfully as she passed the open door of Dylan’s bedroom.
“Hey.” Dylan sat cross-legged on the floor next to their laptop, surrounded by sushi and two cans of Diet Dr Pepper. They slipped off some headphones. “You eaten?”
Vicky almost passed out in delight.
Their bedroom was a similar layout to Vicky’s—four-poster queen bed, bulky wardrobe, eclectic artwork, and knickknacks galore—but where Vicky’s tiny balcony faced the front yard, Dylan’s looked onto the garden. Warm golden hour sunlight poured like syrup into the room.
“Sorry about the mess.” Dylan’s belongings were strewn around haphazardly, just like they had been two decades ago. Clothes, half a dozen novels. The weights in the corner were new.
Vicky joined Dylan to sit cross-legged on the fuchsia-pink carpet, wiping her lip gloss off with a paper napkin in preparation. “Hello, I’m in heaven.”
“Deb recommended this place,” Dylan said, mixing wasabi and soy sauce together with the tip of their chopstick. “She thinks the guy who runs it is a ‘stone-cold fox.’ ”
Dylan chuckled, offering Vicky a spicy tuna roll.
She bit into it and moaned. The salty flavor of the fish and taste of fragrant white rice was beyond comforting. “Sorry,” she laughed, through a mouthful. “As always, I am starving.”
They chatted about the day’s rehearsal as they ate, sharing the food in easy companionship. Dylan didn’t want their pickled ginger, which was perfect, as Vicky loved it. Vicky wasn’t a fan of sea urchin, which was great, as Dylan was.
When they were done, Dylan let their head fall back against the end of the bed, eyes closed, a contented smile on their frustratingly perfect face. “I could eat that every day of my life.”
Vicky ignored the intrusive thought of same, referring not to the food, but Dylan themself. “I’ll Venmo you.”
Dylan waved this off, arching their back to stretch, the edge of their threadbare tee riding up. “You get the next one.”
Such a generous act. They had every right to freeze Vicky out, to not buy her dinner.
Vicky inhaled a deep breath. It was time. “I want to talk to you about something.”
Dylan opened their eyes, focusing on Vicky. That impossible sea green. “Okay.”
Vicky wiped her hands on her bare legs. “I, um, don’t know where to start,” she confessed, her previously sated stomach now twisting like a bucket of eels.
Dylan cocked their head. Soft, tousled hair fell across their forehead. “The beginning?”
Vicky nodded.
The beginning.
“I’d never met anyone like you before,” Vicky started slowly.
Understanding flickered in Dylan’s eyes. “The beginning beginning.”
“I remember the day we met,” Vicky said.
“In line for Our Town auditions. You probably don’t remember this, but you wiped away some lip gloss.
From my mouth.” Even now, Vicky shivered, recalling the way Dylan had touched her.
Gently but assertively and in a way no one else had. “I got full-body chills.”
Dylan’s light green eyes didn’t leave Vicky’s. They nodded, voice low. “I remember.”
“Part of me knew, right then, that I was, well, gay,” Vicky said.
“And maybe you were, too. But another part wouldn’t admit that.
Couldn’t admit it.” She grabbed a paper napkin, balled it up, just to have something to do with her hands.
“It’s so crazy to meet these kids, in the play, and see how comfortable they all are with their sexuality.
That just didn’t exist for me. I mean, no one was out at our school, right? ”
“I think maybe one guy, in the grade above you?” Dylan said. “But yeah—things were different, for sure.”
“It just didn’t seem like an option,” Vicky said helplessly. “To admit the truth. To myself. Let alone anyone else.”
“And what truth was that?”
Vicky tossed the balled-up napkin at Dylan. It bounced off their knee. She was blushing. “That I had a giant crush on you.”
Dylan’s face split into a vindicated grin. “Twenty years! It only took you twenty years to admit it. Well done, Fang.”
Vicky’s cheeks were burning. She felt seventeen years old all over again—confused and certain, excited and terrified. “You just…got me. And you were the only person to ever tell me no, to push back. Which was”—Vicky huffed an embarrassed chuckle—“a turn-on, I guess.”
Dylan’s lips twitched even as their gaze stayed unblinking.
Vicky went on. “I just felt so switched on around you. I didn’t care what most people thought of me but I cared what you thought.
I liked fighting with you, I liked performing with you.
I liked talking with you.” Her heartbeat was loud enough to be illegal in a library.
“I just liked you. And I knew you liked me.”
“Yeah, didn’t have much of a poker face back then,” Dylan said, adding under their breath, “still don’t.”
Vicky had the urge to swerve off the road they were going down.
She forced herself to stay the course. “And then when you asked me to be your date for the closing-night party.” An invitation made on a steamy August night, sitting on the edge of Dylan’s pool, their feet dangling in the neon-blue water.
“And basically,” Vicky went on, “we’d both… come out.”
“That was the plan.” Dylan’s knee bounced. “I couldn’t sleep. Or eat. It was all I could think about.”
“I know. Me too. And I wanted to. I remember Annie and Lola were so excited for us. And you got a suit made.” Remorse exploded in Vicky’s cheeks in hot starbursts.
“My suit.” Dylan let out a pained half laugh, half whimper. “I thought my mom was going to kick me out. I think that was the first time she knew I wasn’t going to be the girl she always wanted. But, fuck. I felt good in that suit. The first time I felt like me. And then…”
“And then I ruined everything.” Her pulse ricocheted around her rib cage, like it was trying to find an exit.
Every ounce of self-protection screamed at her to shut up, stop talking.
But she couldn’t. Vicky dropped her head into her hands.
“I can’t believe I showed up with Chimp freaking Chadwick. I’m a monster.”
She explained it’d been a last-minute decision.
She’d confessed her and Dylan’s plan to her sisters, expecting surprise, but ultimately, support.
Her middle sister, the peacemaker, was sympathetic and encouraging.
But her younger sister was scared and annoyed that Vicky had been keeping such a big secret from them all.
She told Vicky that her life would be over before it began, that it would break their mother, anger their father.
Panicked, Vicky had pivoted. Tried to play it all off as theater kid antics. And to prove exactly how straight she was…
“You picked up the phone and gave old Chimp a ringle dingle,” Dylan concluded with a grimace. “Then made out with him all night. In front of me.”
That was the worst part. It would’ve been one thing to show up with a guy.
But Vicky’s sisters were at the party, and everyone was speculating as to why Annie and Lola both left in tears.
A rumor spread about a lovers’ quarrel. Seeing Annie and Lola—an OTP, the closest couple Vicky had ever known—implode that night made Vicky doubt anything with Dylan would ever work, outside the insular world of the theater.
She convinced herself that their romance was all in her head, and Chip was who she should be with, proving it with an egregious display of PDA.
“It was so dumb.” Vicky was on the edge of tears. “Cruel and cowardly and dumb.”
“I wish you could’ve given me a heads-up. I bought you flowers, dude,” Dylan said with a sad laugh. “Flowers!”
Vicky’s throat cinched shut. “Paper daisies.” Red ones.
“Yeah.” Dylan let out a sober sigh. “You smashed my gay little heart into a million pieces that night.”
“I did. I did do that.” Vicky leaned forward to grab both of Dylan’s hands.
“Dylan. I am so, so sorry for bringing Chip as my date instead of you. It is my greatest regret. My biggest mistake. I really liked you. I really hurt you. What I did was not okay.” A hot tear spilled down her cheek, blurring the image of an alarmed Dylan sitting across from her.
“You don’t have to forgive me but just know that that night has haunted me forever and”—sobs rose in her throat, choking her words—“I’ll never—forgive myself—for hurting you. ” All at once, she was crying.
“Vicky, hey.” Dylan’s arms were around her, stroking her back. “Babe, it’s okay.”
“No, it’s not,” Vicky sobbed. “We were supposed to come out. Instead I kept you in the closet.” She cried harder. “I’m such a bitch.”
“Vicky.” Dylan sounded stunned. “Seriously, it’s cool.”
Vicky kept sobbing, letting out twenty years of bottled-up shame and guilt and regret.
And Dylan just kept stroking her back and murmuring soft, soothing things.
Eventually, Vicky felt the peak of her emotion pass, like a storm moving on, thunder and lightning softening into rain.
She grabbed for some stray napkins, blowing her nose. “I’m such a mess.”
Dylan squeezed her shoulder. “Everyone’s messy, every now and then.” They peered at her, expression still baffled. “Wow, you’ve really been carrying that around, haven’t you?”
Vicky nodded, wiping her face. “Haven’t you?”