Chapter 35 Dylan
DYLAN
Here I go again, on my own.
I don’t like going down this fucking road anymore.
I’m over it.
I tried to listen to Miles’s playlist for getting over exes, but I don’t want to get over Scarlett. And I really don’t want to listen to any song that is now associated with my asshole brother. Everything sucks right now, and I’m pretty sure it’s all his fault.
As always, I’m in the worst kind of emotional hell.
The kind where you can’t eat baked goods or deep fried anything or pasta because you have to look hot on camera.
I can’t eat comfort food, and my cat is trying to take a nap, so being awake is unbearable.
I don’t have any more appointments for today.
Tabitha keeps texting me, wanting to get together before we go up to Big Bear, but that’s not gonna happen.
I’ve pretty much accepted the fact that nothing good will happen to me ever again for the rest of my life.
So I relisten to the voicemail Frankie left me a couple of days ago because it’s the only thing besides Mr. Noodles that can make me smile anymore.
“Hello, Dylan? It’s Drew Barrymore! I’m sending you an entire field of beautiful wildflowers over the phone because your brother—the one whose amazing penis fills my vagina with hearts and rainbows—told me you’re in the sad place.
And we’ve all been to the sad place. Even me.
My sad place is a forgotten field of weeds.
But you know what? Weeds are flowers too.
And all flowers are amazingly beautiful.
“So if it feels like there’s no sun shining on your sad place, I will be your sunshine. Because it sounds to me like your stubborn asshole flower weed is coming from a dark and super clueless, self-involved, but totally beautiful, fragile place.
“Here are two of my favorite jokes about therapists. Number one! A therapist says to her patient, ‘How can I help you?’ He says, ‘Well, doctor, I’m terrified of the Grease soundtrack.’ She leans forward and says, ‘Tell me more.’
“Number two! And when I say number two, I really mean number two—know what I mean? This actor starts going to see a beautiful therapist to talk about his pattern of falling for his co-stars. He convinces the beautiful, amazing therapist to date him and even gets her to go to family Thanksgiving with him, where his amazing brother’s amazing girlfriend gets to know and love her!
Then he gets a job starring in a movie with the first co-star he ever dated—and when his therapist girlfriend tries to talk to him about it—he tells her they should take a break while he’s filming the movie!
” She blows raspberries into the phone. “And the beautiful, amazing therapist breaks up with him because duhhhh!
“I mean, it’s not ha-ha funny, but it’s ironic funny.
Like an amazing rare flower that’s growing and thriving in the middle of a busy LA freeway for a couple of months and then it gets run over by a truck that’s driven by a defensive, self-sabotaging, stubborn idiot with a penis!
But you’re amazing, and I’m sending you so much inspiring love because you deserve it, even though you’re being a total dumbass with a penis right now. Kloveyabye!”
That was the seventeenth time I’ve listened to it. Today. I almost feel loved again.
There’s a knock at my front door, and I know who it is even before I hear her say, “Hellooooo? It’s Evelyn Shepard. You in there?”
It’s embarrassing how quickly I jump up. I haven’t seen Mr. or Mrs. Shepard or Noah for almost a week, and I miss them like family. I open the door and get a lump in my throat as soon as I see her. “Hi, Evelyn.”
She studies my face and nods once. “You look very unhappy. Good. I brought soup.” She hands me a container of soup. “Low carb, high protein, huh? It’s okay for you to eat.”
“Thank you. That’s very kind of you. Come in.”
She doesn’t make a move to leave. “Nooooo, no no. I don’t want to bother you. You don’t want to talk to me.”
“You aren’t bothering me, Evelyn. Please come in.”
“Nooooo. You are so busy. I just want to make sure you eat.”
I learned from Scarlett that you have to ask her mother to do something she clearly wants to do three times before she’ll accept.
“Please. I’d love the company.”
“Okay, okay. Just for one minute.” She slips off her shoes and leaves them by the door. She looks around, surveying the place. Probably looking for evidence of any non-Scarlett lady guests—which she will never find. “How have you been?”
“Hanging in there. How have you all been?”
“Oh, you know.” She shrugs. “You’ve been home a lot at night, it seems. We’ve seen your car in the garage.”
“Yes. I’ve had to go out for pre-production appointments. For the movie. Fittings and meetings. But I don’t go out at night.”
“Uh-huh. Why’s that? Not happy?”
“No, ma’am. Not happy.”
“Uh-huh. Good. I talk to Scarlett, you know.”
I’m not even ashamed of how my voice cracks when I ask, “How is she?”
“Oh, you know. She told me you were her patient for a little while.”
“She did?”
“Yeah.” She looks me straight in the eyes when she says, “She told me about your ex-girlfriends. She told me about the actress in your movie.”
“There’s nothing going on between us. There won’t be. Ever.”
She reads my face very carefully. I’m not afraid of her terrifying, penetrative gaze. I’ve got nothing to hide.
She nods once before strolling around the living room. “I believe you. You taking Mr. Noodles to Big Bear?”
“I mean, I want to. But I’ll be so busy, and I don’t want her to be alone in a hotel room all day. I was going to ask my brother and his girlfriend if they’d look after her, but they’re both pretty busy too.”
She turns back to face me. “You want me and Wade to keep her while you’re gone?”
“You would do that?”
“It would make Noah happy to be able to see her.”
“I would love that. I would have asked you, but…I wasn’t sure if it would be appropriate now.”
“In China there is a saying. It means No melon is perfectly round, and nobody is a perfect ten. You are very close to being a perfectly round melon.”
“Thank you. That is definitely the first time anyone has ever told me that.”
“But there is another saying… If you are patient in a moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow. You and Scarlett were both impatient in a moment of anger. But I still think you are a pair of almost perfect melons.” She walks back to the door, and I follow her.
“It already feels like a hundred days of sorrow for Scarlett. Because of you. Don’t make me smash a good melon. ”
Yikes.
“Okay. I go.” She slips on her shoes and then pats me on the cheek. “You’re a good boy, Dylan. But Scarlett already has a boy to take care of. She needs a man.”
Before I can clear my throat and ask her what she means by that, she’s disappeared into the stairwell.
Is she saying I’m not a man?
I’m a man.
Does that mean Scarlett doesn’t think I’m a man?
I grab a spoon from the kitchen and eat the soup straight from the storage container, and it’s so good and nourishing I could cry.
But I won’t.
Because I’m a fucking man.
The intercom from the main door downstairs buzzes. I hear Darth Vader’s theme in my head and get a chill down my spine. That can only mean one thing. The worst Brodie is buzzing me. I swear, the volume of the buzzer is louder than usual. Probably because he’s pressing the button so hard.
I can’t believe I’m even getting up to speak to him through the intercom, but I do. I don’t let him in though.
“What?”
“It’s Miles.”
“I know that. I can see you. Why are you here?”
“I’m taking you out for a drink. Let me up.”
“I’m not going for a drink with you.”
“Macy’s with her mom, and I canceled drinks with a client for this.”
“Must not have been an important client if you canceled for me.”
“Actually, he’s a singer and Oscar winner whose name rhymes with Schmared Schmeto. But believe it or not, I care more about your sorry ass than his. I have an Uber waiting on the curb so I can drink too. Come on.”
“I am just as good an actor as Jared Leto.”
“I never said you weren’t, you whiny baby. Get down here, or let me up so I can lawyer you into coming with me.”
“I would love to see you try that. But no.”
“Don’t be a stubborn asshole, Dylan… Hang on.”
In the little video monitor I can see the front door open and Miles leans in to talk to someone inside the lobby, nodding and shaking his head. Then he disappears from view because he enters the lobby. That is unfortunate.
I make sure my cat has food and water in her bowls—not that I intend to go out for a drink with my shitty brother, just in case we get into a fist fight and end up in a hospital.
I unlock my door and put my coat on—not because I want to go out for a drink with my dick of a brother, because of that deathly chill I get when he’s around.
He walks in, looking a little dazed and frightened, which is very pleasing to me.
“I just met Scarlett’s mother. She let me in so I can take you out, but she said if she finds out you got drunk and kissed anyone besides her daughter, she will make both of us very unhappy men. She scares the shit out of me.”
“She doesn’t remind you of Mama?”
“She definitely does. That’s why she scares the shit out of me. You ready to go?”
“No. Why are you here? Did you talk to Owen?”
“Yes. I talk to Owen. Owen talks to me. He’s not a little shit who won’t reply to my texts.”
“You didn’t tell Mama and Pops about me and Scarlett, did you?”
He rolls his eyes. “Have you heard from Mama?”
“No.”
“Well, obviously she doesn’t know you fucked things up with Scarlett, then. Let’s go.”
I go with him—but not because I want to. I’m just too dead inside to care what I do right now if I’m not doing it with Scarlett.