31. Adrian
THIRTY-ONE
ADRIAN
I’m so far removed from my actual life that a lot of the time it feels like I actually did die in that crash.
Dylan’s been carving dates into a tree trunk, but I don’t really keep track of the days passing. It doesn’t seem that important. All days are the same anyway, so what’s the difference?
It’s better not to think about real life.
It just makes things harder.
I miss Freya and my family so much it’s like a physical pain inside my chest.
In September, I remember real life.
I don’t know what makes me stop at the tree or what makes me look at it, even.
The month comes as a surprise.
The five lines make me freeze.
I don’t know how long I stand there. Long enough for Dylan to come looking for me.
He stops next to me.
“I was still in the middle of debating whether I should say something or not,” he says softly.
I press my lips together. “Do you think you get a refund if the groom dies before the wedding?”
He doesn’t laugh. I must be losing my edge.
I’m empty, and I don’t want to think. About Freya. About what she’s going through right now. What my whole family must be feeling.
It’s like there’s a huge void inside me that’s made up entirely of heartbreak, and I’m carefully skirting the edges because I don’t know what happens if I fall in.
“Hey, Adrian?” Dylan says.
I glance at him.
“Why are elephants wrinkly?”
I can’t even muster a smile. “I don’t know, Dylan. Why are elephants wrinkly?”
“Because you can’t iron them.”
I squeeze my eyes shut.
Laugh, damnit!
“That was a good one.” My voice breaks on the last word.
Dylan’s arms go around me, and I hide my face in his neck.
While I cry.
I wake up in the middle of the night with a loud gasp. My skin is clammy, and my heart is beating too wildly and too loudly. My mouth is dry, and my hands are shaking.
I don’t remember the dream, but I don’t have to know what it was about. The aftermath is always the same, and it’s becoming a disturbingly regular thing.
I used to dream about Freya a lot. She was always there, waiting for me to fall asleep. It used to be a relief to see her.
Lately it’s just nightmares. I try to will myself to think of her. To remember her. So she’d come to me in my dreams, at least. Try so, so hard. But every night, she just keeps slipping further and further away, and she doesn’t feel real anymore.
But Dylan? Dylan feels very real.
And in my dreams, he still keeps dying.
Night after night, I battle to save him, and I never succeed.
I try to swallow, but there’s nothing to swallow.
I wonder if I was screaming.
Sometimes I do.
“Dylan?” I whisper softly.
He doesn’t reply, so I spend a few seconds fighting off the wave of panic that threatens to overwhelm me before I reach out. My palm meets Dylan’s arm. The skin is warm and soft.
He turns and blinks at me through the darkness.
I take a few deep breaths to calm down.
“Adrian?” Dylan mumbles sleepily.
“Yeah?” I whisper back.
Dylan turns on his side to face me.
“Just up or nightmare up?” he asks.
“Nightmare up. Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
He moves closer until his arm is across my chest, and I can feel his breathing against the side of my neck.
We don’t talk about it.
We don’t talk about him wrapping himself around me every night.
We don’t talk about those nights when I wake up sweaty and clammy and cold, and he sits up with me until I manage to fall back to sleep.
I would like nothing more than for my brain to stop fucking with me and stop having me relive that fight for life under the surface of the ocean every fucking night, but it’s on steady rotation for the time being.