59. Adrian
FIFTY-NINE
ADRIAN
I drag my ass back to my parents’ place early in the morning. Dylan stands in the doorway as I leave, looking exhausted, but somehow still beautiful.
He gives me a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, but I let it go for now. I can’t ask him to give me a real smile considering everything I’m putting him through.
I was up most of the night just holding him. Did he sleep or not? I don’t know. The way we were tangled together without an inch of space between us is the only way I feel calm these days. It’s the only place where I feel like I belong.
I know that.
Dylan’s not sure.
And I get it, I do.
I didn’t just come back home. I came back home to a life I was building with somebody else.
I love her. I will always love her.
But that love has changed because I’ve changed. And not in any way people usually do. Gradually. Bit by bit. So slowly you don’t even notice it’s happening.
I didn’t get that.
I changed rapidly, in a way that sometimes feels like it happened all at once.
It’s not that I came back home and everything here has changed. It’s that I came home, and I’m a different person.
And I don’t know if that new Adrian can ever go back to loving Freya like he used to. But I’m also not a hundred percent sure he can’t.
I rub my hand over my face and push the door handle down.
Locked.
I sigh.
Yeah. That tracks.
I’m just about to knock when the door is shoved open so hard it almost slams me in the face. I stagger back, trip over my own feet, and land on my ass on concrete.
“Fuck!” I snap, thoroughly done with this day already.
Will raises his brows at me and crosses his arms over his chest, lips twitching.
“Oops,” he drawls. “Didn’t see you there.”
I wipe the gravel off my palms while glaring at him. “Dick.”
“The door barely touched you,” Will scoffs. “Stop being a baby.”
He holds out his hand, and I take it, but before he can pull me up, I yank it, so he loses his balance and slams to the ground.
“You dickwart,” he says with obvious glee before he tackles me.
We spend the next few minutes rolling around on the grass, grappling, throwing in an occasional punch.
It feels good. All the restlessness and confusion and pain I’ve been feeling slips to the back of my mind for a few minutes while I deal with Will. It’s a fucking relief not to think, even if it’s just for a short while.
The moment ends too soon when a jet of icy cold water hits the back of my neck and then soaks the rest of my clothes. I roll off Will, and he squeals when he receives his own jet of water in the face.
I lie on my back and laughter bubbles out of me. It’s the kind of almost hysterical, desperate laughter that’s more a sign that I’m losing it than that I find something funny, but I can’t seem to stop.
Will throws me a sour look and wipes his face before he concentrates his annoyance on Harriet.
“Was that necessary?”
She glances at the hose she’s still holding and shrugs before she takes a sip of coffee. “I vaguely remember hearing somewhere that this is what they do to break up a dog fight.”
Will twirls his finger in his ear and glares some more. “You sprayed me right in the ear.”
“You’re saying it like you expect me to feel bad or something.”
“You could at least a little bit.”
Harriet shrugs. “And yet I don’t.” She puts the hose down and takes a sip from the mug in her hand while her gaze moves over me. “So you come back from the dead and immediately break your parents’ hearts by disappearing again without a word.” She shakes her head while tutting.
My face falls when I realize that in the midst of all my personal mess, I completely neglected to inform my family that I wouldn’t be coming home for the night.
“Shit,” I say. “Fuck. Are they freaking out?”
I’m an excellent son, aren’t I?
“I mean, I told them I texted Freya, and then I told them you were with her, so Mom and Dad are both sleeping like babies,” Harri says.
My shoulders slump in relief, even if the guilt remains. “Thanks.”
I push myself up and go sit on the front step.
“What are sisters for?” she says sweetly, sits down, and then cuffs me on the back of the head in the next breath.
“Ow!” I glare at her. “What the fuck was that for?”
“Well, Mom and Dad didn’t know any better, but I was worried sick, young man,” she says sternly.
“No, you weren’t,” Will scoffs.
“I could have been worried.”
Will sits down too, steals Harriet’s cup of coffee, and takes a drink before handing it back to her. “But you weren’t.” He stretches. “We both know where he was. How’s Dylan?”
“Awesome,” I mutter.
“You sure?” Harri asks. “’Cause you don’t sound it.”
“Why weren’t you with Freya, anyway? Aren’t you two supposed to be getting it on after all this time?” Will asks.
Harriet sighs and cuffs him over the back of the head too.
“What? What? What?” Will asks while ducking away from the slaps.
“Don’t be a perv,” Harriet says.
“How am I a perv? I wasn’t asking for video evidence!”
Harriet rolls her eyes and ignores Will, concentrating all her attention on me. “No, really. Why weren’t you at Freya’s?”
“I…” I rub my face and blow out a breath.
Harriet and Will exchange looks and sidle closer. In a shuffle of limbs, they both wrap their arms around me from either side.
“Hon?” Harri says, and the way she says it reminds me so much of how Mom says it that it almost makes me smile. “Are you okay?”
“I…” The words falter again, and eventually I give a helpless shrug. “I honestly don’t know.”
“What happened?” Will asks, all business. “Lay it on us.”
I stare at my feet. “Something happened while we were stuck on that island,” I mutter. “Some… stuff.”
Will and Harriet exchange glances.
“You’re right. That’s all we needed to know. Everything makes total sense now,” Harriet says when I’ve been silent for about five seconds total. It’s good to know at least some things have stayed the same, and she’s still as impatient as ever.
I pluck a blade of grass that’s started to grow between the driveway and the front step of the house. The sun is about to rise, and I want to think it’s a good sign. Whatever happens, the sun will still continue to rise and—oh, fuck that. Fuck that inspirational bullshit.
“I love him,” I say.
Harriet stills.
“Love who?” Will asks.
Harriet sighs, shakes her head, and ignores Will.
“When you say you love him… You mean, like, love love?”
“Are we just seeing who can say love the most?” Will asks, looking left and right between me and Harri while we both ignore him.
“I don’t know how it happened,” I say.
“But…” Harriet doesn’t seem to know how to finish that thought. It takes her a second to continue. “But it’s Dylan.”
Will snaps his head toward me. “Wait, what?”
I rub my temples with the heels of my hands before I squeeze my head between them as hard as I can, boxing glove and all. “I know,” I say impatiently. “Believe me. I fucking know.”
“What about Freya?” Harriet asks.
I hold my arms out and give a helpless shrug.
“You know, you weren’t gay when you left,” Will says thoughtfully.
Harriet sighs, reaches out, and smacks Will over the back of the head again.
Will slaps at her. “Stop hitting me. I’m just asking questions.”
Unbelievably, I snort out a laugh. This whole situation is just too absurd.
“I’m not gay. I’m pretty sure I might be bi, though,” I add after a few seconds of silence.
I’ve never said that out loud. You’d think it would feel at least somewhat scary to admit that, but it’s not.
It might have been in other circumstances, but I’ve got a lot on my plate right now as is, so my sexuality doesn’t make the cut.
“Does that mean… What about Freya?” Harriet repeats.
I blow out a breath. “She needs time to think about it.”
“And Dylan?”
A snort escapes. A snort mixed with restrained desperation. “He says he’s giving me freedom to figure out what I want.”
Harriet and Will both fall silent for a bit.
“I’m not sure you want to hear this, but that makes sense,” Harriet says carefully.
“I hate it,” I say vehemently.
“Even so.”
“What does that mean?”
“If I were Dylan, I’d want to be sure too,” Harriet says.
“Yeah. Great,” I mutter.
She wraps her arms around me from one side, and Will does the same from the other.
“I’m sorry,” Harriet says.
I blow out a breath and close my eyes and try to feel… less.
It doesn’t work.
Freya texts me two days later. I’ve been moping around my old room, my mind running in circles, trying to use logic to figure out what I feel and getting nowhere because it just so happens that feelings don’t have anything to do with logic.
It’s been enough time for me to realize I still don’t have a fucking clue what to say.
It’s enough time for me to realize how much I need to know that she’s okay. That I need her to be all right.
I borrow Mom’s car and head over when Freya gives me the go-ahead.
I still haven’t told anybody else what’s going on, besides Will and Harriet.
I don’t know what to say, and I don’t even know if it’s something I should tell other people since it’s not just my personal business.
It’s also Freya’s and Dylan’s. I’m pretty sure Mom can sense something is wrong, but she hasn’t said anything yet.
I’m grateful.
Freya buzzes me in, and I go upstairs. Everything is strangely familiar.
I remember when we first came to see this place.
Freya liked it instantly. The large windows and the high ceilings.
The hardwood floors and the sunny windowsills.
The rent was out of our set budget, but I knew she wanted to live here so badly that I didn’t even care. I just wanted to make her happy.
We danced in the kitchen the night we moved in, among all the moving boxes, drank a bottle of cheap champagne, and laughed until our stomachs started to hurt.
I knock on the door. I don’t think I’ve ever knocked on this door in my life. Because I used to have a key.
It takes a few of the longest seconds of my life before I hear footsteps, and then she opens the door.