61. Dylan #2
I snort and shake my head. Oh, where to start? With the nightmares where I spend night after night chopping of different parts of his body, and then waking up sobbing and screaming? Or maybe with how I’m finding it increasingly difficult to leave my apartment because I’m afraid of people?
How about the constant flashbacks of hunger and isolation? I have to have food at home always, or I can’t function at all, but I’m never hungry because I have to conserve the food I do have, so there’s some kind of mental block between me and eating.
Or how it feels like I’ve been on edge for so long that now, as a response, all my emotions are just gone. I’m always numb. Emotionally flat. But also impossibly guilty because I’m alive, but Abel isn’t.
Sudden noises make me jump.
Absence of noises makes me terrified.
Images flash through my mind.
I’m standing in line at the grocery store when the hum of the refrigerators cuts out.
Just a tiny flicker of silence, barely a second.
My chest seizes before I even realize what’s happening.
That sound—the drop into nothing—takes me right back to the nights when the dark pressed in so close it felt like the whole world had swallowed me whole.
My palms are sweating, my throat tight, and suddenly the shelves of cereal blur into nothing.
I know I’m safe. I know I’m not there anymore.
But my body doesn’t believe me. My body is screaming: danger.
Alone. No one’s coming. It takes everything I have not to run outside.
To calmly put the basket down. And walk out.
I wake up choking on my own breath, heart pounding so hard I swear it’s going to crack my ribs.
For a moment I can’t remember where I am—just darkness pressing in, heavy and endless, the same as it was out there.
My skin’s damp with sweat, sheets tangled around me like vines in the jungle.
I sit up fast, fingers grappling for purchase, like the floor can keep me in place.
My ears strain for the crash of waves, for the rustle of something creeping too close, and when I hear nothing, the silence is almost worse.
I have to flick on the lamp, just to see four walls around me, just to convince myself I’m not back on that shore.
But even in the soft glow of the light, part of me doesn’t buy it.
Part of me is still out there, always waiting for the night to turn on me again.
I turn on the faucet, and the rush of water slams into me like a wave breaking over my head.
My lungs forget how to work. The sound is too close, too loud—it’s not the sink anymore, it’s the ocean, swallowing me whole.
My hands clamp the counter so hard my knuckles ache, but the floor tilts anyway, pitching and rolling like I’m back on that damn life raft.
My mouth goes dry, my stomach clenches, and all I can think is Adrian.
I’ve killed him. I’ve dragged him away from the safety of land, and now we’re both going to die.
By the time I snap back, the faucet is still running, harmless, steady, and I feel ridiculous—standing here gasping for air because of tap water.
But the salt sting in my throat and the phantom drag of the current are still with me, as real as if I’d just been pulled under again.
“Dyl?”
I snap my eyes to where Adrian’s fingers are wrapped around my arm, warm and steady.
I lick over my dry lips and force myself to swallow down the anxiety.
Methodically and purposefully, I make myself smile.
“I went to a bakery on the ground floor of my apartment building and bought four cinnamon rolls this morning,” I say. “Those genuinely might have been the best things I’ve ever eaten.”
“Without me?” He gives a mock gasp, but even this teasing exchange hits a bit too close to home, because it’s not like wandering around in a strange neighborhood alone is what I want.
“I’ll have to take you with me one of these days to make it up to you, then.”
“You better.”
We both stand there on the dark street, fidgeting, hovering.
“How was your night?” I ask. I feel my whole face freeze into a mask while alarm bells start to blare. Abort. Abort. I don’t want to know. Nothing. At all. Ever.
“I was?—”
I start to shake my head vehemently. “No,” I blurt way too loudly. “No. I… That wasn’t what I meant to ask.”
“Dyl—” he starts to say.
“Let’s just pretend I didn’t ask anything at all.” I look around frantically, as if there’s something here that would help me steer myself back to safety, but it’s only me and him and the dark street. I turn back to look at him.
“I have to go,” I say. “It’s getting late.”
“Let me drive you.” He steps closer and reaches out before he remembers himself. His fingers curl into a fist, and the hand drops to his side.
“I was going to walk.” There’s some kind of lump in my throat that makes me sound all wrong. “I really like to walk. Helps clear my head.”
“I like to walk too.” He looks at me with palpable desperation, and it’s getting really difficult to remember why I’m doing this.
Why I can’t just be with him. I mean, yes, he might come to his senses and leave me then, but that would be in the future.
I could still have him now . If he ever left me it’d be in the future. Maybe way in the future. Maybe never.
But you’d always wonder. All the time. You’d always be waiting for the other shoe to drop. And sure, maybe it won’t ever drop, but you’d still be waiting for it to happen.
“I have to go,” I say.
“I want to show you something. If you just… Ten minutes?”
Oh, this is such a bad idea.
I nod anyway, because it’s an extra ten minutes with Adrian. I don’t even get to have a big inner debate about it. I just nod.
“Come on.” He turns around and starts to walk. I fall into step next to him. We don’t say anything, but that’s the thing with Adrian. We don’t need to talk. We don’t need to fill the silence because silence between us has always been just as organic as words.
He leads me back to his parents’ house, through the gate, and through the backyard, until we’re standing under the treehouse. Without even realizing I’m doing it, I find myself smiling.
The place has a slight air of abandonment about it. I suppose there’s not much of a market for a treehouse in a family where the youngest kids are teenagers.
“Let’s go,” Adrian says. “Up.”
Once upon a time we replaced the rope ladder with a rope. I haven’t climbed one in ages, but I give it a firm tug. It stays put, so I grab onto it and start climbing. It’s not that high, so even if I’m not in that great of a shape, I manage.
Once I’m up, I sit my ass down on the floor and look around. Sometime in the last few years this place has shrunk.
It doesn’t look too bad, but everything’s got a layer of grime on it, like nobody’s been here in ages.
“Give me a sec,” Adrian says from below. I peer over the edge just as he grabs the rope and starts to climb. He huffs and keeps up a steady string of curses, and when he gets up, he’s all out of breath, leaning forward, hands on knees.
“Turns out,” he pants, “not as easy to do with only eight fingers.” He sends me a warning look. “Don’t apologize.”
I clamp my mouth shut.
He takes a few more deep breaths before he straightens his back and looks around.
“I haven’t been here in years,” he says.
I get up and go inside. It smells faintly of decay. All the pillows and blankets we used to have here are gone, but the shelf of model cars is still here, and the chest of drawers, too. I pull the bottom drawer open and grin when I see the box.
I carefully pick it up and wipe the dust off. The light is too low to see properly, so I go and stand in the doorway.
The wonky skull and crossbones still decorate the lid. I trace the lines with the tips of my fingers, and my smile widens. We used a magnifying glass to burn the image onto the wood and almost set the treehouse on fire by accident.
“What do you have there?” Adrian asks. He comes and stands next to me. I instinctively lean closer, but at the same time remember I’m not supposed to, so I pull my body back, but since I’m standing in a doorway that is decidedly too low for a grown adult, I smack right into the frame.
“Ow. Shit!” I rub my forehead, and the box falls to the floor.
My eyes water from the direct hit to my eyebrow.
“Come here,” Adrian says in a commanding tone. He takes my hand and leads me outside, where he pushes me to sit down on the ledge.
“Let me see,” he says. His thumb slides over my brow. I can’t breathe. The warm night air goes scorching hot.
“What’s the prognosis?” I try to go for a joke, but it comes out hoarse.
“You’ll survive.” His eyes are as soft as his tone.
Our gazes lock. Time goes on without us, and I’m fine with it. I want to stand still in this whirl of passing seconds with Adrian.
Somewhere nearby, a branch snaps.
I snap too.
Out of this heartbreakingly perfect stillness.
“I found this.” I pick up the treasure box.
Adrian’s gaze is still soft. Still on me.
“It’s what I wanted to show you,” he says. He looks away, and in that fraction of a second he does, he gathers himself, so when he looks at me again, the vulnerability is gone along with the softness.
I want to think I’m the only one who’s ever seen him like this—all of him, nothing held back, nothing hidden—even if I know it’s not true. Even if I know I’m not even the first one who gets to see this side of him.
Adrian takes the box from me and inspects it, tracing the skull and bones just like I did earlier. He lifts it up and shakes it gently. Something rattles inside.
“What are you doing?” I ask with a smile.
“Checking if everything is still here.”
“Sure. Why would you use your eyes for that when ears will get the job done just as easily?”
He sticks out his tongue, and I chuckle. I feel thirteen again. Simpler times.
“You can do the honors.” He holds the box out. I lift the lid, and we both peer inside, our foreheads almost touching.