63. Dylan
SIXTY-THREE
DYLAN
I’m all nerves when I get to the park. The play is about to start, and I waited until the last possible moment to sneak inside.
It was a good idea, except I didn’t consider how much attention I’d draw when making my way past rows of people to get to my seat.
Everybody is already sitting, so I’m one of the few assholes who’s pretty much late.
It doesn’t matter, though. Means to an end. It means I can’t talk to Adrian because the play’s about to start.
With how many people are coming to cheer Daisy on, you’d think there was almost no chance I’d have to sit next to Adrian. Especially because it should be Freya sitting next to him.
That’s what I’m banking on. It doesn’t work out exactly like that though, since they’ve all left me a seat at the end of the row, but that also means Adrian’s ass is planted in the chair right next to mine. And Freya is nowhere to be seen.
I’d switch, but there are no more free seats and people are starting to whisper and point at me, because now I’m literally the only person standing up, so I gingerly fold myself into the chair, making damn sure there’s enough space between us that no part of my body is touching any part of Adrian’s body.
“You made it,” he says in a low voice.
“Traffic,” I whisper back, then determinedly aim my gaze at the stage.
“Dyl—” Adrian starts to say.
“Shh. It’s starting.” I lean forward like an eager kid at school, ready to cram some knowledge into my brain.
“Yeah, okay, but I need to?—”
“Later.” I start to clap when everybody else does and then pretend he doesn’t exist for the next sixty minutes.
When the intermission starts, I jump up and quickly disappear into the crowd, then make my way toward Mia right as the second act is about to begin and switch seats with her. I can feel Adrian’s eyes on me, but I refuse to look at him.
I can’t be trusted near him. If nothing else, that has been proven conclusively. When I’m near Adrian, I lose all common sense. I don’t care about what’s wrong or what’s right anymore. I become greedy and selfish, and I don’t give a damn about the consequences.
I have to keep my distance. Otherwise, I’ll make this situation even worse.
The play ends, and I make sure to stay in the midst of people while we make our way to the side of the stage. Daisy appears from the back a few minutes later, still dressed in her flowy lilac dress, looking radiantly happy.
“Oh, this was the best,” she says before she starts hugging everybody while we congratulate her. “There’s an after-party for the crew. I know I said we could celebrate after, but…” She bites her lip and looks at her parents pleadingly.
“There’s always tomorrow evening,” Eric says with an affectionate laugh. “Go have fun, my girl. Call me when you need somebody to pick you up, though.”
She hugs Lynn and Eric once more, and then she’s off.
Lynn turns around, her gaze moving over everybody else. “Dinner, anybody?”
“Actually—” Eric wraps his arm around her waist, pulling her closer. “—we’re already dressed and out on the town. How about a date night?”
Lynn laughs and leans into him. “Oh? I have to say, that sounds very enticing.”
Eric kisses her before he salutes us. “You’re on your own, children.”
And they’re off.
“Pizza?” Harriet asks with a shrug once the parents are gone.
“That place in North End where we went a few weeks ago,” Hunter says. There’s excited chatter all around me.
“Hey,” I tell Harriet quietly. “I’m taking off.”
“Come on. What about food?”
“I’m kind of tired.”
She sends me a knowing look but doesn’t try and convince me to stay.
“I’ll see you,” I say.
I’m so close to being in the clear…
Adrian is suddenly right next to me.
“I’ll give you a ride,” he says.
“I’m okay. Really. My place isn’t that far from here.”
He stops me with his fingers around my wrist and steel in his eyes.
“I insist.”
We walk to his car and get in. I imagine pulling a runner and then abandon that plan.
For the first five minutes we’re both silent.
I determinedly keep my eyes on the window and not on Adrian and his long fingers wrapped around the steering wheel, or the way his forearms flex when he changes gear, or the way his Adam’s apple moves when he swallows, or how close his thigh is to mine, or how?—
The back of his hand grazes the back of mine. We both go very still.
“Sorry,” Adrian says. “I was just…”
He changes gear again.
I squeeze my hands into fists, stuff them underneath my thighs, and breathe in slowly, deeply, and as inaudibly as possible.
I’m hot and cold all at once, like I have a fever. My pulse pounds in my neck, and my mouth is painfully dry.
Adrian glances at me.
“You’re avoiding me,” he says.
“I don’t think you can say I’m avoiding you when I’m right here.”
He throws me a look.
Point taken.
“I’ve got a lot on my plate right now,” I mumble.
“Okay. Then tell me what’s going on.”
I try to think of anything to say. I try to figure out if I have something going on, and I know I do, but my head is completely empty.
“It doesn’t matter,” I eventually say.
Silence again.
We’re almost there. Almost at my place. The borrowed apartment. Almost out of the woods. I nearly start to relax.
Adrian suddenly jerks the wheel and parks in a random spot on the street.
I look around. “This isn’t where—I mean, yeah, sure. I can walk.” I start to unbuckle the seat belt.
He clutches the wheel. “We talk about everything, you and me. There are no secrets. Nothing is off-limits.”
His words wrap themselves around my throat like a noose that gets tighter and tighter, so breathing gets harder and harder.
There have always been secrets between us. Or at least one big secret. The one I’ve kept for years and will keep for the rest of my days.
“What do you want from me?” I ask.
“For you to be annoyed,” he says. “At the very least, annoyed. Or pissed off. Angry. Be… be something! Instead of this distant bullshit.”
The noose gets even tighter.
I look down at my hands. Emotions swirl into a tornado inside me, and I’m afraid to even breathe because something might escape.
“Dyl.” He turns to face me. “I told myself I’d give you some time?—”
I can’t breathe at all anymore. Feet off the ground. Dangling on a rope braided of words.
“I’m gonna go.” I cut him off because I’m teetering on the edge.
He grabs my hand and squeezes it so hard I can feel my bones creak. “Don’t go.”
“It’s late.”
It’s a lame excuse. He knows it. I know it.
He looks at me and sighs. His jaw clenches. “Dyl?—”
“Don’t.” I swallow hard. “Just let me go home. Everything is difficult enough, so don’t make me sit here and spill my guts when I’m trying so hard to keep it together.”
“You don’t have to keep it together. That’s my problem. Talk to me. Fucking lean on me!”
“I can’t!” I snap.
He clutches the wheel again and growls before he turns his body so he’s facing me again. “Why not?”
Because what if you leave?
“You might not always be there to lean on.” I scramble to get out, but he lunges toward me and pulls me against him, so my forehead is against his.
We’re both breathing harshly. His hands are on my face, and his eyes are dark blue and stormy.
“Talk to me,” he says.
“What do you want me to say?” I say through gritted teeth.
“That I don’t sleep? Because I don’t. It’s like I don’t remember how.
I doze off on the floor because that’s the only way my body seems to give me a break and consider it an acceptable alternative to sleeping in a canvas life raft on sand.
I live in an empty apartment because buying things makes me nervous for reasons that are completely beyond me.
I can’t physically force myself to go to a store.
I’ve tried. I can’t. There are so many people everywhere.
Everywhere . And they’re loud, and they talk all the time.
Have you noticed how much people talk? Because I have.
And there’s so many of them. Did I mention how many people there are?
A fuckton. A shitload.” I rub my eyes with my fingers and try to shut up.
“I have no idea what to do with myself. I don’t belong anywhere.
It’s like while I was gone, the world shrank, but only by that specific amount of space I used to occupy.
And I’m not saying I used to have it all figured out all the time.
Hell, probably not even most of the time.
But I had a life. Now I don’t have anything anymore because I don’t fit.
” I let out a shaky breath. “I don’t fit anywhere anymore.
It scares the shit out of me.” I squeeze my eyes shut tighter.
“And I’m so tired.” My voice is impossibly small by the time I’m done.
I press my fingertips against my eyes so hard I start to see patterns.
Adrian lets me go.
I feel even emptier.
He pulls the car back onto the street quietly, not saying a single word.
We don’t talk.
A few minutes later, he parks in front of my building. He looks up at the rows and rows of windows with lights shining through them.
“Ask me to stay,” he says.
I shake my head, weary to the bone. “It’s a terrible idea.”
“Ask me anyway.”
This is like building a pyre for my own execution.
“Will you stay?” I ask.
He nods.
We go upstairs in silence and sneak into the apartment in silence. All the lights are off, and Indy is quietly snoring on the couch in the living room. I close my bedroom door behind us with a quiet snick.
I give him a pair of sweats and take some for myself. He bites his lower lip and starts to undress in front of me. First, he grabs the hem of his shirt and pulls it over his head. The jeans follow. Then the underwear.
My mouth is bone dry, and my heart beats violently against the inside of my chest as I take him in. His skin is still golden brown, his chest wide and tapering into narrow hips. Neither of us has put on much weight yet, so we’re both still too skinny, but it shows less on him than me.