66. Dylan
SIXTY-SIX
DYLAN
I breathe in deeply the moment I walk into the apartment, because it smells fucking awesome here.
“Honey, I’m home,” I call out while I wrestle my jacket off and throw my keys into the basket.
Indy sticks his head out from around the kitchen corner. “Should I take your hat and get you a martini?”
“And wear something pretty for me.” I toe off my sneakers and make my way inside the apartment. “What are you making?”
I like having Indy here anyway, but it doesn’t hurt that he feeds me.
“Steak and roasted veggies,” he says. “Want some?”
“Do you even have to ask?”
He shakes his head with mock sadness. “I’m starting to feel like the only reason you keep me around is my meat.”
“That’s not true,” I protest. “The other day you made those vegan tacos, and I managed perfectly well without your meat.”
“Tell yourself whatever you need to cope.”
I grin and flip him off. He puts out two plates and starts to serve the food just as my phone rings.
I go and pick it up, frowning when I see Lynn’s name on the screen. She doesn’t usually call. There’s a family chat that gets messages all day long from everybody, so people don’t really call unless it’s something important.
I wince. There’s a chance something’s been said in the family chat, but I have it muted because… Because Freya is also a part of it, and I’m sort of trying to pretend she doesn’t exist because I’m a great person like that.
“Hello?” I say.
“Dylan,” she says with the warm, affectionate tone I’ve always associated with Lynn. “How are you doing, darling?”
“Good,” I say, and surprisingly, I sort of mean it? Yeah, my life is a huge mess, but I have Adrian in it. Which is, admittedly, a huge part of the overall mess, but I’ve been ignoring the messy parts recently and just concentrating on the fact that I have him.
For now.
“That’s great, hon,” she says. “Listen, are you busy? I have a small favor to ask.”
“Anything,” I say at once.
She chuckles. “That was easy. Adrian has a physical therapy appointment, and I’m supposed to pick him up in an hour, but Daisy has some sort of outfit-related emergency, so she’s crying in the changing room at Thrifty Threads. I can stop by your place and drop off the car for you?”
I can help Lynn out and see Adrian? That’s a win-win situation if there ever was one.
“Yeah. Of course,” I say.
“Perfect. I’ve been messaging everybody, but they’re all busy.”
“I’ll do it.” I nod. “I’ve got nothing planned.”
“I’ll be there in five.”
I hang up and grin at the phone.
“Creepy,” Indy says. “Stop making eyes at your phone.”
I try to scowl at him. It’s not really working. “Shut up.”
“No lunch, then?”
“No. Something came up.”
He sends me a knowing look. “Say hi to Adrian for me.”
I flip him off once more for good measure and head out the door.
The PT’s office is in Cambridge, but the traffic is light, so I make it there with time to spare.
If anybody asked me right now what the last thing I wanted to happen was? Lately the answer’s always the same. The last thing I want is to run into Freya.
So of course that’s the first thing that happens when I reach the front door of the center.
We’re both standing there, staring at each other with equally wide eyes.
“Oh,” she says.
I’ve got nothing, but I feel my whole body go hot from… guilt? Shame? Remorse? Jealousy? All of the above?
I try to figure out something to say, but I’ve got nothing.
Sorry I’m in love with your fiancé?
“Hello,” she says in a measured, reserved tone that doesn’t sound at all like the Freya I used to know.
It makes sense. It’s also yet another reminder of the consequences I have to face, and it’s a reality check in a way.
The Olsens love Freya. She’s one of them.
By now, they have a history with her that can and very likely does rival what I have with them.
So what will happen once they all find out about me and Adrian?
That question has been an echoing void inside me for a while now. I’ve been trying to pave it over and not think about it, but the cracks are showing on the surface already.
“Hi,” I say carefully.
Freya measures me with her gaze. She does it almost studiously, and at least at first glance, it doesn’t look like she’s actively planning to murder me.
“You’re here for Adrian?” she asks.
I nod. “Lynn called me.”
“I know.”
I don’t know exactly what she’s getting at, but she sends me the kind of meaningful look that implies I should understand what she’s thinking.
I don’t.
What now?
Because I don’t think we both walk in there and pretend none of this is out of the ordinary and weird as fuck for all parties involved.
Nerves are doing somersaults in my stomach, and it makes me feel sick, but I also can’t seem to move.
“I didn’t plan for any of this to happen.” I don’t plan to say that either, but it comes out anyway.
“I know. But it doesn’t change that it did happen.
” She sounds sad, and I wish I was a good enough person to feel sorry for her, but all I really am is tired of the guilt.
I deserve it, but somehow it doesn’t stop me from wishing it would just go away.
Freya looks away for a moment before she turns back to me and sighs.
“I really wish I could just blame it all on you. It’d make everything much easier.
Like, I wish I could just straight-out hate you. ”
“Why don’t you?”
She gives a helpless shrug. “Because I know what it’s like to love him, so a part of me understands how you could fall for him, too.”
She eyes me for another long moment.
“I have a confession. I knew you’d be here,” she says. “I made sure I’d run into you.”
I can only stare and feel the kind of premonition that tells you the icy fingers squeezing your insides are there for a reason.
“It’s not fair,” she says. “What you’re doing.
How you’re always there. It’s not fair. How are the two of you ever going to recover from what you’ve been through if you won’t give each other time and space to be apart?
” She lifts her chin a bit and squares her shoulders.
“I’m not saying I know what you’re going through, but what you two are doing right now…
It’s codependent, and that’s not healthy for either of you.
This… excessive emotional reliance you have on each other isn’t right, and it will end up hurting you both. ”
She looks down at her feet. “Look, I’m sure there are feelings involved.
You two have always been close. I’m sure you can’t go through an experience like you two did and not grow even closer.
But have you even considered that that might be all it is?
Bonding over a shared trauma. I’m sure it feels incredibly intense.
I’m sure there’s a fair helping of feeling like you’re the only two people who get each other right now.
Who get what the other is going through.
Is there any chance you’re just mixing the intensity of that feeling up with being in love with him? ”
I try to swallow, but my throat is bone dry. Thing is, she’s not telling me anything new. She’s not saying anything I haven’t thought before. And maybe it doesn’t apply to me—I’ve been in love with Adrian for almost half my life—but for Adrian?
What’s more likely? That he suddenly found himself in love with me?
Or… he loves me. Of course he does. But it’s also pretty damn likely that it isn’t romantic love.
It’s platonic love on crack. Platonic love peppered with liberal amounts of adrenaline and trauma, and it’ll be halfway impossible to tell the difference.
And if that’s the case, I’ve been right all along. That intensity will fade sooner rather than later. He’ll come to his senses. He’ll look at me… and he’ll regret me.
Freya’s hand slides up my forearm, and I jerk.
“You need time apart. It’s the only way for you both to find yourselves. I’m not saying this to be a bitch or something. Believe it or not, I do have his best interests in mind. Yours, too.”
I lick my dry lips.
Bow my head.
I can’t look at her.
“You’ll give him a ride?” I ask softly.
I see her nod out of the corner of my eye.
I turn around and walk away.
I tell myself to go home, but I don’t get that far. Instead, I stay by the corner of the building and wait.
It takes about ten minutes for Adrian to come out. Freya is walking next to him, and they’re smiling at each other.
She says something. He smiles.
He says something. She throws her head back and laughs, all brilliant and beautiful and glowing.
She leans closer, her hand on his shoulder now, lips moving when she talks, and Adrian gets a kind of soft look in his eyes at whatever she’s telling him.
His lips move, and then he’s grinning. Freya’s mouth drops open in the kind of playful pretend shock, and she tries to tickle that spot just below his ribs. He ducks away from her with a laugh.
They laugh and play fight, and she chases him, and he runs away, and they’re both laughing out loud, and I feel sick to my stomach with jealousy and sadness.
They reach the car, and Freya throws Adrian the keys. He catches them, and they’re still talking and laughing when they get into the car.
I stand behind the corner of the building and wrap my arms around myself. Almost like I’m trying to keep myself in one piece.
This doesn’t mean anything. That’s what I tell myself. It doesn’t mean that this is it. That it’s Adrian and Freya from now on.
Or it could mean just that.
There’s a hollow ache in my gut that starts to burn hotter and hotter. Sharp, merciless flames of jealousy lick my insides. It’s all so familiar.
Only this time something happens. This time, the sharp stabs of jealousy don’t let up. This time they keep burning inside me. Raw and undeniable. It’s as if the sight of Adrian and Freya together makes their relationship more real.
It makes it so much harder to pretend it’s still just me and Adrian.