68. Dylan
SIXTY-EIGHT
DYLAN
I drag my feet all the way from my bedroom to the kitchen. Once there, I make myself a huge cup of the blackest coffee known to humankind and drink it without registering the taste.
Once that’s done, I head to the bathroom for a lovely ice-cold shower.
Then it’s another cup of coffee.
It’s the only way to keep myself awake in the mornings lately.
It’s been a week since Adrian walked out on me. I haven’t heard from him since.
I think I’m in a state of numb denial, because I don’t think I’ve really accepted that I said those things to Adrian.
I lie awake at night and replay that brief conversation in my head, over and over again while I clutch my phone to my chest and tell myself to call him. I stare at the ceiling and overthink and second-guess the whole night through.
A week in, I’m practically hallucinating from the self-imposed insomnia.
“Why don’t you just talk to him?” Indy asks. He’s both exasperated and annoyed with me. He’s been asking that question for close to a week already. And calling me an idiot. A dumbass. A fucking shit-for-brains imbecile.
“Because I can’t. Because it’d be pointless.
Because I’m a dick. Because… You don’t know Freya, okay?
She’s a good person. She’s really nice and funny and smart.
She volunteers as a tutor twice a week. She does grocery runs for her elderly neighbors.
She walks shelter dogs. She’s really, really nice.
I screwed her over. So now all she’s asking is for me to take a step back and let Adrian figure out his feelings.
She’s not demanding anything. She’s not telling me to fuck off.
She’s not angry. She’s not even blaming me.
All she asks is for me to… give her a shot to get her fiancé back. Am I gonna say no to that?”
Indy eyes me calmly. “That’s some first-class martyr behavior.”
“Tell me at least a part of you doesn’t understand where I’m coming from with this,” I challenge.
He can’t.
“Case closed,” I mutter.
“Hardly,” he scoffs. He sends me a worried look.
There’ve been a lot of those lately. “Come to San Francisco with me. Not permanently,” he barrels on when I open my mouth.
“Just for a while. Give yourself a break. Yeah, okay, you feel guilty and want to alleviate some of it by being a martyr. You don’t have to be here and sit around being miserable. ”
“Do you think I won’t be miserable somewhere else? Because I highly doubt a change of scenery will do much.”
“It might help clear your head.”
I don’t have anything to say to that.
Eventually he sighs, comes and stands in front of me, and hugs me.
“Do you want me to stay?”
“You have a life to get back to.” I try not to sound miserable. I don’t think I’m pulling it off.
“I’d put it on hold for you.”
“That’d just make me feel even more guilty, and I’d be an even more pathetically miserable asshole.”
“God save us all,” Indy jokes.
I manage a laugh.
Indy keeps hugging me.