69. Dylan
SIXTY-NINE
DYLAN
I wallow in misery and avoid people. After two weeks of being insufferable, I can’t stand the four walls of my apartment, but I can’t stand to be outside either.
My heart and soul feel like they’ve been put through a blender, and I can’t do anything to fix them.
I keep busy with meaningless tasks I set myself.
I run.
I find a crappy gym that’s cheap and seemingly half-abandoned, and I start going there.
I buy a cookbook and start working my way through it, fixing myself proper meals and eating them at the kitchen counter.
I put one foot in front of the other, and I keep moving forward.
I miss him.
I don’t know how to live without him.
I can’t sit still. If I sit still, I don’t know if I’ll get back up, so my mission for now is to keep moving.
Where?
No idea.
I’ll figure out the direction later on.
“Two point six million dollars,” Nina says.
I’m tempted to dig the tip of my finger into my ear, because that’s got to be the wrong number.
“I’m sorry, how much?” I ask.
She sends me an impatient look. “Two point six million dollars.”
“That’s too much,” I say just as Nina says, “I agree, it’s not even close to enough.”
We stare at each other.
She sighs. “It’s not per person. It’s money that’ll be divided between you and Adrian.”
“Yes, I got it the first time you said it.” I frown. “It’s still too much.”
“For the emotional stress and the bodily harm caused it’s not even scratching the surface. This is a negotiation, Dylan. You cannot accept the first offer they put on the table. This company has plenty of money, and you deserve to be compensated for what you went through.”
I shrug. “I’m not interested in some lengthy court battle. I just want to put this whole thing behind me.”
She crosses her arms over her chest.
“This is completely unreasonable behavior, Dylan. Try to remember. I’m not just your lawyer. I only have your best interests at heart.”
“If that’s true you’ll listen to what I want,” I say calmly.
“Oh, for crying out loud,” she mutters. “You two are giving me gray hair.”
I try to keep my face blank and my breathing even. “What did Adrian say?”
She lets out an annoyed huff. “Essentially the same thing.”
“Well, that’s decided, isn’t it?”
She sends me a tight smile. “I’ll draw up the paperwork.”
It takes me a bit of time to trust that I’m in control of my emotions and will be able to put on a convincing act of being my normal self.
I’m not.
But I don’t want anybody to know.
Pride is a hollow companion, but it’s all I have.
I get the money, but I don’t feel much of anything when I look at the stupidly large number on my bank balance.
I buy myself a car. A black Honda Civic that doesn’t look like anything special but is cheap and in good enough shape that I don’t have to worry too much about getting stranded somewhere.
I start going driving. First around the edges of Boston and random suburbs, then out in the countryside.
Then to neighboring states.
I listen to music.
And I drive.
There’s this vague feeling of searching for something inside me that I can’t explain, but it gets me away from my apartment for longer and longer stretches of time. I don’t know where I’m going, but whatever I’m searching for, I never find it.
I keep looking anyway.
I get out of the car and slam the door shut behind me.
The noise echoes loudly in the quiet parking lot, and I wince and stay still for a moment because as we all know that helps.
There’s nobody else around, though, so I don’t get to end up being the dick who can’t manage to keep quiet in a cemetery.
I lock the car, head through the gates, and make my way through the rows of headstones.
I stop in front of the modest, white rectangle with the name Christine Emily Lang engraved in it.
There are also the dates for her birth and death year and nothing else.
All very simple, clean, and clinical. Nothing about the way she used to leave notes in my lunchbox or always kissed me on the forehead before bed.
How she used to cut sandwiches diagonally instead of straight because “it tastes better this way” or how she always used to repeat, “Keys, wallet, phone—ready to go,” under her breath before she went out the door.
Although, in the end, does it really matter anyway?
I crouch down and slide my palm over the letters of her name.
“Hi, Mom,” I say.
I put the sunflowers I brought her next to her headstone, sit down on the grass, and breathe in deeply.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been by in a while.” I look down at my hands that are tangling uselessly between my knees. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I had this little mishap where I got stuck on a desert island for a while. Sounds a bit like I’m making it up.”
I glance up from where I’m still staring at my hands and let my gaze wander over the green grass, trees, and headstones. I’ve always found cemeteries peaceful. Not sad. Just places of tranquility and calm.
“Anyway,” I say. “That happened. Things are a bit hectic now. Inside me, you know?” I pluck a blade of grass and start tearing it into strips.
“I did something stupid. You see, I love him,” I say softly.
“Always have. But he’s not really mine. I didn’t care.
It didn’t really matter on the island. You sort of forget real life exists after a while.
It’s…” The whole story comes out. From that first realization when I was fifteen to the moment on the life raft. Everything.
Once I’m done, I blow out a breath and rake my hands through my hair. “Well, it’s a huge mess now. Any words of advice would be great?”
Everything is quiet.
“Yeah. Didn’t think so,” I say and nod.
I squeeze my eyes shut. “What do I do?”
“You should tell him.”
I nearly scream out loud before I scramble backward because what the everloving fuck?
It takes me a moment to calm down enough to figure out this is not the dead rising.
It’s Nina.
She’s standing where I was just sitting, holding a bouquet of dahlias in her hand.
I blink at her.
“What are you doing here?”
She looks at the headstone and then quirks her brow at me.
“Right,” I say.
We both stand around awkwardly, neither of us seemingly knowing what to say.
Nina steps closer to Mom’s grave and gently places the flowers down.
She slides her fingertips over the top of the headstone for a brief moment, and there’s a small smile playing in the corner of her lips as she does.
A second later, she seems to remember me, and as if embarrassed, she snatches her hand away.
She turns her head and eyes me for a moment, before she takes a step toward me.
She looks down on the ground and makes a pained face before she opens her purse, pulls out her laptop case, takes the laptop out, and stuffs it back into the bag before placing the case on the ground and gingerly taking a seat.
It’s a whole big production in her pencil skirt and high heels.
I’m still at a loss about what to say, so I just stare straight ahead, and so does Nina. Neither of us leaves. Neither of us speaks for a long time.
“I’ve been coming to visit her for a while now,” Nina suddenly says.
“Mom?” I ask dumbly.
She ignores the question.
“It took me a long time to gather my courage after you went missing to come see her,” Nina says. “She left you to me when she died. She trusted me to take care of you. Suffice to say I didn’t do a good job.”
“Well,” I say.
She throws me a withering look. “Don’t argue.
I failed you. I know.” She gets a faraway look in her eyes as her gaze gets stuck somewhere on the horizon.
“I was never supposed to be someone’s mother.
I’m not good at emotions. Jon was. Me? Not so much.
I’ve been emotionally constipated my whole life.
And then you came along, and you were…longing for something I didn’t know how to give you. Things only got worse after Jon died.”
I look at her profile.
“Do you love Preston?” It’s probably not my place to ask, but I’m curious, tired, and out of fucks to give.
She doesn’t look startled by the question.
“In my own way,” she says. “He’s pompous and arrogant, but he amuses me, and he keeps me grounded.
Whenever I find myself agreeing with him too much, I know I should reevaluate my stance.
” She sends me a long look. “I’ve had the good kind of love story already.
I’m not searching for another. I’m perfectly happy with the social connections and prestige Preston brings to the table.
The fact that I find his antics entertaining is a bonus. ”
I nod and look away. I don’t understand this kind of attitude, but who am I to judge?
“Why not just tell him?”
I look away. “Tell who what?”
She sends me a dry look. “You know I was eavesdropping.”
“That’s not something to be proud of,” I say primly.
She crosses one leg over the other and huffs as she picks blades of grass off the fabric.
“For what my opinion is worth, you should just tell that boy how you feel.”
“I did,” I say.
She sends me a skeptical look.
“I did!” I insist.
“Then this story doesn’t add up. You told him. He either shot you down or professed love, too. Which is it?”
I don’t know why, but this kind of clinical analysis makes the whole mess feel more manageable. Somehow.
“I also told him to figure out what he feels for Freya,” I say. “That he’s free to do that. That I wanted him to do that.”
Nina raises her brows at me. “That’s very noble.”
She successfully and mercilessly makes what is supposed to be a good quality in a person sound like a character flaw.
“It’s selfish not noble,” I mutter. She’s not getting it.
“Or dumb. Depends on how you look at it, I suppose.”
“Thanks,” I say.
She purses her lips and then presses them into a thin line.
“People don’t just get things handed to them in life,” she says. “So you can, of course, take a step back and wait. See what happens. Hope for the best. Be an admirable person. The kind who’s easy to deal with. The one who doesn’t make noise or make anybody uncomfortable.”
She leans back on her hands, for all intents and purposes making herself comfortable.
“But?” I prompt when she still hasn’t continued speaking.
She smiles. There’s something shark-like in it.
“ But ,” she says pointedly. “Then it’s also up to chance whether or not you get what you want out of life. Me? I’ve never been a big fan of the lottery.”
I close my eyes so tightly that no light can get through my eyelids.
“What if he doesn’t choose me?” I ask.
Nina is quiet and still for a bit before she sighs. “You can’t change the way somebody else feels. But trust me, it’ll make a hell of a difference for you if you can later tell yourself you didn’t just idly sit by but did everything you could.”
I let her words sink in, and I sit here, heart pounding louder and louder with the weight of everything I haven’t said.
Silence would be the worst thing.
Silence would haunt me far more than rejection ever would.
Whether or not Adrian picks me—whether or not he returns my feelings—suddenly seems almost irrelevant.
The only thing that matters and will matter is if I’ve been brave enough to truly show him my heart.
Because love doesn’t come with guarantees. It’s about honesty. About laying bare the truth of what I carry inside me—have always carried inside me.
If I stay here, scared and unwilling to move, I will also always wonder what might have happened.
But if I go to him and tell him the truth—all of it—I can at least look at myself and know that I haven’t hidden. That I haven’t let fear decide the outcome of my story.
And that’s worth more than anything else.
“I have to go,” I say.
“Thought you would,” Nina says. “Say hi to Adrian.”
“Do you need a ride?” I ask, even if she most likely came here with her own car.
The offer makes her smile. She shakes her head.
“No. I think I’m gonna stay here and talk to your mom for a bit. Catch up.”
I nod, then, without giving myself too much time to talk myself out of it, I give her a quick hug. She looks startled for a moment, but hugs me back almost immediately.
I turn around on my heel and take off running.