70. Dylan
SEVENTY
DYLAN
By the time I get back to the Olsen’s place it’s starting to get dark, and it’s started to rain. Fat drops are pounding down on the roof of my car, but I barely pay attention to them as I park on the sidewalk, jump out, and race to the front door, instantly soaked.
I don’t bother knocking. I just storm inside, spraying water all over the hallway.
The house is full of light and voices, and it makes my heart ache in a way that feels both painful and sweet. Memories and longing.
I don’t know what happens next. I don’t know what happens if Adrian loves me. I don’t know what happens if he feels more for Freya. I’m in definite danger of losing all this.
It’s terrifying.
But it won’t stop me.
All heads snap up when I storm into the living room.
“Dylan?” Lynn says and stands up from her armchair. Her brows are knitted together, head tilted while her eyes roam up and down me.
My heart beats are like the shots of a cannon in my chest, one after the other.
“Is Adrian home?” I ask and look around the room frantically, taking in the faces that surround me. “I… I need to talk to him. Is he here? By chance?”
They all stare at me with a variety of raised eyebrows and questioning looks.
“Is everything okay?” Eric asks.
“Yes,” I say far too loudly. “Yes,” I repeat, marginally calmer. “I just really need to see him. Talk to him. About something.”
They do some more staring and exchange subtle looks.
“He’s probably in the garage,” Charlie eventually says.
“He bought himself a car, so he’s fixing it up,” Mia adds. “It’s a really crappy one, even by our standards.”
Half of the room lets out shouts of protests. The other half lets out agreeing murmurs.
“Thanks,” I say, turn around, and rush out again.
Somehow, the rain has gotten even worse. In the five minutes I was inside, the street has turned into a veritable river. I splash through the water to get to the car. Once I’m inside, I turn the wipers on. It doesn’t seem to make much of a difference.
I clutch the wheel.
“Slow and steady,” I mutter under my breath.
It takes me forever to get to the garage. I pass three car accidents on my way there.
The torrential downpour is still going strong when I rush out of the car and make a run for the door, water splashing everywhere when I run through pools of rainwater.
The door is locked.
I stare the handle with disbelief.
Really?
Really ?
“Fucking really?” I snap out loud. The rain drowns out my voice.
I’m so wet, cold, and dejected it takes me a moment to figure out the lights are on inside.
I knock on the door.
I jiggle the handle.
I pound on the door with my fist.
Nothing happens.
I wait for a bit more before I turn around to go… smash in a window. Or something less aggressive but equally as effective.
“Dylan?”
I turn around again and try to blink at least some of the water out of my eyes.
Adrian takes a step outside and shields his eyes from the rain with his hand.
“What are you doing here?” he calls out, voice barely audible over the noise of the downpour.
I’m suddenly at a loss for words.
“Dyl?” Adrian asks. He comes closer, a confused smile on his face. I’m still trying to find the words.
“You’re all wet,” he says and grabs my cold hand in his. He lifts my hand to his mouth and blows on my icy fingers.
He glances up toward the sky and wipes water off his face. “Let’s get inside.”
He turns and starts to move away from me, and I’m overwhelmed and exhausted and scared and it all rolls into a giant ball inside me, so Adrian turning away from me suddenly feels like some kind of bad premonition, and I can’t?—
“I love you.”
He stops and turns back around to face me.
Rain pours down in relentless sheets, the fabric of my clothes clings to my skin, and streetlights look like halos through the downpour, but neither of us moves to get inside.
I’m frozen to the ground, breath trembling in my chest. Almost as if it’s the first time I say these words.
Everything about this moment feels raw and desperate.
Adrian looks at me with an unreadable expression on his face, which is terrifying because I’m fluent in Adrian. It’s my one great talent. My party trick. The skill I’m proudest of. My one big accomplishment.
Keep going.
Make your case.
“I have loved you from the moment we met,” I say hoarsely.
“I’ve been in love with you since we were fifteen.
” I wrap my arms around myself. Everything I’m feeling is too much.
I’m laying everything I was never supposed to tell him at his feet.
I didn’t plan on it, but the words, once they start coming, tumble out from my mouth, and there’s no way for me to stop them.
“I have loved you from afar. Desperately. Quietly. I have craved and yearned and ached and wanted . For years. For the better part of my life.” My eyes are burning, and I want to squeeze them shut. I want to hide. I don’t.
“For you us started on that island. For me we started long before that.” I dash the back of my hand over my eyes and take a big breath. “For me, it’s always been you. Just you. Always you.” I squeeze my hands into fists and my nails dig into my palms.
“I tried to stop.” This one’s a quiet confession.
“You asked me why I went to San Francisco. I went because of you. Because I couldn’t stay.
Because I couldn’t be here and watch you love somebody else.
Because you are the one for me. Always have been.
There’s nobody else. Only you.” My breath stutters in my lungs.
“I wasn’t that for you.” I grit the last words out through clenched teeth. “And it was killing me.”
He's still not saying anything, and I need a moment, so I turn around. Brave as I want to be, I’m feeling too vulnerable, and I need a moment to gather myself.
I don’t even hear him move over the rain, but all of a sudden, I feel him wrap himself around me from behind. His nose is in my hair. His breath on the back of my neck.
We stand like that for a long time. An eternity. Not long enough.
“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” he whispers.
My throat is so thick with emotion that nothing can get past it.
“Couldn’t,” I eventually manage.
“Why not?”
I lick my lips. My mouth is so dry, and my heart is beating in a feverish rhythm, but I turn around anyway.
“Because you were never meant to be mine. It’s…
” I look away as if my feelings are scribbled on the wall, and I can just read the explanation there.
“I accepted it a long time ago. You were happy. That was the only thing that mattered. I wasn’t going to ruin that.
Or us. This— we —were never supposed to happen.
And then we did. I knew it was wrong. That I was taking something that wasn’t mine. ”
I shake my head and meet his gaze. “I didn’t care.
I stole you, and I didn’t care. I told myself if we ever managed to get off that island, I would do the right thing.
I would stop. I told myself that what we had on the island would be enough.
That those stolen moments would last me for a lifetime.
Because for me, there’s never been anybody but you. ”
He’s watching me silently, and I still have no idea what he’s thinking or feeling.
“In a way,” I say softly, “I guess you can say I lied to you. I told you I loved you, but… that’s never seemed like the right way to describe what I really feel.
I don’t just love you. You own me. All of me.
Body and soul.” I shrug helplessly. He’s swimming in front of my eyes, and I’m not sure if it’s the rain or if it’s tears. “You always have.”
He’s right in front of me, so still he doesn’t even seem to be breathing.
I look down at my feet and tears drip drop from my eyes to the ground.
I have this persistent feeling of doom in my chest that grows as the silence stretches between us. My heart pounds in my ears.
Adrian’s body barrels into me and I stumble backward until my back hits the wall of the garage. He crashes into me, tugging me closer and pushing me against the wall at the same time. We’re shielded by the rain for a moment.
His eyes are wide and filled with a swirling storm of feelings.
“You goddamn idiot,” he says in a voice that’s filled with undeniable frustration but also somehow impossibly gentle. His nose brushes against mine as he leans closer. “You goddamn fucking idiot,” he repeats.
I can’t seem to breathe at all anymore.
“I love you,” he says in a low voice, with the kind of fierceness that settles in my bones and lingers there. “It’s not just you who feels this way. You’re my everything.”
I close my eyes, overwhelmed and in too deep.
Terrified.
“Dyl,” he whispers, “I miss you. I have missed you every day you weren’t with me. My whole life.”
I’m full-on crying now. Crying like a fucking baby. Bawling. A snotty mess. Because he’s saying all the right things.
And he’s making everything worse.
I’m terrified.
Petrified.
Speechless.
Frozen with fear.
Everything about this moment is terrifying. Adrian most of all.
The way he makes me feel is terrifying. The way he’s holding my heart in the palm of his hand is terrifying. The way I’m still willing to follow him anywhere, no matter what, without a second thought is terrifying.
He cups my cheeks, holding my face in his hands.
“Say something.” His voice is pure gravel and desperation.
He loves me. Maybe it’s just for now, but that doesn’t matter to me. It just means my natural reaction to this is to wrap myself around him. Let him have me. Let him love me. Regardless of the consequences and potential pitfalls. Regardless of everything between us that still remains unresolved.
My body craves him. My lips yearn for him. My heart aches for him. My soul wants him.
But I’m standing still, unable to do anything.