44. Dylan
Chapter forty-four
Dylan
My phone rings for the sixth time in five minutes. An old picture of Dominic and me from college pops up on the screen. We were at the Bridge. The first concert I ever went to there. I applied for a job the next day; something about the old building called to me.
I mean, it was a fuzzy type of calling, given that Dom and I had drunk our way through a twelve pack of shitty beer we could barely afford beforehand, but still. A calling all the same.
I pause Antiques Roadshow to answer Dom’s seventh call.
“The person you are trying to reach is not available,” I say, my voice monotone.
“Don’t even fucking try it,” Dom says in his dad voice. Good luck to Luca when he’s older.
I sigh, melting further into my couch. It’s been a week since I moved out of Dee’s apartment, taking all of my furniture that I was storing in Dom and Ellie’s basement to my new place.
My new place that sucks.
It’s organized, my mail is in one pile, there’s no creepy cat lurking around the corner, and there’s no smart-ass in hot pink biking shorts stealing my shirts, demanding I share my dessert, and ruining game night with her terrible, horribly adorable gaming skills.
Fuck, I’ve got to get my mind off Dee.
“It’s been a week since you moved and you’ve gone radio silent. What gives?”
“Nothing. I’m busy at work.”
“Dee told Ellie you called off for the last two concerts.”
“I did not. I’m required to show up for the first hour of the show, and that’s what I did.
” Then I got the fuck out of there and let the rest of the staff handle shit while I worked from home so I didn’t have to skirt around Dee while she worked at the bar.
After, of course, I made sure our security guys knew that Vicki and Dee would now need to be walked to their cars at the end of the night.
The sound of Dom’s slow clap tells me all I need to know about his thoughts on my flimsy excuse.
“Don’t tell me,” I say. “You’re not mad, just—”
“Disappointed? You fucking bet. We all know you and Dee put a pause on whatever was going on between you two, even though you won’t talk to any of us about it. Stop sulking and talk to her already.”
“I already tried that.” I ended up alone in this stupid apartment.
“Well, try again. And do better this time.”
“She made it clear that there wasn’t anything to talk about. She acted like just because we hadn’t put a label on this thing between us, that we didn’t need to figure it out. Like it was casual.”
Like we were disposable.
“And why do you think she did that?”
I glare at my phone, wishing like hell I could take everything I’m feeling out on Dom, because it would feel really fucking good to unload all this shit bouncing around my brain. But I know it’s not his fault, it’s mine.
I walked away from Dee. I didn’t stay and fight for us, for what I wanted.
For what I still want. I didn’t call her on her shit when she played aloof.
Like whatever has been growing between us was unimportant.
Like it didn’t change things between us.
As if an apartment should change the trust we were building between us.
Somewhere along the way, we became more. I didn’t fight it. Neither did she. But neither of us fought to keep it.
We barreled into this mess headfirst, no hesitation, unconcerned with the fallout. Then when we were headed off the edge of the cliff, we jumped, letting go of each other and allowing ourselves to plummet, completely falling apart.
Maybe I didn’t fight for us, but she didn’t either. I tried to get her to admit what she wanted between us, and she wouldn’t.
But you didn’t either. A furious, annoying-as-fuck voice screams at me.
Dom doesn’t have to tell me I fucked up.
I know I did. I let my own fear of rejection, my own worries about things not working out in the long run, fuck up my chances with Dee.
I wanted to hear her say she wanted me despite everything she’d learned about me before I was willing to put my heart on the line.
I wanted to feel in control. I wanted a guarantee.
But love doesn’t ever offer a guarantee.
There’s always been this quiet hum of anxiety, this endless blur of anxious thoughts thrumming through my head and pulsing in my veins. With Dee, my anxiety is different, but it can be just as stifling.
What if she decides you’re not good enough? What if she gets sick of you panicking when stress levels are high? What if she gets annoyed by having to reassure me that she’s all in?
But none of that sounds like the Dee I know.
The Dee I know builds everyone up. She doesn’t shy away from the hard shit; she leans in and finds a way to make all the fucked-up shit easier to deal with.
She’s ice on sore muscles at the end of the day.
She’s the calm in the storm when I feel lost in a sea of intrusive thoughts.
She’s the reassuring voice talking me out of every worst-case scenario.
And she did that all in the short time we lived together.
Then why—when it came to what mattered, when we needed to admit what we wanted—we couldn’t do it?
Fuck me, maybe we shouldn’t be together.
We’re both too stuck and too stubborn to talk about anything serious.
Except…we did. My anxiety. The way she was treated when she was younger.
Our fears. Our hopes. We talked about everything that mattered…
except us. We spent so much time catching up on the past and letting each other see the parts of ourselves that we never let shine before, we forgot to plan for the future. The one we could have had together.
And after everything she’s been through…when she needed reassurance, acceptance, and communication, I let her down. She grew up feeling undervalued, feeling judged, but she still let me in. She let me see her.
She was in a vulnerable place, feeling rejected at work. All she wanted was to feel wanted, valued, appreciated.
“I fucked up,” I mutter.
“No shit. What are we going to do about it?”
“We aren’t doing shit. I need to handle this.”
“Oh come on. You know I live for this stuff. Let me help.”
I rub a hand over my jaw, wondering where to start. Then I smile, knowing exactly who I need to talk to. Who I’ll need on my side if I want to get things back on track.
“Okay, Dom. There might be something you can do.”