Leading Lines

by Chantel Guertin

It is not good.

  This is where Muse should say, “I should go.” Has she never watched a romantic comedy with an easily avoidable mixup? She should leave and Dylan will tell me there’s nothing to worry about, that they ran into each other and Muse wanted help buying a gift to win back her boyfriend and Dylan was giving her something—something music related he knows Patrick will like? But instead … I realize I have just been standing here dumbstruck.

  Muse looks from Dylan to me and back to him. “Do you want me to go?”

  Yes! I plead on the inside. Why is Dylan hesitating? He looks like he’s actually trying to decide. “I didn’t know you were coming over,” he says. To me. I’m stunned. Is he actually saying that I, his girlfriend, can’t surprise him?

  “I texted you,” I say, lamely. “I …”

  “Muse and I made plans to jam,” he says. “Did you know Muse writes her own songs?”

  Nope. I did not know that.

  “Oh.” It’s all I can think of to say. And I keep standing there, just willing him to say something like, “But we’ll do it another time.” Or “Muse, I think you should go.” Or, “Maybe we can all hang out together.” But he doesn’t say anything. He just stands there too.

  The moment feels unreal and seems to last an eternity. It’s nothing Dylan’s saying or not saying, it’s just something in the air that feels off. Like I know what’s going on without wanting to know. I can’t react properly: I don’t know whether to grab my stuff and go, or sit down on the bed like this is all fine and invite myself to their “jam session.” Everything is getting fuzzy, hazy, I feel both hot and cold at once, and a second later, I’m pushing my way to the door, racing down the stairs. As I’m cramming my feet into my boots, I hear Dylan.

  “Sorry about that.” He sounds embarrassed. I look up, but he’s not on the stairs apologizing to me. He’s still in his room. He’s saying those words to Muse. I grab my coat and rush outside without putting it on.

  • • •

  Dylan doesn’t call, not while I’m crying on the phone to Dace, and not after we’ve finally hung up what seems like hours later. I lie on my bed, staring at the ceiling, checking my phone every few minutes, which only makes the time pass even more slowly. I rearrange my room, then remember why it’s been the same layout for years—it’s the only way all the furniture actually fits—and put everything back. I try to cull my photos for this week’s photo club theme: bokeh, a.k.a., blur in photo speak. But my eyes are too blurry, my head too fuzzy to focus. I sit at the table through a dinner I don’t want to eat, and then retreat back to my room, shunning Mom’s offer to watch a movie together. I try to sleep, but my mind won’t let me. I try to stay awake but my eyelids get too heavy. Every time I relive the moment, I feel hurt, embarrassment, anger. In the middle of the night, I turn my light on and grab the picture of Dad, the one where he’s standing outside what’s now Emmy’s apartment in New York. The one that I keep on my nightstand.

  He just stares back at me, waiting for me to figure this out on my own, just like he always does. He never has the answers. Because he’s gone, and it’s just me and I can’t talk to Mom. The picture goes blurry beyond my tears.

  Eventually I fall back to sleep.

  CHAPTER 12

  Dylan: Pickup alert! Need a ride home?

  Seriously? Photo club is just ending, and even though I’ve been checking my phone every five seconds all day, and a text from Dylan is exactly what I wanted, I’m annoyed. Like, really? I’m supposed to act like nothing happened? I take five deep breaths—but quick ones—and then reply simply.

  Me: Sure.

  I make my way as slowly as I can possibly bear to, which is not much slower than a jog, to the parking lot, where his car is parked in one of the front spots. I pause for a moment, trying to compose myself, and consider what I’ll say to him. I want to be mad at him—but I don’t want to ruin the fact that he’s picked me up, and that, maybe, things are fine between us. But I also don’t want to act as though nothing’s wrong at all—and let him think that he has all the control in our relationship. That he can treat me the way he treated me yesterday, and I’ll just go along with it. “See you tomorrow, Pip,” Gemma says as she and Ben pass me and head toward Ben’s car. I take a deep breath, walk over and open the passenger side door.

  “Hey,” he says, as I get in, leaning over to kiss me.

  I give a half-smile as we pull apart, then stash my bag at my feet and pull my seatbelt across my body.

  “Want to get something to eat?” he asks.

  “Um, sure?” I say, totally confused. He takes a left onto Winchester and then a right onto Haven and I realize he’s headed to Scoops. The first time Dylan tried to take me here, I passed out, but a lot of therapy and a lot of Dylan have made Scoops a normal place again, which is a good thing because they added burgers and caramel milkshakes to their menu.

  Scoops is packed with kids from Spalding mostly, with a long lineup at the counter. The music’s always loud, but that, combined with animated chatter and the clatter of metal spoons on glass sundae bowls means Dylan has to shout at the hostess to tell her there’s two of us. She leads us over to a table by the window, and I spot Ben and Gemma sitting across from each other at a table on the other side of the place. “Caramel sundae, no nuts?” he asks and I nod and put my coat on the back of my chair as Dylan heads up to the counter to order. Ben’s heading over at the same time, and he nods to me, then gets in line behind Dylan. I go over to talk to Gemma, even though we just saw each other 10 minutes ago.

  “I have to pee, come to the bathroom with me?” she asks and I follow her down the hall at the back of the restaurant.

  “Everything OK? You seem bummed out today,” she says from the stall.

  “Yeah,” I say, hopping up on the counter. A second later my phone buzzes and I pull it out of my pocket.

  Ben: Ugh SORRY.

  I hold my phone out to Gemma as she comes out of the stall. “Any idea what he’s talking about?”

  She shrugs, washing her hands. “No clue.” She applies a bit of lipgloss and fixes her hair then turns to me. I’m still staring at my phone.

  “You ready?” She holds open the door and I follow her out of the bathroom. Dylan’s back at our booth and I slide in across from him.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, noticing the look on his face.

  He stares at me, his green eyes steely. “You told Ben?”

  “Told Ben what?” I say, my heart pounding.

  “About me?” he whispers. “After I told you I didn’t want anyone to know … You told Ben Fucking Baxter?”

  My face is burning. “What did he say?” I pull at the hem of my sweater. My stomach’s in knots.

  “Nothing. He didn’t have to say anything. He gave me That Look. That Head Tilted Sympathy Look that said it all.”

  “He … I … he was giving me advice.”

  “Ben was? What could he possibly be giving you advice about that required you telling him the one thing you knew I don’t want anyone knowing? How to date a recovering cancer patient?”

  I sit back, digging my shoulder blades into the metal frame of the chair. “No. We were just talking. Why are you so upset?”

  His eyes are cold. “I’m upset because you broke my confidence. Since when are you and Ben even talking?”

  “Since Tisch. It was kind of hard to avoid him—it would’ve been impossible to avoid anyone.”

  “Well, I don’t see you talking to anyone else from Tisch.”

  I roll my eyes, exasperated. “Ben’s in photo club, we’re working on this mural for the alumni project together …” I shrug. “I guess he’s become a friend. But it’s totally platonic.”

  He rolls his eyes. “There’s no way he’s not still into you.”

  “You’re being ridiculous,” I say. “I’m sorry I told him your big bad secret, but I needed s
omeone to talk to.”

  He shakes his head. “Then talk to me. Or Dace. Why him? Are you still into him?”

  “No! I just didn’t tell you we were friends because I didn’t want you to get jealous when there’s no reason to be. But why are we even talking about this? I thought you were bringing me here to apologize about yesterday.” I throw up my hands. “Forget Ben—what about you dismissing me to hang out with Muse?” I lean in and lower my voice. “Do you know how horrible you made me feel?”

  I hope he’ll say that it’s different, that even though, yes, Muse and Patrick broke up, she’s heartbroken and wanted advice on how to win him back. That they’d been together forever, and she needed a friend to talk to, someone that could see both sides, since he’s friends with both of them. That there’s absolutely no attraction there, but of course, he doesn’t say any of that.

  “Because I didn’t drop my plans for you?”

  I’m stunned. “It was just the … way you handled it. You gave me a key, and then basically implied I wasn’t welcome to use it.”

  “Muse felt really awkward.”

  “It was only awkward because you didn’t tell Muse to leave.”

  “I didn’t feel comfortable asking her to leave. I’d asked her to come over. We were going to jam together. And she lives an hour away, and you and I—we didn’t have any plans. And we don’t have that kind of relationship. At least, I didn’t think we did.”

  “What kind?”

  “The jealous kind. Or the kind where I insist you drop all other plans for me, and vice versa.” He has a point. I’m about to give in, but then he keeps talking. “I don’t go barging into your photo club meetings. When you wanted to join ski club, I encouraged you to.”

  “But I didn’t join.”

  “But you could have. That was your choice. Yesterday felt like an invasion of my free time.” The look on his face—it’s a mix of exasperation and frustration—hits me right in the gut. Anger, that I could handle, but there’s something about his look that hurts in all the worst places. I’m annoying him.

  “Fine, I get it,” I say defensively. The waitress arrives with our ice cream. As she glances from Dylan to me, she looks like she wants to be anywhere other than standing in front of us, and I look down to avoid eye contact as she puts our bowls down. The whole diner suddenly seems quiet even though it’s noisy as ever.

  “Can we just forget about this?” Dylan stabs his sundae with his spoon.

  “What if it happens again?”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

  “I need some kind of resolution on this. So you’re just going to keep hanging out with Muse—”

  “Yeah. Just like you hang out with Ben.” He lets out a frustrated sigh and pushes his bowl away. “It’s probably good we’re finally fighting. It’s been feeling like this for a while.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like I can’t do my own thing. You have your own life, and you expect me to just fit into it. Picking you up after school, going to parties, the dance … I’m not in high school anymore, Pippa.”

  “I thought you liked picking me up after school,” I say, my voice shaking. “If you don’t want to do something, you could just tell me. You don’t have to …”

  He shakes his head. “But you want to do all these things I don’t want to do, with people I don’t want to see anymore. I finished that part of my life, and I want to move on from it.”

  “Then move on! Party at Roxy’s with all your cool band friends every night. Don’t come to another lame high school party. And the dance? Everyone who ever went to Spalding will be there. But fine, don’t go. I’ll go by myself.”

  “It’s not … it’s not what I want to do. It’s why I want to do it. Do you get what I mean?”

  “No.”

  We both sit there, neither of us touching our ice cream, which is starting to melt in its bowls.

  “Wanna go?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say, standing forcefully, grabbing my coat and bag, not bothering to put them on as I rush through the restaurant, tears stinging my eyes. I look around when I get outside, trying to remember where Dylan parked. The cold burns my watery eyes. Dylan brushes past me, nodding to the car at the far end of the row. He opens my door and I get in and then he goes around to his side and gets into the driver’s seat. A minute later we’re back on the road, driving home in silence. I play over the conversation in my head, trying to think of what to say at this point. Eventually we pull into my driveway. He switches off the ignition and then turns to me.

  “Pippa, it’s this: for six months I was sick. It was all I was. I hid from anyone who didn’t know. And then we got together, and it was great, but I realize now that I was kind of just hiding out in your life, playing the boyfriend. But those two weeks working for the Cherry Blasters, I wasn’t ‘cancer teen,’ I wasn’t ‘Pippa’s boyfriend.’ I was Dylan. I got to get a glimpse of a life that I’ve wanted so bad—being on the road with a band. And it was liberating. God, it was so liberating.”

  I don’t know how to take what he’s saying. So I just nod.

  “Hanging around the high school scene, doing stuff with people that knew me last year, it’s just a reminder of who I was. The old me. The guy who got cancer and put off Harvard.”

  I feel defensive. “I’m not trying to hold you back. I’m fine with you being New Dylan, or whatever.”

  “But I don’t think you are. You’re disappointed I won’t go to the dance. You zone out whenever I talk about my time on the road.”

  I let out a deep breath and my shoulders slump. “Of course I’m disappointed. You’re my boyfriend, and it’s on Valentine’s Day, and it would be the first dance I ever went to with a date I actually loved, and you could play with your band—”

  “That’s the thing. Sounds great for you, but for me that means coming back as the guy who’s just hanging around Spalding, doing nothing this year, while everyone else is off at college. You don’t know how that feels.”

  I can feel tears welling up. “I guess, no I don’t. So what—you want to spend more time with those guys? With Muse?”

  “This isn’t about Muse.”

  “Then … you just don’t want anything to do with your past or anyone in it. That’s what you’re saying.” I swallow the lump in my throat. “What about prom next year? Or a New Year’s party, or my birthday party?” I know I’m getting ahead of myself, but it feels overwhelming. “This doesn’t seem fair to me, Dylan. Like you’re making all these rules, and I don’t know how I fit into them.”

  “Yeah,” he says.

  “Yeah what?” And then I get it. “Is this because I know you had cancer?”

  He pauses, maybe a second too long. “You used to be the girl who didn’t know. I was just Dylan to you. And it was so great. Now you’re, like, Cancer Mom. You come with me to my appointments. You ask me if I got the results. And you nag me about drinking.”

  “I just … didn’t think you were drinking. I wasn’t nagging you.” My hands are shaking.

  “What does it matter anyway? Every other normal guy my age drinks. You drink.”

  “You’re right. Fine! It doesn’t matter. I’m not judging you, I’m just asking.” My voice wavers. “Because I care, Dylan. Aren’t I allowed to care? You may recall that the last person I loved who had cancer died.”

  Dylan stares at me, but like he’s looking through me, not at me. Then he sighs and rubs his face with his hands. “I’m sorry—of course you care. And I’m sorry if I remind you of losing your dad. That must really suck.” He fiddles with the steering wheel. “But every time you ask me something like that it makes me think of being sick and scared. And I … I just don’t want to have to be reminded of that.”

  Tears stream down my face. Time passes. I don’t know how much, but it feels like neither of us knows what’s left
to say.

  “I think we should break up.”

  The words come from me.

  “Are you serious?” Dylan looks genuinely stunned.

  “Yes.” I swipe at my tears and put on the strongest face I have. “I don’t see how there’s room for me in your new life, now that I know how you feel. I don’t want to compromise who I am. Or how I act. And neither do you, that much is clear.”

  I want him to say that we’ll find a way, that I mean too much to him. He looks at me intently and I look away because I know if I keep looking at his eyes, I’ll break down. When I look back up, his expression has hardened. “Yeah, OK, if that’s what you want.”

  I sit for a moment, hoping he’ll say something else, but his hand is on the keys in the ignition, and he’s staring straight ahead. I grab my bag off the floor and open the door, then get out, realizing this may be the last time I’ll ever be getting out of Dylan’s car. I close the door for the last time, and walk up the driveway, refusing to look back.

  CHAPTER 13

  Everything reminds me of him. My English notebook where I’ve doodled DM+PG inside hearts. The mug with my name on it that he gave me, filled with Twizzlers, for Christmas. The ticket stub from the Cherry Blasters concert pinned to my bulletin board. The random business card we found in the gazebo at Hannover Park for Harry Combs, barber. Notes he’d slip in my school bag when I wasn’t looking. My entire Instagram account, mostly because every photo reminds me of him in some way. The staircase to the basement makes me think of the night Dylan jumped up, landed on the banister and slid the rest of the way down, all without spilling the glass of Coke he was holding. There’s a water-stain ring on the kitchen table that reminds me of Wednesday nights when he’d come for dinner with Mom and me.

  I’ve never broken up with someone before, but I always imagined if I did, it would be liberating, that it would be because I was no longer in love with him, and I would be happy to not ever have to see or talk to or think about him again. This is the exact opposite of that. I miss him and all the little things about him.