Wrong in All the Right Ways

by Tiffany Brownlee

  I see Dylan flinch at Dad’s words, and I don’t blame him. He came here to escape reality and forget about his problems for a while. But it seems that as long as Dad is present, Dylan can’t relax. I’m sure he is tired of me fighting his battles for him, so I hold my tongue.

  Without a word, he drops his fork and excuses himself from the table. The rest of us remain outside on the deck, but we can hear his every move inside the lake house. Everything from the heavy thuds of his feet as he climbs the stairs to the gunshot-sounding slam of a bedroom door, probably his own.

  I sigh as I push the food around on my plate. The more time I spend with Dylan, the more I’m starting to see flickers of his father crack through to the surface of his personality. I love how sensitive he is, but the mood swings and sudden fits of rage have been more frequent since our visit to the mental institution. And I’m worried it’s going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.

  “I’ll have a talk with him later,” Dad says. I’m not sure what he expects Dylan to say to him. I mean, he’s one of the reasons Dylan is acting out like this. “Oh, that reminds me. Keegan’s mom called today. She said he had a bit of a bloody nose last night and now has a black eye, but overall he’s fine. And Emma, Keegan wanted you to give him a call. He says it’s important.”

  I swallow hard at his words. “I don’t have anything to say to him, and I would appreciate it if you and Mrs. Ortega could stay out of this from now on.”

  “What? Why? Keegan’s great, and—”

  “Because we broke up, Dad.” That sure shuts him up, but I can tell he wants so badly to ask why. I sit through the rest of dinner in silence, and when I finally escape, I rush to Dylan’s door and turn the handle. It’s locked. “Dylan, it’s me. Open up.” I hear him scrambling around in his room, closing containers and what sounds like a dresser drawer. Once the commotion stops, he opens the door, out of breath.

  “I was changing my bandages.” He’s very jumpy and nervous, which makes me think that he is lying, but when I look at his hand, it indeed has a new bandage on it.

  “What happened? Why did you leave like that?”

  “You know why. Your dad’s insistence is getting on my nerves.”

  “That’s how he is. Eventually you’ll get used to it.”

  “No,” he yells a little too loudly. “I don’t want to get used to this. This is not what I signed up for when I was invited to come live with this family.” This feels tragically ironic. Technically, we signed up for you. “His pressure is going to push me over the edge. It doesn’t matter how much I tell him to lay off, he doesn’t quit. He’s making me want to give up painting altogether. And once I get back home, I’m dropping out of this stupid showcase.”

  “You can’t,” I say as I smooth my hands over my shirt nervously. “Do you know how much that scholarship is worth? Enough to seriously help you pay for any in-state college you want, that’s how much. My advice is to stick it out for two more years, and if you never want to see him again, go off and do your own thing at some faraway college.”

  I can see the wheels turning inside of his head when his eyes meet mine. “Is that why you’re going away?”

  I have to think before I answer this question. I’d never really thought about it before, but when Dylan says it out loud, I realize that it does look like I’m trying to run away from this lavish life that I’ve been given. A life that some people would kill to have. “I guess I never really had a good enough reason to stay.”

  Dylan leans in close and brushes his lips across mine. “Still don’t have a reason to stay?” I watch as his mouth curls into a smile and his dimples appear out of nowhere.

  I hate that he’s making this a choice. As my foster brother and boyfriend, he should be excited for any big opportunities that come my way, but I don’t think he has the capacity to do that. To see beyond only what he wants.

  chapter 18

  OUR WEEK AT the lake house goes by so fast that I feel like we just got here when it comes time to leave. I spend my time hiking, watching Dylan paint, and brushing up on Wuthering Heights. I’d been neglecting it for almost a month, and I figured it was time to get back into it—especially with the exam coming up.

  Not once did I join Dad for fishing, and on the ride back, I don’t feel bad about it at all. It’s kind of sad how time has changed our relationship; when I was little, I used to always want to hang out with him, but now that I’m older, I can’t really stand to be around him.

  “I’ll meet you guys inside. I’m just going to grab the mail,” I say when we pull up to the front door. As I’m going through the letters, I see a red envelope from school. I’ve never received one of these personally, but I’ve heard some kids at school talk about them. It’s one of the dreaded letters of possible failure that Cedar Pointe High sends out after midterm grades are calculated. I know it’s not for me, but when no one is looking, I take the envelope addressed to my parents and stick it under my shirt.

  When I finally get to my room and set my bags down, I pull the letter out and rip it open. It’s not for me, like I thought, but it still isn’t good news. Dylan has a D minus in chemistry and is going to fail unless he aces his next couple of assignments and passes the final exam with at least a B. I knew that he needed help in chemistry, but I wasn’t expecting this much. Without a second thought, I grab my chemistry books, handouts, and notes, and head back to the main house.

  His door isn’t locked when I turn the knob, and when I burst in, I see him sitting on his bed, lacing up a pair of his shoes. “Thanks for knocking,” he says sarcastically. “Do you need something?”

  Judging by his tone of voice, it’s a bad time, but I tell myself not to be angry with him. His body is probably agitated from stopping the study buddy pills cold turkey. That’s a typical symptom—I looked it up. “Yeah, just wondering how long we’re going to stay up studying tonight?”

  “I’m fine. I don’t need to study tonight.”

  “Are you sure? Because this letter says otherwise.” I hold the letter out in front of him and let his eyes skim over the first three lines. When he’s finished, he snatches it out of my hands, balls it up, and heaves it across the room at his trash can. It’s overflowing with other balled-up papers, probably other tests and assignments that he’s bombed. “You’re failing?”

  “You don’t know what it’s like to try with everything in you, and still come up short,” he whispers. “To not be able to get it right, no matter how many times you go over it. Everything comes so easy for you.”

  “You’ve never seen me play tennis, and you’d probably change your mind if you had. I’ve played in over forty matches, and I’ve only won twice.”

  “Okay, so one thing gives you a minor setback. Boo-hoo. Chemistry is an entirely different entity. You can’t fail tennis. You can, however, fail chemistry.”

  I scoot his shoes over and sit down next to him before grabbing his hand and lacing my fingers in his. “I believe you can do it. All you have to do is focus.”

  “It’s not that simple,” he says, pulling his hand from mine and bending down to rest his elbows on his knees. “I’ve dug my grave already. I spent so much of my time trying to convince myself that what you had with Keegan wasn’t real, and working, and trying to come up with ways to get your dad off my back, that I let my grades slip. And that was before everything that’s happened with my own dad.” He starts to search the end of his shirt for a loose thread to pull, a habit that I’ve started to notice creeping up when he gets nervous. “Mr. Wright’s chemistry test is going to be killer. Do you know how hard I’m going to have to work to pass that thing? It’s nearly impossible.”

  “You said it yourself. Nearly impossible. Not impossible.” He stares blankly at me for a long while, and I’m the one who has to break the connection. “I’ll meet you downstairs in ten minutes if you want a real tutor on this. Bring your books.”

  I’m waiting on emails to refresh on my phone when I see Dylan appear at the top
of the steps. He’s changed into a new set of clothes—he probably took a shower—and has his book and notebooks with him. My phone has not yet refreshed when he sits down beside me at the coffee table, so I set it aside. It will ding once everything pops up.

  “Ready?” I smile.

  “Ready as anyone can be at eight in the evening.” He winces as he sets the books down on the table, and I’m not sure if it’s because he’s ashamed or if it’s because he doesn’t want to do this. Either way, we’re going to get through the material. I decide to start with the basics—the periodic table—and after an hour of studying, we’ve made progress in memorizing most of the polyatomic ions.

  “C2H3O2 negative?”

  “Acetate.”

  “Correct, but these are ions, so you have to say ‘ion’ after its name. Otherwise Mr. Wright will count it wrong. Now, SO4 two negative?”

  “Sulfate ion.”

  “OH negative?”

  “Hydroxide ion.”

  “Good,” I exclaim, leaning in to give him a hug. I’m about to wrap my arms around his waist when he recoils. I try not to take his rejection personally, but I can’t help it. “Everything okay?”

  “No time for hugs. I have to get this stuff.”

  I like that he’s eager to get this under his belt, but his dismissal stings a little. “Okay.”

  I’m in the middle of helping him draw sulfuric acid when I hear my phone ding. My emails have finally pushed through. “Good. Now try sulfurous acid on your own while I check my phone. I’m dying to see my SAT scores. It’s the last piece of the puzzle that I need to complete my college applications.” Lake Arrowhead is incredible, but I don’t get an ounce of cell phone reception there, so I’m just now getting around to checking on my scores even though they’ve been up for almost four days.

  As I wait for the page to load, a wave of fear washes over me. What if I don’t make a high enough score? Yes, grades are important, but SAT scores matter more than that. There is no room for error.

  Dylan must see the worry in my face, because when I look up at him, he’s staring back with sympathetic eyes. “Bad score?”

  I wrinkle my brows at him. Why would he immediately jump to that? “No. Not yet, anyway. It’s still loading.”

  We wait for a minute longer, and when the page finally comes into a view, I squint at my score through one eye … 1420.

  “Fourteen twenty! YES!” I scream, ignoring the fact that the rest of the Ellenburg house—besides Dylan and me—is trying to rest. In the middle of my celebration, I see his eyebrows grow pointy with frustration and his shoulders slump a little more than usual. “Something wrong?”

  “What schools are you applying to?” He sets his pencil down and turns to look me dead in the eyes, his face emotionless.

  “Huh?” I ask to buy myself some time. He doesn’t have to repeat the question; I heard him loud and clear the first time. Given his reaction the last time we talked about this, I’ve been holding off on telling him that more than half my list is out of state.

  “What, do I need to put this in the form of a test question to get a straight answer out of you? Where are you applying?”

  “Whoa, Dylan!” I try to keep my voice as calm as possible, but all I can focus on is the warmth—probably from anger—emanating from his body. I don’t want to fight with him again. I’m tired of fighting. “Where is this coming from?”

  He peels a few scraps from his sheet of paper and rolls them into a ball between his fingers. “I feel like you’re holding things back from me. Not telling me important stuff—like where you might be next year—to … protect me or something.”

  “But, Dylan. I’m not even sure if—”

  “I don’t really wanna hear your excuse. Just tell me.”

  “Well, there’s Stanford, UCLA—to appease my dad—and Berkeley.” I make sure to state these first, as they are all in California. “And I’m also applying to the University of Westminster, which is in London, Brown, Duke, and Columbia.” I sit in silence, waiting for him to explode, but he doesn’t. “Say something.”

  “I don’t really know what you want me to say.”

  This is precisely what I didn’t want to happen. “You’re pissed.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s hard not to be pissed when you’re ditching me for a college across the country.”

  “It’s just an application, Dylan, and Westminster isn’t even in the US.” Not helping, Emma. Déjà vu takes control of me for a second; I know we had this same conversation about my staying or going not too long ago.

  He begins packing up his things, obviously finished with our tutoring session. “You know, it may just be an application to you, but to me, it’s a pretty good sign of what you want for us, which obviously isn’t very much.”

  “Wait, no,” I say, rising to my feet. “Don’t try to change my words around. This has nothing to do with us. This has to do with you and whatever happened before you came here.” He stops dead in his tracks when he hears this. “What’s really going on, Dylan? Because I can’t keep fighting with you. I won’t.”

  He sits on the bottom stair and puts his head in his hands. “Maybe I was better off in that group home.”

  But if you had never come here, wouldn’t that mean that we’d have never even met? Wouldn’t that mean that everything I’m feeling for you wouldn’t have existed? That every kiss and hug we’ve shared never even happened? I have to take a couple of deep breaths to steady my thoughts; I don’t want him to take this the wrong way. “Dylan, I think you should see someone. A therapist, I mean.”

  “Why?”

  “You have all of these things going on, and I think you need to talk to someone about it.”

  “Isn’t that what I have you for?” His question kills me. “No, I’ll be okay. Just give me a little time to get my head on straight, and I’ll go back to happy-go-lucky Dylan. I promise.” He picks up his books and starts back up the stairs. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

  The optimistic sides of my brain want to believe him. But the rational bits of my brain know that something is wrong. That he’s spiraling out of control, and that there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

  * * *

  I keep my promise to Dylan, and together we work hard to help him overcome his fear of chemistry. By the time his final comes around a few weeks later, he’s mastered every section outlined in his syllabus.

  “Are you nervous?” I ask as I take out the note cards we made so that he can get in some extra test prep this morning. We’ve gotten to school so early that we’re the only ones in the library when it opens up.

  “A little. I’m gonna have to repeat the class if I don’t pass this thing.” He looks off into the distance for a second. “But that’s not what worries me the most. It’s disappointing Mom and Daniel.” Whoa! When did he start saying that? It’s so weird to hear him call my mom “Mom,” but my dad “Daniel.” He must not see my dad as a real dad yet.

  “You’ll do fine, I know it. Stop worrying so much.” I pull a card from the top of the deck and show it to him. “What kind of reaction is this?”

  “Combustion.”

  “Correct. What is a substance that speeds up the rate of a reaction called?”

  “A catalyst.”

  “Right again. You’ve really been studying, huh?”

  “Up all night. And what can I say, I have a great tutor.” He leans over, and our lips connect for a half second before I push him away. I don’t want the librarian to see us.

  “We’ve got to get through these. Your test is in thirty minutes.” My eyebrows are tense with determination, but I relax them before pulling another card from the deck. “Next question: the number of moles of solute per kilogram of solvent is called what?”

  “Molarity?”

  “Wrong. It’s molality.” I see him flinch when I tell him the correct answer, as if he wants to punch himself in the face for missing such an easy question. “It’s okay. Those words are so alike in spel
ling that it’s easy to mix them up. I still do sometimes. And besides, that was one of the first things we went over. I don’t expect you to remember that.”

  “But you’re not Mr. Wright, and I’m sure he expects me to remember that.” He puts his head in his hands in frustration. I don’t know why he’s coming down so hard on himself; he just answered a stack of these correctly without much effort.

  “Dylan—”

  “Just leave me alone,” he screams—even though he knows that we’re supposed to whisper in the library—and I recoil, burned. I’m only trying to help. It’s just his nerves talking, I tell myself to brush it off.

  In the beginning of our relationship, we established that those were our safe words. We said that if we ever got into an argument, those three words—leave me alone—would mean exactly that: leave each other alone and talk about it when we both cool off. Period.

  So, without another word, I leave him and start for the pavilion to find Karmin. She’s sitting where she normally sits, which makes it easier to find her. Keegan isn’t too far from her, and I feel my throat tighten up when I see him. When are we going to swallow this pill and talk about things?

  “Hello, stranger,” Karmin says when she sees me. “You’ve been disappearing as soon as practice is over every day, and I hardly get to talk to you anymore. Is everything okay?”

  “I’ve just been helping Dylan study for his chemistry final.”

  “He has Wright, doesn’t he?”

  “Yep.”

  Her face floods with sympathy. “I remember when I took his class two years ago. I almost blew up the lab because I forgot to dilute the acid before I added it to my solution.”

  “Wait, that was you?” I laugh, reliving the memory in my head. “You put the entire tenth grade out of the chemistry lab for three weeks. And that smell was awful.” The laughing takes away from my thoughts, but when it stops, I’m brought back to the reason I came to see her. “Can we talk for a minute?”

  I bring her over to a less crowded section of the school, and before I can even get a word in, she starts. “Finally taking me up on my offer to teach you how to kiss, are you?” I see her laugh as she pulls a tube of lip gloss from her pocket. Before she can start applying, I stop her.