by Beth Michele
“You didn’t have to do this,” I wave my hand, gesturing around the room, “but thank you.”
“Pfft. Of course I did. I’ll be honest, though, I closed my eyes when I went into your room and only made the bed, and I might have held my nose while I cleaned out the refrigerator.”
I don’t even have the strength to laugh. “That bad, huh?”
She pinches her fingers together, a trace of a smile crossing her lips. “Just a bit. So, can I make you something to eat? The fridge is fully stocked now as are the cabinets.”
“Gran—”
“Don’t say a word, Dylan.” Her tone is firm and any argument with her is futile, especially when I appreciate what she did. “This is my pleasure. Now, can I cook you up something?”
“No, thanks. I’m not hungry, just tired. I think I’m going to grab a shower and then head to bed.” I scoot off the chair and snatch my sneakers from the carpet. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Okay, dear. Get some rest.” I’m almost at the top of the landing when her voice reaches out to me. “Dylan, what do twenty-year-olds usually do on a Saturday night?” Her question stops me cold, anxiety seeping into my chest.
“Honestly, I have no idea.”
Those words are still simmering in my brain long after I shower and hop into bed. I’m not a typical twenty-year-old. I don’t attend college or go to parties, my parents are gone, and I’m pining away for my best friend. Yeah, that about sums it up.
Thoughts of Evie make my stomach clench. Hardly a day goes by where I don’t see her or talk to her, but today was one of those days. And I miss her. Insanely.
She’s my anchor. My hope. My heart. She’s everything to me.
Shit.
My phone sits heavy in my hand as I debate internally, until the longing tightening my chest wins out and I unlock the screen to send Evie a text. She might be sleeping, but I doubt it. Of course, before I type out the words I let out a breath and remind myself I have to walk before I can run.
Hey, Hopper. U awake?
Yeah. Just got back from a run and showered. About to read.
I missed you today. I didn’t see you.
I gnaw on my lip as I wait for her response. It comes not more than a second later.
Me too.
My heart jumps in my chest even though I’m not sure which part of my text she was responding to. I guess it doesn’t really matter.
I want to.
Want to what?
See you.
Oh. lol :)
Can I come over?
Now?
Well, it’s a long walk, it might be a few minutes.
Okay :)
I toss the phone onto the bed and throw on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. My body is heavy with exhaustion. Even the effort it takes to dress seems overwhelming right now.
I grab my keys and a jacket from the dresser and am about to bolt down the stairs when I spy Gran sleeping on the sofa, her book settled atop her stomach, glasses still perched on her nose. Quietly, I creep over to the chair and pull the blanket off, shaking it open and covering her up. After giving her a kiss on the forehead, I tiptoe to the door.
“Say hi to your angel for me.”
“Gran!” I spin around, losing my balance and nearly knocking over the side table. “You scared the shit out of me!”
“Language,” she scolds, grinning. “Have fun.”
“I will. After I get over almost having a coronary. See ya, Gran.”
The short trip across the street does nothing to calm my frayed nerves. All of a sudden, my limbs are like lead, my shoulders carrying a weight they no longer want. I’m not sure if it’s the diner, having Gran back at the house, or everything with Evie. But it’s as if I’m slowly being pushed toward a cliff, and now I have to decide whether I’m willing to jump or not.
When Evie opens the door, I stand there for what seems like an eternity. Staring. Nothing else matters and for a second, everything else gets washed away. All my bullshit flows out with the tide, leaving a pool of calm right in the center—because she grounds me.
“Dylan?” She flaps a hand in front of my face and draws me out of my daze. “You okay?”
My shoulders slump on a sigh. “I don’t know,” I answer truthfully, because with her there’s never anything else. “Can we walk for a bit?”
She bends her head as if surveying my face for clues. “Of course. Let me just grab my sandals.”
I shake my head, scolding myself as she bounces away. I’m not in such a state that I can’t appreciate how adorable she looks in her sleep shorts and tank. Thank the gods she has a bra on. Even in my darkest hour, I’m not immune… not to her.
“Okay, all set.”
We walk for a little while in silence. The cool night air does nothing to take the edge off the tension brewing inside of me. Thankfully, Evie doesn’t push for information. She knows me. When I’m ready, I’ll talk.
“I need you to promise me something,” I finally say. I’m staring straight ahead but the heat of her gaze burns the side of my face.
“Hmph. Depends on what it is,” she teases, but I’m not in a teasing mood.
“I want you to promise me you won’t go running alone at night. If you want to run, call me, and I’ll bike alongside you.”
“Dylan. I can take care—”
“God damn it, Evie!” I fist a hand on my hip, my jaw ticking. “I know you can take care of yourself. I know you don’t need anyone. But please, just this once, don’t fight me!” I pinch the bridge of my nose, my tone becoming softer. “I need to know you’re safe… I-I can’t lose you.” My eyes remain fixated on the sidewalk as I try to appear put together when I’m crumbling inside. “I just can’t.”
“Hey.” She touches my arm, and it’s gentle, reassuring. I lift my head to a sincere smile. “Okay, I promise.”
“Okay.”
With one less thing to worry about, my anxiety should diminish, but it doesn’t. Evie’s fingers wander down to mine as if she senses the oncoming explosion. It’s more an eruption of thoughts, my mind traveling from one to the next, back and forth, around and around. My very own spin cycle.
“You know, I’m freaking twenty years old and you’d think I was forty. I work, I come home, and then I get up and work again. I’m not at college, or partying, or doing anything a person my age should be doing.”
“So what, Dylan? It’s not about what you think you should be doing because everyone forges their own path. It’s about what you want. What do you want?”
It comes off as such a simple question, and aside from the obvious—which is apparently obvious to everyone but her—I have no idea.
“Because don’t you see? That’s just the thing. You’re twenty. You can go and be and do whatever you want. You aren’t trapped by time. You’re the only one limiting yourself. I don’t know… sometimes I think you feel you’re being selfish. But you’re young, Dylan. You’re supposed to be selfish. If there was ever a time to think about yourself, it’s now. So, if you want to go to school for art, or become a professional baseball player, or even fly to the moon. Just do it.”
For the first time tonight, I actually chuckle. “You’re my own personal Nike commercial, you know that? Are you sure you don’t want to go to school for psychology and not English lit?”
“Uh no,” she giggles, “I’ll leave that to the experts.”
“It is kind of laughable, though, you know?” I reflect, trying to wrap my head around the irony of it all. “My father rode me so hard, you’d think I’d have ended up being one of those overachievers, when in fact, I became the opposite. I wonder if that was intentional subconsciously on my part. I bet Nora would have a field day with that.”
“I’m sure she would.” Evie’s smile is warm, calming. “Speaking of Nora, I saw her the other day.”
“How is crazy Nora?” I exhale, happy to take the focus away from me for a little while. She’s much more fascinating.
“She’s
great.” There’s so much admiration in her tone it makes me smile. “I’m so proud of her, you know? She’s living her dream. Ever since we were kids she wanted to be a psychologist, and in two years she’ll have her degree.”
All five foot eight inches of her looks up at me and snorts. “Do you remember that time when you walked in on us, and she had me sitting in front of my mom’s desk while she sat in her big leather chair with a white, lined pad. Oh my God,” she laughs, and it resonates in my core, “she kept asking me over and over how my day was and if there was anything bothering me that we should discuss. When the timer went off after an hour, she walked me out of my own house with a handshake and a package of Tic-Tacs.”
We laugh together about that for a while, my mind getting a breather until the thoughts creep back in.
“Gran told me that my mother wanted to be a dancer. I guess she even got into Julliard.”
“What?” Surprise lifts her voice, an exact replica of my own response.
“Tell me about it. I can’t imagine my mother as a dancer. She was so stiff. I didn’t even know she enjoyed music. There’s obviously a lot I didn’t know about her.” Sadness scratches at my throat, but I clear it, hoping to push it away.
“Sometimes, I would see her sitting in that chair by the window, just staring, for what seemed like hours. I always wondered what she was looking at. When I’d call her name and she’d turn around, it was like she didn’t even see me. Like she was somewhere else.” Evie gives my hand a comforting squeeze as the cool breeze whips across my skin, dangling pieces of a past I’d like to forget.
By the time we reach the end of the street and Hilldale Park comes into focus, all is forgotten. I chance a look at Evie’s face. Her lips hitch up at the corners, and I know she sees it.
THE SWING COMES into view and the memories attack me all at once, a flood of sensations pinging my skin one by one. I see my mother, her caramel hair blowing against her smile, pushing me as I giggled, my barely-there legs hanging over the edge of that metal seat. My tiny hands slipping down each side of the rope, now frayed from weather and time. And there was always a story, each one different than the next.
Sometimes she would tell a tale of the wind and the trees, the sky or the sun. Always with a little girl. A tiny thing with bright red pigtails and pants that were too short for her long frame. But she always had a smile, and she loved to laugh.
I blink and my mother’s shadow is gone, leaving a boy in her place. Shaggy, dark hair falling over big brown eyes. Day after day, he stood there pushing me on that same swing, listening to wrenching cries as I sobbed for the loss of my mother and father, offering his shoulder when I could no longer hold my head up. My vision blurs, my heart breaking yet filling at the same time. Dylan was just a teenager. A boy going through a hard time himself. Yet he understood, because he had also experienced loss.
“Sit.” Dylan’s calm tone wakes me from my memories, and we’re already standing in front of the swing. My legs carried me forward while my mind stayed behind.
The seat is just as hard as I remember, the view still the same. “It hasn’t changed much, huh, Dills?”
“Nope.” He gives me a small push and I know he’s smiling. “But then, we wouldn’t want it to, would we?”
“No.” I pause, taking in the beautiful oak tree, each branch reaching out to the next as if they need one another so desperately. “I loved those stories my mom would tell me, especially the one about the wind. How it tickled the trees and when they laughed, the sky smiled.” My own smile shines through a single tear because now she is one with the sky, and the wind, and the trees. As much as I miss her, I know they are taking good care of her.
“I love that one,” Dylan admits, “and I know that’s why you love to read so much, because of all those stories your mom crafted for you.”
I glance over my shoulder through a curtain of hair. “Oh, you know, do you?”
“I know everything about you, Hopper.”
“Oh, yeah, and what do you know?” I tease, enjoying our back and forth banter, excited to hear what he has to say next.
“A lot of things,” he utters confidently. “Like how you always measure out your peanut butter, making sure you don’t eat more than two tablespoons at a time.” He chuckles. “Fat content, of course. And how you can’t live without music. The first six songs on your iPod are by Ed Sheeran, and if he ever showed up at your door, you’d fall at his feet.” That makes me giggle, because he’s spot on about that one.
“Your favorite color is purple,” he adds, “and you love violets. You hate camping, but you never complained about it because you knew your parents loved exposing you and Zoey to nature.”
He keeps going, little by little, a piece of me being revealed with each breath. “When we were in middle school, you brought two bag lunches every day for three weeks, and gave one to the homeless guy who sat on the bench a block from the school. And you love to save things, not in a hoarding way, but in a sentimental way. The same way your mom did. Like that worn lucky penny you found when we were eight.”
Wetness begins to build behind my eyelids, but then spills over at his next words.
“You still keep an old journal in your sock drawer, because you don’t want to forget where you’ve come from, and you love to dance in the rain because your mom used to take you out during summer storms to jump in puddles.”
Tears run down my skin, my pulse thrashes against my neck.
“And I know with absolute certainty that you are one of the most selfless people I’ve ever met. That you would give the shirt off your back to someone who needed it, even if it meant you’d be cold.
“And you know what else I know?” I shake my head in answer, my voice unable to catch up to my tears. He comes around to the front of the swing and kneels down on the ground. The sincerity in his gaze takes my breath away.
“I know that your mom was right. You were meant to shine, just like Sirius, the brightest star in the sky.” He brushes a tear away with his thumb. “I didn’t mean to make you cry. I guess, I…,” his eyes are full of uncertainty, “I wanted you to know that I’ve always seen you. That’s not a bad thing, is it?”
“No, Dylan.” I cup his jaw in the warmth of my palm, whispering, “it’s the very best thing.”
His breathing picks up. His gaze drifts from my eyes, down to my mouth, then back up again. My own breathing becomes erratic and I swallow. For a split second, I think he might kiss me. In fact, it surprises me how much I want him to. My tongue darts out to wet my mouth as I imagine what his full bottom lip would feel like underneath mine. But he stands up, and the spell is broken.
He takes my hand and fireworks crackle and spark in my belly. While it’s the same hand I held not more than a few minutes ago, it seems different somehow. My mind is playing tricks on me again and I’m in desperate need of a distraction. Like now.
“Think of how many of my tears have soaked this seat?” I blurt out when I feel his gaze on me again. “And how did we go from talking about you to ending up with me?”
“Eh. I’m not really keeping track. Besides,” he winks, “you’re much more interesting.”
“I beg to differ,” I counter, lifting my head in challenge.
“Begging,” he cocks a brow, “now that’s something I’d be interested in seeing.” My mouth falls open, and I mean wide open. Probably enough to fit a baseball. “Cat got your tongue, Hopper?”
I know my face is flaming red. I bite down on my lip to dispel the images coming to mind. Begging, my knees, and my tongue. There’s something else in the picture, too, but I refuse to go there.
“Always so cute when you blush, Evie. Come on, let’s get back.”
The return trip to the house is peaceful. A welcome chill coats the air, tiny goose bumps flaring up on my arms. I shiver a bit, but it feels good.
The night sky is dotted with stars, helping to light our path. We’re not talking much, but Dylan hasn’t let go of my hand and I find
myself smiling the entire time. He also seems much more relaxed now, the tension from before melting away.
“Cold?” he asks, and before I even have a chance to answer, he lets go of my hand and takes off his jacket. He drapes it around my shoulder, then twines his fingers with mine again. My grin returns. I think it might just remain indefinitely.
A few minutes later, his voice an echo on the quiet street, he says, “I forgot one.”
“Huh?”
“Reading. You’ve read Pride and Prejudice four times and if you were on a deserted island and given a choice of water and food, or water and books, you’d choose books, hands down.”
I’m speechless. There’s nothing to say because he’s right… about everything. And he’s still thinking about me. Another batch of goose bumps parade over my skin, but this time it has nothing to do with the temperature in the air.
By the time we reach the house, Dylan makes a valiant attempt to stifle a yawn and my legs are finally feeling the effects of my earlier run. He walks me up to the front door, stopping just under the porch light.
“I feel so much better.” He smiles, and his eyes glitter under his long, dark lashes. “Thank you.” I nod and return his expression, but then his eyes drop to our adjoined hands and he exhales a sigh. “You know… when you hold my hand, the noise in my head… everything… it just stops.” His next words are barely a whisper. “I don’t want to let go.”
My heart swells and the truth falls from my lips as if a soft breeze came and swept it away. “So don’t.”
Shock widens his eyes as they find mine. His gaze caresses me, holding me hostage as he searches my face, almost as if to make sure this moment is real. And then his lips curl into the most beautiful smile. It’s dazzling, and for the second time tonight, he manages to steal my breath. Stepping closer, he glances down at my mouth for a beat and my heart reacts, a loud pound in my ears. His warm breath bypasses my lips as he leans in and kisses the tip of my nose.