“Sky!” he calls. “Really, you got this all wrong. I’m not saying that’s what I think.” I keep walking as Dylan’s heavy strides catch up behind. “Sky!”
Dylan grabs my arm and spins me around, causing a tear to fall from my eye. Great.
He stares at it in alarm. “Sorry, you’re right, I’m a dickhead, I didn’t mean for you to take what I said this way.”
“Let me go.”
Strong hands cup my face, and I twist my head trying to get away from the intensity of his look. “Listen to me, Sky. I’d swap you for a hundred of the girls the press and public expect me to be with. You’re genuine, funny and real. You’ve touched a part of my soul I thought died years ago.”
“Cut the crap, Dylan.”
“No, I’m not just saying this - it’s true. I know we don’t know each other very well but something about you fills a space inside that’s been empty for so long. Don’t let me fuck this up before we’ve started.”
I yank his hands from my face, before his words break through my defences. “Maybe you should write a song about it.”
“That’s unfair, Sky.”
“I wish I’d left the day I first met you, the games don’t stop, do they?” I snap. “Don’t follow me.”
He doesn’t.
*****
I sit on a metal bench at the bus stop controlling my ragged breaths. How stupid am I? Letting this guy play with me; indulge in his fantasy for ordinary girls. I chew the inside of my mouth, willing the stupid tears to stay unspilt.
To get to the house, I need to take two buses and walk a couple of miles. Sweat sticks the summer dress to my back and legs, by the time I reach the door my calves sore from walking in crappy summer sandals. All the way back, my chest stayed tight, his words replaying; not the lies about touching his soul and that crap, the ones about him not being seen with someone like me.
I step into the shower, washing off the day and him. What was I doing? Living a fantasy with a mysterious rock star? The type in books who profess undying love before the story ends? My story isn’t ending this way. If I listen to my head and not my heart, mine is about to end on a train back to Bristol, car dead in a supermarket car park.
One of Dylan’s T-shirts lies on the floor by the sink and I stare at it. If I were a worse person, I’d take the item as a souvenir. But of what? What was this? And if I were a complete bitch, I’d call a newspaper to see if I can bargain for information of his whereabouts. Find out what his real worth is, because it’ll be more than I’m worth to him.
Chapter Fifteen
The obsessing about Dylan Morgan doesn’t abate as I make myself a snack and debate whether to leave or not. The old desire to not know anything is replaced with a consuming need to find out who he is. So when I pick my phone up to search train timetables, the control I’ve held onto disappears.
I punch his name into Google. I don’t have to type his full name in the search box before the box fills for me. Immediately a page appears with a link to Wikipedia, images and stories.
The man in the picture doesn’t look anything like Dylan, apart from his eyes. His hair is longer - half way to his shoulders, dark brown with a slight curl. This changes his face shape completely. The possibility Dylan’s lying crosses my mind but his eyes are the clincher. They’re different shades of blue in different pictures, colour changing with his mood like those rings I wore as a teen.
Wikipedia feels too intrusive (ha ha) so I scroll to the stories. Then I see the band name.
Blue Phoenix.
Holy shit.
No way.
The tattoo. Dylan was practically telling me and I didn’t click. Evidently, his semi-naked presence switches my brain onto standby.
I’m clueless and boring when it comes to music, but everybody knows who Blue Phoenix is. Calling them ‘big’ is an understatement, they’re huge. So how did I not know? I trawl my mind but can’t find any memories of pictures of the band members; couldn’t even tell you how many people are in the band.
But I’ve heard friends talk about them - I think Tara went to their stadium gig last year. I know she raves on about them sometimes, but I have an enviable capacity for only pretending to listen to anything that bores me, so I have no idea.
And Blue Phoenix aren’t sanitised like the famous boy bands. These guys have a reputation and a lot of internet fan sites. I mean, a lot. I click on one. More pictures of Dylan, and other band members. In a lot of them they’re shirtless or turning smouldering looks to the camera. There’s also pictures of Dylan with girls, a lot of different girls. Beautiful women dressed up for awards nights or dressed down in bikinis at exotic locations. Tall, willowy, silicone enhanced and glamorous. Girls who don’t exist in my world.
Who look nothing like me.
Dazed, I click back and read the first news story.
‘Fans furious as star disappears – Blue Phoenix forced to postpone tour’
The mysterious disappearance of international bad boy rock star, Dylan Morgan, has teenage girls around the country venting their anger on the venues who are powerless to do anything. The band’s manager, Steve Bennett, claims to have no details of his whereabouts. Rumours of a split, and fake death notices on Twitter and Facebook have sent the fandom into a tailspin.’
I speed read the rest of the article, staccato heartbeat accompanying me. Background I’d rather not know about Dylan follows including a list of his demeanours. The article is accompanied by him with a model I’ve vaguely heard of. Again, tall, skinny with silky black hair and perfect everything. His girlfriend?
I want to throw up. This guy? What the hell is he doing here? And with me? What an amusing game I must’ve been - clueless but falling for his spin. I might not be a groupie but I’ve been caught in his full beam and dazzled into believing he wanted me. This is my fault for not investigating who he is before now - I fooled myself into a fantasy worthy of a best-seller. Why didn’t I know who Dylan was when he told me his name? I’m vaguely aware of boy band names because they’re plastered on the TV 24/7, but I know little about rock bands. Blue Phoenix is one of a few I’ve heard of, just not well enough to recognise them. Stupid, stupid girl.
Afternoon melds with the evening and I’m locked in the world of the internet, spinning in circles as I learn everything about Dylan I can. Like an addiction, one taste of insight into his life and I need more. Everything. Some articles will be lies and others exaggerated, but the essence of who Dylan Morgan is runs through. This is reality, and one I won’t be part of.
The bang of the front door pulls me out of the internet world and I rub my eyes, glancing at the time: almost nine pm. That’s a lot of time dizzying myself with the life and times of Dylan Morgan. Footsteps ascend the stairs again, but the floorboards don’t creak and he returns back down. Where did he go when I left him in the supermarket car park? And is that my business anyway?
I pick up the paper where I’ve scrawled train times; if I go soon I can be on my way to Bristol in an hour. The decision to leave was made when I discovered the truth about Dylan. The overwhelming shift in our day blew apart our new world. I pile clothes into my rucksack and head downstairs with my full bag, Dylan stands as I walk into the lounge, the old weary look from the lane outside Broadbeach back on his face. We lock gazes for a moment, and then I stalk past him into the kitchen. Gathering stray books and sunglasses and pushing them into my handbag, I panic about getting past Dylan without speaking to him.
“Can I talk to you?” he asks softly.
I turn. Dylan leans in the doorway, the exact way he has every one of our days in this house. But this isn’t my Dylan anymore; I’ve replaced him with stories and images from the internet.
“How did you get back here?” I ask.
“The same way you did. I walked.”
I blink. “What if someone saw you pursuing some girl you wouldn’t be seen dead with?”
Dylan moves into the room. “Don’t. Say. That,” he says through clenched teeth
I stand my ground. “How else am I supposed to take it?”
“You completely overreacted. Haven’t you listened to anything I said - how I feel about you. About us.”
“Us? There isn’t an us!”
“Of course there fucking is! Otherwise you wouldn’t be so pissed off with me!”
I glare. Touche.
He pushes his hand through his hair. “I called someone to come and get us. If you’d waited…”
“Who?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Does this mean people know where he is now? This gets worse… “I’ve asked them to take your car and fix the engine too.”
“I don’t need anything from you!”
As I attempt to push past him, Dylan steps in the doorway. “Please, Sky. I meant what I said. Don’t go.”
“I have to go!”
He extends a hand as if about to touch me and I step away. Dylan’s shoulders slump. “Can’t we talk about this? Until I said what I did, everything was going so well. Don’t leave yet, not because of one dickhead comment.”
“Things are different,” I say quietly, hardly able to meet his eyes.
“Why? Because of the sex?”
“I know who you are now,” I blurt.
A transformation comes over Dylan. Muscles rigid, face hardening he looks at me with eyes retreating back to his soul. “How?”
“I googled you.” This sounds funny, apart from he’s not laughing.
“Why?”
“Because my curiosity took over, and I needed to know who you were.”
He runs his tongue across his teeth. “And?”
“I think I should leave. I don’t want to get caught up in…whatever.”
Whatever existed has shattered into pieces, because when I meet his eyes, Dylan has gone. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”
“I was going to find out eventually. You should’ve told me.”
“We said no to the real world, so I didn’t. Just like you didn’t tell me who you are. It’s not fair you’ve done this, I can’t fucking google you.”
“I’m an accountant-receptionist-dogsbody and I live in Bristol. I just spilt up with my boyfriend of five years, whose family I unfortunately work for. So I’m probably jobless now too.”
“That’s not much compared to what you know about me. Or think you know.”
“There’s nothing much to know. I’ve not had the most eventful of lives.”
Dylan slumps against the doorframe. “Do you know how fucking hard it is to be owned by everyone around you? What that does to a person? Coming here freed me – meeting you, the first person who treated me the way I deserve, both good and bad. You showed me who I could be. And now you know who I am, I’m their Dylan Morgan again, not your Dylan Morgan.”
“Mine?”
“I mean the one you know. The one you freed by not knowing the other one.” He rakes a hand through his hair. “Too fucking good to be true.”
“But this was always temporary. We would both go back to our old lives and everything would be over. Playing out fantasies about returning to the world of our childhood where nothing can touch us is an illusion.”
“I wanted to live in that illusion for longer.” He turns his head, hands still in his hair. “You let me breathe, Sky. You connect me to something long gone, and now that’s lost again.”
The tattoos, face and physique are the rock star Dylan Morgan - the man whose life I spent the last few hours dissecting. But the man in front of me isn’t the Dylan Morgan from the internet. He’s the guy who made me laugh, touched my aching heart and pulled me into our new world.
“Leave then. Go further than Broadbeach. You have the money, disappear and make a new life.
“Where? How? Are you listening to me?”
“Okay, if you can’t run then face things. If someone is trying to control your life, take the control back.”
“That’s hypocritical - you ran away from your problems!”
“To get my head together after things ended with Grant. But even in the first day of being apart, some of how I felt was relief. Grant was trying to change me and I’m never going to be anything but myself from now on. I control my life, no one else. You should do the same.”
“You’re telling me to go back?” His tone is incredulous.
“Not if you don’t want to. Dylan, do what you want. If you need time out to get your head together, fine, but face them - whoever - and tell them.”
“It’s not that fucking simple!”
“Why?”
“I’ve done this since I was seventeen, Sky. How can I stand up for who I am when I haven’t got a fucking clue who that is?”
Suddenly everything makes sense, the reason why he’s behaving like a boy holidaying on the beach. His life has been crazy, privileged and unreal. Dylan is a shell of the seventeen-year-old kid who gave up control to others, so he could get the life he wanted. Dylan got everything he wanted, but has nothing.
“I don’t know what to say to you. I don’t understand your life or the world you live in.” My head hurts from the intensity of the conversation; of him revealing so much I have no right to hear.
I tense as he approaches. Searching my eyes with his lost ones, Dylan rubs my cheek with the back of his hand. “Say that you’ll stay with me a little longer.”
His touch reconnects the strange ‘us’. “Why?”
“Because I want you here. With me. Telling me home truths and making me face shit.”
“I can’t,” I say hoarsely. “I don’t want to be here when the press or whoever tracks you down. They’re looking for you and I’m not getting dragged into your life.”
When he grabs my face by both cheeks, I’m startled. “Sky, please, I want you. I want to get to know you, all of you. I don’t know why but we were meant to meet and we did, exactly when I needed you. You walked into my world and showed me a glimmer of a different life I could have.”
I push his hands away. “What if they’re out there now? The person who saw you? And now, you’ve told people where you are? No, Dylan. I can’t do this. I’m about to start a new life, one I can control.”
We face each other, I’m shaking with the realisation of who he is and the fantasy world crashing around our ears.
“Tomorrow. Wait until tomorrow?” he asks, eyes wide.
“What’s the point?”
“The point is you don’t have your car and it’s getting late. I’m leaving tomorrow too; I’ll have someone take you home.”
I pull a face. “You’ll have someone take me home? I don’t want anyone taking me anywhere! I want my car back!”
“Then you’ll have to stay here, won’t you? Until your car’s fixed - they said tomorrow.”
Perspiration covers my back again; I’m backed into a corner and this is what life would be like if I dated Dylan. Dated. Ha. He was more delusional than I realised.
Dylan’s phone rings and he answers it immediately. His face darkens. “What? Where? Fucking deal with it!”
I chew on my lip, the world around imploding.
“How? Okay, well I’ll have to fucking leave then.” He pauses. “Who gave them the fucking address?”
My pulse rate spikes as Dylan walks out of the door, continuing his conversation out of earshot. He can’t hide what’s happening; I can guess. Scanning the room for any remaining items, I push them into my bulging rucksack. I can’t think straight. Things have gone from days out at souvenir shops to life with someone who people are looking for. How do I leave? Where do I go?
I stomp to the front of the house. “What’s going on?”
Hand in his short hair, Dylan shakes his head at me as he continues the conversation. “Half an hour? Who contacted you? No, you get on fucking Twitter or whatever and tell them I’m somewhere else. I don’t know - the fucking moon!”
Dylan launches his phone across the garden and I flinch as he slams a palm into the side of the house. For a minute, he rests his head against the bri
cks, chest falling and rising rapidly.
“Did someone find out where you are?” I say as calmly as possible.
“Yes.” His tone is bitter, defeated.
“The supermarket?”
“Sandchurch.”
“But I didn’t see anyone…?”
Dylan turns, rests against the wall and stares up at the evening sky. “Someone always sees.”
And that’s why we could never co-exist in each other’s lives.
“So I guess we’re not waiting until the morning?”
He doesn’t take his eyes away from the stars. “No, we have to go.”
“Someone’s coming to take you home?”
“Yeah.” He looks at me. “Will you come with me?”
“What? No, no way. I’m going to my friend’s place and picking up the pieces of my life.”
“Sky…” Dylan steps towards me, touching my cheek. “Come back with me, at least until we know you’re safe.”
“Safe? From what?”
“Whether the press knows who you are - they have pictures.”
My stomach turns over. “What pictures? Who?”
Rubbing my cheek with his thumb, Dylan studies my face. “You said your life is a mess - that you might not have a job, stay with me while you sort things out?”
“I can’t.” My voice is hoarse, barely a whisper.
“Why?”
How can I say because going with him drags me further into this? Can’t he see? Tears well, frustrated my bubble burst and the world is pouring in. Annoyingly, a tear slips from my eye and Dylan’s face fills with alarm. He kisses my cheek, kissing away the tear.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. They’ll forget about you.”
And you’ll forget about me if I leave now. I inhale deeply. One last time, I place my mouth on his; lose myself in Dylan, and the intensity of the kiss. As his lips meet mine, I know this is a mistake as I’m reforging a connection I’m trying to break. Fate brought me to this incredible man and then handed over a part of my heart and soul to him. But the new knowledge of who he is, what that means and how this has to end, catches hold and pulls me back to reality. He can never be mine because he belongs to so many others, and I’m not the person to help him lose those people.
Summer Sky: A Blue Phoenix Book Page 11