by L. V. Lewis
Sky sighs. “I considered banning her, but how can I not allow my mother, conniving bitch though she may be, to come to my wedding?”
“Easy. Tell the bitch she’s uninvited.” I say that with tongue thoroughly in cheek, but I know Sky doesn’t roll like that. She credits Elaine for building her empire, despite her repeated attempts to topple it when Sky and Brody got together. But, I get it. I haven’t been able to cut Jacob completely off either.
“It’s okay, Malik will handle her if he has to. So, are you going to talk to Dylan when he calls back?”
I am thankful that we’ve gotten back to the situation at hand because talking about our folks is a gargantuan Debby Downer. To be fair, though, Sky’s relationship with her father has taken a turn for the better, since she found out just how sneaky and manipulative her mother was. She and Hideyo Amamoto have bonded again now that Elaine Samuelson isn’t around to stop them from connecting at every turn.
“Yeah, I’m going to talk to him. If only to hear what caused him to disappear. It’s got to be something super ridiculous, right?”
“A personal crisis, Brody says. Of course I grilled him about it after you left and he says he didn’t pressure Dylan to say what that might be, because he kinda ghosted his band when he went into rehab. He figures Dylan will tell us when he’s ready.” Well, I guess I can postpone my interrogation of Brody since Sky has taken care of that for me.
I don’t tell her that I got the impression that Brody wasn’t totally forthcoming on that front, but I’m not causing any trouble in paradise. Who does that two months from their best friend’s wedding day?
“Either that, or he’ll come to the wedding, tell all of us essentially nothing and disappear again. I mean, it’s not like he’s not still leaving his same trail of broken hearts all over the world.”
“I don’t think he’s seeing anyone else, because there’s been nothing in the media about him since our tour. Prior to you, he’d been in gossip rags left and right with some actress, supermodel, or groupie.”
“Thanks for the info, and to think I’d been staying away from the news media for nothing all these months.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t Google him a few times when he stopped coming around?”
“If I’m honest, only a couple of times,” I admit sheepishly.
“So, if his explanation is legit, would you give him another chance?”
“I’d be willing to forgive him, but I’m not dating him again, because who wants to go down the same road expecting a different outcome? That’s insanity.”
Dylan calls me back in exactly thirty minutes. After hanging up with Sky, I barely have time to put away my leftover takeout, and put my wine glass in the dishwasher. I’m not going to front, though, I did let the phone ring the requisite few times and picked up only right before it would go to voice mail. He doesn’t get to think I’m desperate or something.
“Thank you for taking my call,” he says after our greetings. “This really means a lot to me.”
“Can we move this along? I really do want to watch a couple of shows on Netflix before I go to bed tonight.” I’m deliberately being snippy, because I’m not about to cave like Bella Swan did for Edward Cullen when he left her in New Moon. I’m stronger than some teenage romance novel heroine.
“You’re right, I need to get to the point. So, you remember when we were in Dallas, my mother called to tell me that my great uncle Foster died.”
“Yes, I remember. I also remember you confiding to me how you barely knew him.”
“I know I said that, but when I went to his funeral and saw some of the pictures his family displayed, my brothers and I were in a lot of those pictures.”
“So you were so broken up about your great uncle Foster, you couldn’t phone or text?”
“When the memories of him came flooding back to me, I literally broke down—”
“As in, you had a nervous breakdown?” This guy must think I’m a fucking moron.
“Well, no it was a lot more subtle than that. I became really depressed.”
Depression I can understand, because Jacob went through that when my mother died, and I suppose I did too, but my father and I handled it in very different ways. I slept a lot and lost weight. Jacob drank and went to Casinos.
“What was it about your great uncle Foster’s death that made you so depressed?” I remember that not having my mother for the milestones in my life was really hard. I wanted to know what void his great uncle Foster left in his life that caused his depression.
“He took me and my brothers on these epic road trips every summer, because my Dad was obsessed with his job, and my Mom didn’t want to leave Dad home to fend for himself. You know how My Mom takes care of everybody. Right?”
“I only met her the one time, but she was like a little tornado in the house. Always doing something.”
Dylan laughs. I had forgotten how much I loved his laugh.
“And since my Uncle Foster and Aunt Eunice never had kids of their own, they became our surrogate grandparents in the summers, and I guess I’d forgotten, because I was the youngest, and losing him hit me hardest.”
“Why is that?”
“I’m embarrassed to say, but when we got older, we refused to go hang out with him like before. My great aunt talked about how he missed his times with us during the eulogy she gave.”
“And you were so sad you couldn’t answer your cellphone, or return a text message?”
“Alyssa, the depression diagnosis was devastating to me because I never thought I’d have mental health issues. I’ve been going to my therapist every week for eight months.”
“What’s your therapist’s name?”
“Dr. Morgan Carruthers.”
I put him on speaker and look up Dr. Morgan Carruthers and find one in Downers Grove.
“How do I know you didn’t just look this guy up before you called me?”
“I can send you a screen shot of my appointment schedule from my Doctor’s portal, if you don’t believe me. I can’t fake that.”
“Okay, send it to me. Right now.” I call his bluff because I’m not going to let him do it later so he can cobble some crap together to send to me.
“Okay. Hold on a sec.”
He puts me on speaker, and his phone makes little clicking and beeping sounds as he manipulates his internet to retrieve the information I requested. He continues to talk.
“I’ve just gotten my head clear enough to begin reconnecting with my friends. You’re not the only one I severed contact with Alyssa. I haven’t talked to any of my band mates except Brody recently, and I’ve been a fucking hermit since coming back to Downers Grove. My parents insisted I come back home until I got better. I still have my house in Seattle, but I’ve been subletting it to an actor and actress who’ve been making a movie series. Hand to God.”
His base story rings true, but something about a serious depression over his great uncle doesn’t seem to jibe for me. I don’t have any aunts or uncles whose death would affect me like my own mother’s death has. Maybe there was a close bond Dylan had with Uncle Foster that was shattered. Who am I to judge?
“You don’t have to swear to God or anything. I just want to see the appointment schedule.” Knowing there had been an extended number of visits with a therapist would at least corroborate his depression story. Or, he could’ve had a psychotic break, or something. We didn’t know one another long enough for me to ascertain whether his mental faculties were all there. We spent most of our time fucking one another’s brains out, and that doesn’t require much use of gray matter.
My phone pings and I click on the file he sent. It is indeed a screenshot of the portal for Dr. Morgan Carruthers’s appointment scheduler. It looks legit, because I’m very familiar with the therapy manager software which produced this schedule. Yet, I’m still salty about him cutting me off with no explanation.
“You know, I of all people would’ve understood depression, Dylan. I still see a
therapist about my Mom. Well, not as often as before, but when I miss her during the highs and lows of my life, I make an appointment.”
“I guess I’m not enlightened enough to view therapy as something normal. In fact, I’d never seen a therapist until last year.”
“You probably needed one way before then, if you ask me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Do you really think your sleeping around and avoiding any type of commitment in your life was healthy?”
“I was a red-blooded male under thirty, and a pretty popular rock star. The chicks knew the score, and I didn’t see anything wrong with it.”
“Well if that’s not the most conceited thing I’ve ever heard.”
“You didn’t have any committed relationships either that I can recall. Your music was your committed relationship.”
“Not for a lack of trying,” I say. “The difference between you and me is that I was open to it, but the guys I dated weren’t keen on having me touring the world ten months out of the year.”
Dylan sighs. “Why are we arguing over what our relationship life was like before we even met each other? I want to talk about our future.”
“Wait a minute. We don’t have a future.”
“We could if you’re willing to try.”
My heart seizes. If he’d said this to me eight months ago, I would’ve been all over this with the quickness. But now? I wouldn’t trust Dylan as far as I could throw him, and I refuse to allow him to trample over my heart again.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not.”
“You can’t mean that, Alyssa.”
“Yes. I can. You destroyed any trust there was between us. How do you expect me to just pick up where we left off, like you didn’t go AWOL just when things were heating up between us? That is just all kinds of foul.”
“I know. I fucked up, and I own that. It’s all on me. But I never counted on getting sick…I mean the depression overwhelming me the way it did. I felt like I was dying sometimes.”
Dylan sounds so heartbroken, my natural inclination where he’s concerned is to soothe him with my words, but I can’t go there. I would fall right back down the rabbit hole he led me into before, and I don’t think I could find my way out of it if he were to abandon me again.
“I’m very sorry for what you’ve gone through. I really am, but I’m not…I-I can’t go there with you again.”
Dylan doesn’t say anything for several seconds. “So, I’ve killed any chance we had at making something work between us?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. I can’t. I just can’t with you right now.” I thought my heart was already broken, but it breaks the broken pieces yet again to refuse Dylan out of hand. All I want to do is give him another chance, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to survive if anything went wrong again.
“I get it,” he says, resignation like a weight anchoring us both to a rigid stalemate. “I really do. So, we still have to get through Brody and Sky’s wedding without our drama giving them any heartburn. Friends?”
“Why did I know you would put me in this position?”
“What position? I want you in my life any way I can have you, and if being friends is all I can get right now, I’m willing to put my feelings aside. For now.”
“You’ve friend-zoned me as if I’m the one who disappeared for eight months. I should be the one friend-zoning you.”
“If anyone asks, I’ll be sure to say you friend-zoned me first.”
“Thank you. It’s the least you can do.” I know it’s petty of me to insist on this caveat, but sometimes a little pettiness is all a girl has to hang on to.
“You’re welcome.”
Dylan got to know me so well for the few months we were together he’s practically an expert at handling my mercurial mood-swings. He definitely knows when to back down so I won’t go totally ballistic on him. Working things out in a calmer manner than I expected gives me the impetus to inquire about other things that have been bugging me.
“So, can I ask you a question?”
“Anything.”
“Why aren’t you coming to the tux fitting with the other guys?”
“I’ve uh, I’ve lost quite a bit of weight and I’m working with a nutritionist and personal trainer to try and get back as close to my pre-can—um, pre-depression weight as I can.”
“Really? Well, now you’re going to have to send me a selfie, because I don’t believe you’ve lost all that ho—” I was about to say hotness, but decided not to lead him on, or make him think I was flirting. “All that definition you had.”
“You’ve got to give me at least six weeks before I send you a pic. I look like a recovering crack addict or a meth head right now, without the bad teeth.”
“Okay, well maybe I’ll wait until you come for your fitting and see for myself.”
“That’s a deal.”
I have to ask him this question, or I wouldn’t be the daughter of an alcoholic, and the best friend of girl whose fiancé was an addict. “You would tell me if you had a problem with substance abuse, wouldn’t you, Dylan?”
“Of course I would. I know what you went through with your father, and I know how concerned you were for Sky when she got serious about Brody. I still smoke pot sometimes, and back in the day I used to do a few lines of coke with Brody and Kim, but that’s about as far as I’ve ever gone with drugs. When Kim died, I think we all had a very rude awakening.”
“Thank you for being so candid with me about it. I do care what happens to you, and if you’ve got a problem bigger than depression, I don’t want you to feel like you can’t confide in me. Because that’s what friends do.”
“Alyssa…” he says, then hesitates, as if he’s about to share something weighty, but changes his mind. “I don’t have any problem bigger than depression in my life right now.”
I am so relieved I don’t pick up on how he qualified that statement. Hindsight will remind me much later of all his near slip-ups.
“So, I guess I’d better keep my date with Netflix now, because I want to watch at least two episodes of my favorite shows before I go to sleep.
“What are you watching?”
“The Umbrella Academy and Russian Doll. I know they’re as different as night and day, but they’re both extremely good.”
“I’ll have to check them out, so next time we’ll have more things to talk about.”
“You do that, and please say hello to your family for me.”
“Will do. Goodnight, Alyssa.”
“Night.”
I shower and prepare for my marathon of Netflix shows, but I find myself going over my conversation with Dylan, and I have to rewind my first show several times before I finally give up. I put on some soft music, set the alarm on my phone and daydream about the last night Dylan and I spent together in Dallas, until I fall asleep and dream about him.
Ten
Dallas, TX
A Year Ago
ALYSSA
Dylan’s body always looks good, but it looks otherworldly against the backdrop of downtown Dallas at night. The almost continuous construction in the CBD seems to disappear in the fluorescent lights illuminating the skyscrapers. He looks like a god against that backdrop, the ambient light from the windows making both the hotel room and his body ethereal as my eyes adjust in the darkness.
We are drawn together like magnets, and he reaches for me, drawing me into his arms before maneuvering us toward the luxurious hotel bed. Nothing matters now except the places where we touch—where lips, hands, and bodies create a symphony of sensation.
Dylan breaks our mouths apart, dropping kisses along my jaw on a path towards my neck. Once there he latches on and gently sucks the skin of my throat. The tingly, overly-sensitive feeling escalates until it’s almost overwhelming. My breath accelerates, and my muscles tense as his lips and tongue obliterate his favorite erogenous zone. The feelings shoot straight to my core, and I writhe in his arms, squeezing my thighs together as my
toes curl from the intensity of it. My sex spasms releasing a flood of wetness and my muscles clench in grateful relief. Only then do I realize I’ve had an orgasm just from heavy necking.
“Wow,” I manage with a shaky gasp.
“And that’s only the beginning,” Dylan promises with a self-congratulatory smile, before he kisses me so deeply I fear he will swallow my tongue. Pure molten heat suffuses my nerve endings as his hands join his lips and lower body in a cacophony of movement that gives birth to such intense sensation, I feel as if I’m falling even though I am lying prone. Dylan seems to know intuitively when I become saturated with feeling from one erogenous zone to another.
He releases my mouth and kisses a trail from my chin to my neck, from my neck to my chest, and from my chest to my quivering stomach. The stubble on his jaw scratches my skin, and even that provides a sensation that is erotic to me. Grasping my knees, he spreads my legs and his lips soothe the trail his stubble grazes on my inner thighs. I moan and raise my hips encouraging him to reach his destination post haste.
Dylan doesn’t require any urging. Lifting both my legs over his shoulders, he bends his head and uses his tongue to part my labia and I bury my hands in his sable-fine hair as he sucks and nibbles at my sensitive flesh. When his tongue slips inside me, I moan so loudly I’m sure all the people on this floor of the hotel can hear me.
“You taste so good, baby,” he murmurs without retreating. His breath cools my sensitive flesh for a few moments before he pulls my clit into his mouth, his stubble rasping places that causes my body to tighten like a bow string. My heels dig into his muscular back, as I lift myself against his mouth, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He slips a hand beneath my ass to aid me in getting as much traction as possible, while his mouth consumes me like I’m a gourmet entrée.
As if all this sensation weren’t enough, he brings his dominant hand back where he presses two fingers to my cleft as he continues to suck me. Without much effort given how lubricated I am from his expert ministrations, he slips two bent fingers inside me and presses hard against my g-spot. I can hear my pulse and feel it between my legs as the edges of his teeth tease my clit. My orgasm detonates this time like a bomb as white-hot pleasure grips every nerve ending in my body.