D for Dylan - 5. Chapter Five

It’s been six days since he showed his face at the school. Liam Henderson went missing in action, skipping phone calls from his friends, ignoring messages and eliminating his presence on social media. The most annoying part was how big of a deal it was to everyone. A guy decides to ditch school for a week to have fun, and minions go loosing their minds as though all roads lead to his door.

“I heard he crashed his Camaro,” Elle said, biting on a soggy french fry and squinting at the taste.

She spat it out and squeamishly pinched it with her nails, dissecting fried potato and groaning, “Ew, look at this thing... It’s like, 90 percent oil.”

“That’s horrible,” Pete commented.

“Thank you!” she exclaimed, appreciating his acknowledgement.

“I’m talking about Camaro.” Pete clarified, adding, “Elle, please stop playing with food, it’s gross.”

“What’s so bad about it?..” I asked Pete.

“It’s so oily! I mean, what are they even-” Elle started, but I interrupted, continuing my thought.

“..His parents can always buy him a new one.”

Elle rolled her eyes, took out her phone and snapped a picture of her plate.

“I’m sending this to CDC,” she proudly stated, giving each of us a discrediting look.

“He could’ve gotten hurt,” Peter pushed. “For all we know he can be in a hospital or worse, nobody heard from him for a week.”

“Well, if he got hurt then he’ll just know how it feels like.” I commented, licking the last of my pudding off the spoon. “Maybe it’ll teach him a lesson or two.”

Pete frowned at me, but then he looked past my shoulder and saw something that forced the expression on his face to turn regretful and awkward. I heard gasps and moans, people started twisting their necks in the same direction and I didn’t even have to look behind my back to know exactly who just walked through the door.

The sainted ‘king’ himself casually strolled into the cafeteria, wearing jeans and a black leather jacket with a pair of sunglasses. He looked like a hungover Hollywood star trying to escape paparazzi wearing a shitty disguise.

“Guess who was partying all week?” I said sarcastically. “He does look like shit, I’ll give him that.”

Peter stuffed his face with a sandwich and I felt a sting of shame for my comments. I detested violence and yet here I was, letting my grudges take better of me. My venomous rant was made worse by hypocrisy, because in truth, I felt relieved seeing Liam taking a seat at his usual spot. The last thing I needed on my conscience was his alleged car crash. As I last recalled, it was me who sent his drunk ass off my neighborhood in the middle of the night.

“Did you guys hear about the party?” Elle asked.

“What party?” I asked.

“Apparently Jason Wu’s mom caught his father in bed with his secretary!” she explained.

Peter and I exchanged looks, trying to decipher the connection between these events. It wasn’t happening.

“A-a-and?..” Pete moaned.

“A-a-and mister Wu took his wife to Bahamas to patch up their crumbling marriage. Jason is throwing a party on Saturday. We should go!”

“Elle, we never went to a party before.” I stated the obvious.

“The more reasons to go now! Just think about it, it’s a senior year and you’ve turned into a hottie! If this is a live version of Cinderella, you know what that means - I’m your fairy godmother and I’m sending you to a party!”

“No thank you, I don’t need another prince.”

“Well, didn’t you tell me you guys are wearing chastity belts till your birthday? This could be a good distraction from his magic wand. Or lack thereof.”

“Too much information.” Peter exhaled, lowering his head in embarrassment.

“Besides, you can always take Jake with us, he needs to be showcased,” she offered. “Come on, Dylan! It’s a part of a normal high school experience, a checkmark we all have to cross! We have to go!”

Elle kept brainwashing us for the rest of the day and drove Pete and I to a complete submission, forcing us to capitulate just prior to Chemistry. The rest of the school day was rather uneventful, Liam wasn’t bothering me, in fact, he didn’t look at me even once, which felt reassuring. If I’d have to guess as to why he came back to school at all, I’d blame his football team. He wasn’t stupid by any stretch of imagination, but spending years prioritizing shitty things had left him with an average GPA and his only legal shot at getting into a good school was through football. College recruiters have started visiting their games and he really had to put out - coach Jenkins was foaming at his mouth this past week while he was gone.

I went for my shift at Baskin Robbins and spent a couple of hours before sleep digging through the research paperwork. Working in BR had it’s advantages, for instance - it made me ‘the best big brother in the whole world’ according to Sarah and I refused to believe that a sugar rush from Rainbow Sherbet I bribed her with had anything to do with her opinions.

On the evening of the following day, the long awaited get-together at Jake’s apartment finally happened. Jacob was planning it for a long time, he went through tons of cooking recipes on YouTube, bought extra pillows so we could all get comfy on his sofa and vacuumed the heck out of his place. He was very fond of my friends and needless to say, both Peter and Elle returned his affections. On my part, I could tell that Jacob Williams was a very cunning young man. I didn’t pick up on this when we first started dating, but the more our relationship matured, the more things I’ve noticed. He knew exactly what do and what to say in stressful situations, knew how to manipulate people around him to bring things into his favor. Take Elle, for example. He realized how important she was to me, and the first few times they’ve met he found out about her obsession with Taylor Swift. There’s one thing about Elle, she’s very energetic and enthusiastic, but as common as it is with people like her, she frequently loses interest in things she’s overly obsessed with. This never held truth over her eternal love for Tay-Tay. I wouldn’t be shocked if somebody told me she was secretly weaving voodoo dolls of Taylor’s mortal enemies and sticking needles in them every night. Each time she spawned out a new album, it was an occurrence of biblical importance in the eyes of my best friend. Bringing Taylor into conversation was a silent, but strictly enforced taboo between both myself and Peter. This taboo was broken by my boyfriend, on Elle’s 18th birthday, when we came over to her house to celebrate. Imagine the surprise on all of our faces, when my Jacob pulled out his phone and a fucking Taylor Swift herself appeared on the FaceTime screen.

That’s right. I had no idea how he did it, and to this day Jake never disclosed this, but somehow he got a goddamned international superstar to give a random 18-year old girl countless blessings along with birthday wishes and an overly cheesy speech about pursuing her dreams and all things girl-power.

When miss Swift hung up, Elle fell on the floor and had a seizure, crying and laughing and throwing herself on Jake’s neck. I’ve never seen her this happy and as I expected, after that day Elle has turned into Jake’s number-one fan. I remember my own reaction to his shocking stunt. Despite the fact that I wasn’t a crazy fan, like any other mere mortal, I was star-stricken in the moment and probably looked like an idiot. The more I thought about it, however, the more disturbing this whole thing felt.

Even if you didn’t know him, you could tell that Jake was offensively rich. His apartment, his expensive car, the brand clothes he wore, his spending habits and an overall vibe he radiated gave it away pretty easily. Unlike Liam, he wasn’t born into wealth. His parents, Reginald and Shanice Williams were both Boston natives and had a fair share of struggles climbing their ladder up to success. Shanice was an interventional cardiologist at Mass General, she also owned her outpatient practice and naturally, she was thrilled when she found out I wanted to become a doctor myself. I spent hours talking to her, she told me stories about her time in the medical school and the hurdles she faced, being the only African American in her class and coming from a family with an abusive alcoholic father. People constantly mistook her for an aide or a nurse, many patients were proudly and openly racist, requesting to see ‘someone different’ without explaining why. She said that things were much different now, but I still felt bad hearing this. I appreciated a little insight on where I was dipping my feet and she was helping me set realistic expectations for an actual real-life medical practice. Also, having an abusive father was definitely something we both bonded over. These days her hindrances were mostly behind her and Shanice was comfortable, making over 700K a year, which wasn’t a bad settlement at all. The true wealth of their family, however, had much more to do with Mr. Williams’s endeavors.

Jake was always a tad bit mysterious when it came to answering questions about his father. Reginald himself was a lovely man in his early 60’s, he probably cooked the best barbecue ribs I’ve ever tasted during our retreat to Cape Cod last month. I’ve got to meet most of Jake’s family back then, including his older brothers with their wives, but Reginald was on the phone almost constantly and I didn’t get much chance to chat with him. He had one of those names that auto-populated on google three letters in. The web was festering with headlines about him, I saw his pictures with politicians and stars, read several articles about his humanitarian and philanthropic missions, as well as environmental impact of the latest app he sponsored. Jake tried explaining it to me once, but I don’t think I entirely understood. Apparently, Mr. Williams owned a company that invested money into software engineering startups and stocks. Jake explained that there were lots of very enthusiastic and promising startups all over the US and that his father always had a hunch for the projects that typically succeeded. He was now left with big shares in several thriving IT companies as a result. Jake was never specific about his connections and I never considered googling Mr. Williams’s name until the day Jake casually got a certain world famous singer-songwriter to FaceTime with a bunch of nobodies from Boston.

For the past few years I was trying to keep my distance from rich people. In fact, I strongly associated wealth with unhappiness. I’m not talking about living well in general, but rather how unprepared people were easily spoiled by insurmountable amount of money. In my experience, money turned my father into an asshole way before he assaulted me. As soon as those checks from his law firm started cashing in, he became dismissive towards me and mom, was buying us off with expensive gifts, spending less and less time with us - not necessarily because he had too much work. It wasn’t the only example - kids at my school were a constant reminder of how wealth spoiled people. If you had money, you were worth being friends with, despite your looks and your overall substance. Weirdly, it was after my parents’ divorce that we felt happier as a family, living off mom’s modest real estate agent salary, eating takeout pizza and having fun at the kitchen playing cards and hide and seek with Sarah - things that my poor father forgot how to appreciate. Moreover, I was convinced that Liam’s descent was directly tied to money as well. I was much less critical of Henderson’s wealth growing up, mainly because Emma shattered my preconceptions on the matter - she was modest and kind, she never boasted about their living situation and was the opposite of being materialistic. I always felt comfortable and warm in their home, eating her cookies and being genuinely happy to have a second mom. If there was a person I’ve missed most in my life, it was her, and only then, my dad. I wished Liam could handle wealth with as much grace as his mother. But no, as soon as he got his hands on the car and the trust funds his father set for him, Liam started disappearing in night clubs and parties, buying expensive shit to pimp up his car, throwing money at girls, turning into a shallow and empty shell of what used to be my best friend.

So yeah, I won’t deny that I felt that chill running down my spine when it dawned on me just how rich Jake really was. I’m glad I’ve realized this after getting to know his family better - they were sweet and kind, and above all appeared very close together as a family, which I suspected was a result of Shanice’s iron fist policy around the house. I could see that Jake picked up some of her traits, but there was much more to him that was hidden beneath the surface, leaving me to speculate and wonder about what truly was going on in his head.

“So when’s that party, again?” Jake asked.

The four of us fell apart on the soft cushioning of his sectional couch, looking like a bunch of lazy seals after devouring perfect steaks he cooked for us.

“Saturday,” Elle said, stretching on the sofa and letting out a yawn. “Please make sure this sad turd actually makes it there? I have a feeling he’s going to ditch us last minute.”

“I won’t!” I protested. “I’m coming!

“Uh-huh,” she moaned, unimpressed. “Jake, please?”

“You can count on me, Elle,” he chuckled.

The movie we were watching on Netflix started feeling like it needed an exorcism. At some point all four of us cringed at the scene taking place on the screen. It was one of those god awful holiday specials about a small town girl that moved to New York and got herself in a love triangle with a bad-boy millionaire and a goody-two-shoes owner of an adorable German Shepard.

“Oh, what the hell...” Peter groaned. “Did she really just?..”

“That’s just stupid.” I commented.

“This girl has no self-respect!” Elle exclaimed. “I mean, how could she?! The guy goes around treating her like shit, she meets a fucking prince and then throws herself at that Christian Grey wannabe?”

“Yeah, that wasn’t very smart.” Jake smiled.

“Come on, can she really be that dumb?” I cracked. “After everything this guy did?”

“Toxic masculinity at it’s finest!” Elle huffed. “Whoever wrote this is probably into BDSM.”

“Pretty sure BDSM’s better than that…” I cracked.

The scene cut to the golden interior of Manhattan’s most famous train station with the screen zooming in on it’s painfully familiar clocks.

“Oh my God, are they doing a kissing scene at Grand Central? Turn it off! It’s burning my eyes!” Elle screamed.

“I agree with her! Turn it off, please!” I joined.

Peter and Jake started to laugh out loud, Jake grabbed a remote and finally put an end to our misery.

“I’m never watching a chick flick again.” Peter said, breaking nearly a minute of silence.

“You know, the douchebag kinda looked like Liam...” Elle mentioned.

“Liam?” Jake asked, shifting his eyes from Elle to me, “That Liam?

Elle gave me a questioning look, trying to deduce how much Jake knew about my prior history with him. I gave her a barely noticeable head shake and smiled back at Jake.

“Yeah,” I said. “But I don’t think he looks like him at all.”

“Umm... And so you’ve met Liam, Jake?” Elle asked, fluttering her lashes and giving him a creepy half-smirk.

I rolled my eyes at how smooth that went.

“I think I had a pleasure the other day, yes.” Jake answered, glancing at me, “Not the most pleasant character, I have to say.”

The air in the room has gotten heavier and I started missing the movie.

“Dyl didn’t really tell me much about that guy. What’s his last name?”

“Can we just-”

“Henderson.” Elle blabbed, forcing me to make a face at her, which she ignored.

Speaking of the faces, Jake’s face changed when he heard her answer. He looked puzzled for a brief moment.

“Is he related to Hank Henderson by any chance?” Jake asked, but before any of us had a chance to answer, added, “I thought his face looked familiar...”

“You know his father?” I asked.

“No, uh... But my dad does. You know, uh... business stuff.”

This seemingly random coincidence have eliminated Jake’s fervor to gather further intel like a bucket of icy water. He stopped asking questions about Liam altogether and attended to Elle who went picking on his shelves, commenting on the trophies and cups he had collected for professional swimming and boxing. I got curious about the sudden change in his mood. He obviously recognized Liam, maybe he didn’t know him in person, but whatever he did know seemed to have stopped him dead in his tracks. I knew my boyfriend pretty well, he was looking for an opening to find out more about him ever since the day Liam showed his face at the parking lot. Jake was cautiously getting back and forth to this conversation, trying to pry more details out of me and he wouldn’t have missed on an opportunity to get that information, especially from a chatterbox like Elle. Something was wrong about it, but I couldn’t quite wrap my finger around what exactly.

Elle made a few greasy jokes connecting Jake’s boxing past with sex, winking at me and causing a stray of awkward laughter in the room. She and Peter have soon left, leaving me alone with Jake. It was pretty late, but I wasn’t leaving him to clean up the mess alone, so I called mom and told her I’ll be staying the night with him.

“Oh, finally!” she moaned on the phone. “Don’t forget about condoms!”

“Good night to you too, mom. Love you,” I hissed through my teeth, blushing heavily and increasing water pressure at the sink to cover her indecencies with splashing sounds.

“I’m so proud of you baby-” she had a chance to murmur before I hung up.

When Jake and I began dating, I had just turned 17. He was a college freshman and was three years older than me. We took it slowly. Naturally, being as responsible as he was, he wouldn’t push me when it came to sex. Of course we fooled around and there were a few close calls, but in general we kept it PG-13. I once googled the age of consent for our state, but the rules on this were too messy and I couldn’t really understand it. In any case, the last thing I wanted was to put his future at risk, so we both decided to wait until I was 18.

Well, it just so happened that my 18th birthday was exactly in two weeks. Somehow, having it so close made both of us climb the walls in anticipation. My teenage hormones were acting up and it was getting harder and harder to stay focused with him around. Staying alone together definitely wasn’t a good idea...

“Mmmph...” I moaned through the kiss twenty minutes later, as we rolled over on the couch, making out.

Feeling Jake’s weight on top of me was amazing, his hands travelled down my back and got underneath the shirt, stroking my lower abdomen and arching spine. He pulled my shirt off and got rid of his own, rising above me with a hungry look in his eyes.

“Fuck, this is unfair...” I moaned, eyeing his torso, “You look like a Greek god...”

He smirked and shut me up by crushing his lips against mine, kissing me with hunger and lust, forcing me to wrap my arms and legs around him. He got hard, his dick was poking me in the thigh through our jeans and I groaned, sliding my hand down his lower back, feeling his muscles, the warmth of his skin, slipping my fingers under his belt and onto the mounds of his muscular ass cheeks.

“You’re driving me crazy...” Jake groaned, showering my neck with kisses and forcing me to lose my breath.

Our foul game was rapidly approaching the point of no return, but neither of us wanted to stop. It took me all my will to gently push him off me, he got the hint and rubbed his face to try and come out of the frenzy. We got comfortable on the couch, turned the TV back on and watched a nice movie on HBO.

Somehow, the fatigue snuck up on me and I didn’t notice how I fell asleep. I woke up briefly when Jake carried me to the bed, but I was out again before the back of my head hit the pillow.

I felt confused as bright sunlight blinded my eyes. Squinting, I tried to adjust to it. Warm summer wind breezed over my naked chest and abdomen, tickling my legs. I was laying on the sand, looking at the bright blue sky and hearing the water just a few feet away. Birds were chirping, someone was laughing nearby.

“Are you coming?” I heard, “Come on, you have to take a swim!”

I groaned and sat up, feeling burning hot sand making its way into the cleft between my butt cheeks. I was just relaxing, did he really have to pull me back to the lake? I took off my glasses and embraced the blurriness of my surroundings, standing up and heading towards the water. I couldn’t see much, but I didn’t really have to. I swam towards his silhouette and heard his laughter getting louder, until his face appeared in front of me and everything cleared up, as though somebody slipped lenses back on me.

A handsome 16-year old boy seductively bit his lip and smiled at me, “Wanna take a dive?”

My heart skipped a beat. Sunlight reflected off his wet skin and made his green eyes dazzle. Without waiting for my approval, he dove underneath, wrapped his strong arms around my belly and pulled me down. We started wrestling under water, hands sliding all over each other, legs intertwined. We must’ve been in that lake for an hour, and I don’t remember ever feeling happier in my life.

“Ahh shoot...” I groaned, stepping on something sharp.

“What is it?”

“Nothing, it’s just... Ahh!” I failed to reassure him.

He helped me out of the lake and we saw a big shard of broken glass lodged into the sole of my foot. I panicked and pulled it out, causing blood to gush out of the wound. Liam quickly grabbed the bottom of his shirt and tore it in strips, wrapping it tightly around my foot to bandage it.

“Don’t worry Dyl, it’s nothing we can’t handle,” he smiled, tightening the dressing and wiping his bloody hands on his shorts.

He picked up my glasses and blew on them to clear the sand. He crawled towards me and gently put them on my face.

“Barb the librarian is back,” he joked.

I tried to stand up, but I couldn’t bear my weight on the foot. Seeing this, he made me climb on his back and carried me out of the beach, ignoring the looks from bystanders.

“You’re okay back there?” he asked.

“I think so...” I replied, hugging him tightly.

I shielded my eyes from the brightness of the sun and suddenly, everything was gone. Gone were my summer, my cut foot, my lake.

My Liam.

I freaked out. It was dark, I was alone, I was scared and I missed him. Where did he go?

“Liam?” I called out.

Nothing.

An overwhelming dread filled me up to my bones, I was trapped somewhere dark and cold, and the only thing that kept me warm was the memory of his face.

“Liam...” I moaned, crying. “Liam!”

“Liam...” I exhaled, waking up.

My heart was pounding, I was covered in cold sweat, the aftertaste of the nightmare resounding in my head. Jake was shaking my shoulders to wake me up, closely studying my face. I swallowed painfully, regaining consciousness and trying my best not to break down in tears.

“I... I’m sorry...” I exhaled.

“What did he do?” Jake asked, all of a sudden.

I gave him a questioning look.

“Liam,” he clarified. “What the fuck did he do?”