D for Dylan - 7. Chapter Seven

When I was twelve, I narrowly escaped death when a piece of a rooftop fell off the building and landed inches away from me on the sidewalk. What were the chances? I didn’t know whether to consider myself lucky or not, but the event imprinted on my memory forever. My life had a handful of other strange occurrences, but nothing really stood out in comparison to a bizarre and out-of-nowhere french kiss that Liam Henderson decided to plant upon my 17-year old lips. It was an epiphany of weird, something so fundamentally wrong that it crossed all the wires in my inebriated brain, forcing it to shut down most of its higher functions.

Why did he do it? Was it a stupid prank, a dare? What made him think that he had a right to do this to me?

Even when the door opened and we both heard a stranger draw a sharp breath at the scene, Liam refused to take his lips off mine. He held me firmly in place, pressing his body onto mine, caressing my neck with his fingers, fondling my wet lips in his mouth, kissing me with hunger.

I couldn’t move, couldn’t turn around, all I managed to do was to open my eyes and see him stare daggers at the intruder. Alcohol boiled in my veins, making everything seem surreal and out of touch. His soft lips slid on my cheeks, he showered my neck with kisses, ran his tongue in the crevices above clavicle, sliding up to the ear, forcing me to unwillingly lose my breath in excitement.

No.

No! What the fuck!

His hands made their way down my waist, hips rubbed onto mine as he kept ravishing me. I clenched my fists tightly, scraping the remnants of my will to push him away, but failing in the process.

“Dylan...” I heard a voice behind my back.

I jerked in place and twisted my neck, finally facing the person standing in the doorway, watching us.

“Fuck...” I exhaled, decisively pushing Liam away and jumping off the table.

The look on her face was all it took for me to sober up in an instance. Before I had a chance to say anything, Elle darted back and ran off.

“Elle, no! Wait!” I screamed.

I was about to chase her, but the obnoxious asshole grabbed my hand and pulled me back into his arms. I kicked him in the chest, but he ignored the punch.

“You motherfucker, let me go!” I glared in rage, fighting him.

Liam burrowed his face into the angle of my neck, instinctively causing me to moan. I couldn’t even begin to describe the mess happening in my head. It was a boiling pit of anger, lust and confusion - a gut-wrenching combination I’ve never experienced before. The intoxicating scent of his body was driving me insane, his dark hair brushed against my cheek, arms travelled across my spine, squeezing my skin, making my back arch to meet the curve of his slanting posture. His lips found mine again and he devoured me with a groan. I felt powerless, unable, but worst of all, unwilling to stop him.

“Mmph...” he moaned.

He cupped my jaw in his palm and leaned even lower, deepening the kiss, forcing me to yield to him and reciprocate. Losing balance, I wrapped my arms around his back and he used this to his leverage, slamming me against the edge of the table, forcing our bodies to grind against each other.

My heart skipped a beat as I felt sharp pain in my stomach - the memory of his enraged face swinging above mine as he senselessly beat me flashed in front of my eyes, knocking me back into reality. I shut my lips and pushed Liam away, swiveling from under his embrace. I was over-breathing, frantically wiping his spit off my lips, writhing in confusion and disgust.

“Dylan...” he exhaled with a raspy voice.

He looked disoriented and attempted to once again close in on me.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” I hissed, kicking him in the groin with my knee.

He squealed in pain and crumbled on the floor, bending in half.

I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The rollercoaster of conflicting emotions has sucked me out dry, draining every last bit of strength, leaving me with hollow emptiness in the chest.

Why did he fucking do this to me? What could he possibly achieve by this?

My cheeks burned red, hot tears rolled up on my eyes, blurring everything. I covered my face in shame, but managed to hold them. There was no fucking way he was going to make me cry again! Seeing this, Liam crawled towards me on his knees.

“Dylan-”

“No!” I cut though tears, stepping back.

I wiped my eyes and felt grittiness from dislodged contacts. I breathed fast and hard, finally regaining control, lifting the veil of insane fuckery that just transpired between us in this god damned room.

Elle.

I had to find Elle. I had to explain myself, despite having zero insight on how to explain something so royally fucked up.

I stormed out of the room, slamming the door on my way out. The pile of dancing bodies turned into a distorted blur, the deafening sound of music was pounding in my ears as I navigated through the sickening crowd of drunk teens, looking for my best friend. Some folks have followed me with concerned looks witnessing distress on my face, but I had no time or energy to pay any attention to them.

I reached the dining room and saw Peter, standing beside the fireplace with a phone in his hand.

“Pete, have you seen Elle?” I asked anxiously.

“Yeah, she went outside. Why? What happened?” he wondered.

Choosing not to answer his question I rushed towards the exit, stumbling on the carpet and bumping into a few people on my way. To my besetment, Liam showed up at the opposite end of the room, looking flushed and agitated. He scanned the dance floor, searching for me. Around the same time, I saw Jake waving at me from the other corner, causing me to flinch in shame. My stomach hurled at the thought of what I did, I couldn’t stand to even look his way. I needed Elle, I needed her to shake me back into my senses, to help me deal with all of this. I needed to make sure that the look she gave me was gone, that she knew it wasn’t my fault.

Because it wasn’t my fault.

It wasn’t.

The room was spinning, both Jake and Liam spotted me and now made their way towards me. I had nowhere to hide. The shame of seeing Jake felt terrible, but the electrifying hatred I felt for Liam threatened to set the entire place on fire. I wanted to reduce myself to a single point and evaporate into nothingness.

At that moment, only a miracle could help me, but what ended up happening was the opposite of that.

Suddenly, someone screamed at the center of the crowd. Several others joined in and the music abruptly stopped, clearing the voices of those in the middle. A few chilling wails broke the silence, infusing everyone with anxiety. I hurried towards the clearing center to find a person lying on the floor, unconscious. It was Angela - a scrawny girl that played tuba at the school orchestra. When she began seizing, a wave of whimpers and gasps engulfed the room. There was no one beside her, people just stood a few feet away and looked at her as if she was an exhibit at the museum. Some folks have pulled out their iPhones and started filming her, but nobody really bothered calling EMS.

I managed to fight off the panic that chained me for a moment. As my adrenaline kicked in, I became acutely aware that something needed to be done, fast. Brushing off the paralysis and not wasting time I rushed on the floor, took off my pullover and placed it under her head. Her arms and legs were shaking violently, her convulsions looked absolutely terrifying.

“Call 911!” I cried out.

Thankfully, by then Jacob made his way to the center of the crowd and immediately followed up on my request. Liam was also standing there, looking shocked and bewildered, just like most of the others.

I turned Angela to the side and brushed her hair, speaking softly into her ear, trying to check if she was conscious. She wasn’t. The seizure lasted less than a minute, but she didn’t wake up after the shaking stopped. I checked her pulse and breathing, looked at her pupils and peaked inside her mouth. She looked sweaty and pale, but I was unable to find any tell-tale signs of what caused this. I looked around through the crowd, searching for her friends.

“Kate!” I called to a petite, chubby brunette standing to my right, “Kate, right?”

“Y-yes!..” she stuttered in distress.

“Were you guys together?”

“Yes, we were dancing! We were just dancing and she started sweating, she said she was dizzy, and then she just...”

I gestured her to join me and she knelt on the floor.

“Did she take anything? Any drugs?” I asked, ensuring that nobody else heard me.

“No, no she’ll never! We’ll never!..”

“It’s okay, I just had to make sure,” I spoke. “Did she ever do this before?”

“No...”

“Are you sure?”

“I... I don’t know, she never told me!”

“Did she have a purse or a bag? Can you give it to me?” I asked.

“It’s in the car, I’ll go get it!”

Kate jumped up and ran away.

“The ambulance is on the way.” Jake updated.

“Thank you!” I exhaled, getting somewhat relieved.

Looking at Angela’s face, I was trying to do my best to think. Drugs could definitely cause a seizure, but I believed Kate, this probably wasn’t the case. Maybe she had an epilepsy? I was hoping to find some medications in her purse, anything that will give me a clue.

They were dancing. Just dancing, and she dropped on the floor.

I inspected her arms, rolling up her sleeves to check for track marks. There was nothing. She was breathing shallowly, looked pale, sweat continued to perspire off her skin.

Think. Think!

What else could induce seizures in a young girl? I tried to remember the internal medicine book I’ve read over the summer, but the damn alcohol shoved a huge stick up my brain, tampering with the thought process.

Diaphoresis, paleness and dizziness, followed by a loss of consciousness and a seizure in a healthy teenage girl that was dancing at the party...

“Fuck!” I exclaimed in realization, shaking up several people in front of me.

I frantically undone buttons at the bottom of Angela’s shirt, exposing her belly. Illuminating her skin with the flash light off my phone I saw a few fading bruises and needle tracks below the umbilicus.

Hypoglycemic seizure! Bingo!

“Somebody get me something sweet! Now!” I shouted.

“What?” a girl standing on my left asked skeptically, crossing her arms on the chest. “Why?”

“I think she’s a type 1 diabetic! I need sugar!”

“Type what?” she mocked with a chuckle.

“I’ll bring it from the kitchen!” the party’s host Jason stepped in.

I tried to shake Angela up, hoping she’ll perk up a bit to swallow the sweets, but she was completely blacked out. Jason returned with a handful of sugar cubes in his hands, I snatched one out, crushed it into smaller pieces and placed them under her tongue. I tried to sit her up and Liam squatted by my side to help, seeing how I struggled. He grabbed her under the armpits and sat her on the floor. Around the same time, Kate came back with Angela’s purse.

I took the bag and emptied it on the floor. Out poured a cherry lipstick and mascara, alongside countless other make up items, a chain of condoms and finally, several preloaded insulin pens with a red box, reading ‘Glucagon Emergency Kit’.

A stupid smile broke on my face moments before I grabbed glucagon and began preparing the injection. After loading the syringe, I pinched a skin fold at the side of Angela’s arm and injected her. Liam was holding her firmly in place, and I couldn’t escape the thought that this must’ve been the second body he groped without consent today.

Much to my surprise, within about a minute after glucagon injection, Angela started waking up. She opened her eyes and asked for water, but I got her an apple juice instead. Liam moved her to the sofa and I lingered behind to collect all of the stuff that came out of her purse. This must’ve been the moment when I finally relaxed, allowing my drunk brain to cool down for a bit. There I was, thinking that the crisis was over, hearing sounds of an ambulance pulling over at the driveway, when I lifted my eyes off the floor and froze in place.

The entire crowd was looking at me. Nobody gave a damn about the girl that just had a seizure - only Pete, Jacob and Kate surrounded her and Liam, trying to offer more help. Folks weren’t even concerned with flashing lights of emergency vehicle standing outside, shining through the windows. All of their eyes staring at me, their faces twisted in anxiety and unease, even fear. I recognized those stares, I got painfully familiar with them over the years. They were staring at the freak, someone who made them feel distraught and weirded out. To only think that I nearly forgot how this felt, that I dared to assume that there was a different role I now played in their narrow-minded worldview.

The pressure of their stares got unbearable. I felt hot, it was getting hard to breathe. I slowly stepped away towards the couch and dropped the purse on the cushion.

“Dylan?” Jake called. “Are you okay?”

He tried to reach me, but I jerked away from him like from a bare electric wire. They kept on staring at me, every single set of eyes fixed at me, like in a damned horror movie. I felt small, as though I was back in the high school, laying on the floor beside the lockers covered in blood, getting beaten to a pulp with the same faces staring me down, in the exact same way. My knees felt weak, I couldn’t swallow, getting short of breath as if somebody choked me.

“Dyl...” Jake whispered.

I didn’t let him finish, roughly pushing my way through a bunch of onlookers, cutting the crowd to get the hell out of that house. Back at the freshman year when the bullying started, I gave myself a promise that I won’t let them turn me into a monster. There was no way I was going to become a sad and angry person that tortures little animals or gets off on revenge fantasies involving guns. I was above this shit, never letting them get under my skin, never giving them an opening. This night they managed to strip me of that power, making me feel worthless. No matter what I did, in their eyes I will never be anything other than a freak.

I was in so much hurry getting out of that house, that I ended up unintentionally shoving a paramedic at the entrance. As I got out in front of the fountain, a chill breeze burned my lungs open, with pins and needles blazing my flushed cheeks. I shuddered, feeling goosebumps running down my spine. This was a terrible fucking night - it crashed and exploded in my face in every single way it could, leaving me only with emptiness and pain.

As I made my way across the driveway around the fountain, I heard a voice calling out to me, “Dylan, wait!”

I could tell she was following me from behind. I stopped dead in my tracks, clustering gravel with my feet, transfixed by how badly I needed to hear her voice. She maneuvered her way around me, blocking my path.

“I’m sorry...” I snuffled. “Elle, I’m so-”

Suddenly, her hands jammed into the fabric of my jacket and she yanked me towards her, capturing me in a tight hug. I wrapped my arms around her and winced, doing my best to hold tears.

“It’s not your fault,” she comforted.

“But I...”

“It’s not.” Elle affirmed, brushing the back of my head.

I hugged her tighter, picking up the smell of her favorite strawberry shampoo. The wind was blowing in my face, but I still felt warm.

“Thank you...” I whispered.

“If you need to talk about it, I’m here for you,” she replied. “Always.”

The red light of an ambulance was blinding us, but we didn’t break the hug for a while. I needed it. A weak smile slowly appeared on my face as the tension dissipated. Eventually, we heard paramedics rolling Angela on a gurney towards the vehicle. She was fully awake and responsive, had a better pinkish color to her face.

“Thank you, Dylan,” she said, as they passed me and Elle on the way.

I smiled and winked at her.

“What happened to her?” Elle asked, as they rolled her in though the open doors.

“I think she forgot to cut her insulin dose. They usually do it before exercise, otherwise glucose can drop too fast. Or they just eat more carbs.”

“But she wasn’t exercising,” Elle argued.

“She was dancing, that’ll do it.”

“How did you know it?” she asked.

“I read about it.”

“No, I mean that she was a diabetic?”

“They often inject in the belly,” I explained.

Elle threw her arm around my shoulder and pulled me in.

“My little genius,” she murmured. “Just like mama taught you.”

“You’re not my mama.”

“Of course I am.”

I stretched out and yawned, feeling crushing fatigue taking its grip on me. I was happy to declare that a medical emergency was enough to kill this terrible party and was willing to announce its time of death, as a bunch of teens spilled out of Wu’s residence in buckets. After ambulance drove off, Elle called Peter to urge our boys to leave with us, but she couldn’t reach him. We figured that they must’ve been on their way out with the rest of the crowd, but surprisingly, after the current of the outpouring bodies dwindled, they were nowhere to be found. As we slowly strolled back towards the entrance, Jason Wu ran out the doors and sprinted down the stairs on the porch. He looked distraught.

“Dylan!” he blurted.

I immediately tensed up.

“That guy that you came with...” he gasped, trying to catch his breath.

“Jake?” I asked anxiously, “What happened?”

“Yeah... Yeah, him. I think he and Liam are about to fight.”

Elle’s phone rang, she picked up and I heard Pete’s voice shouting through the mic, “Get up here, now!”

Hi guys! Here’s the new artwork on Dylan and Liam. Jake is in the works.
Dylan:

Liam: