D for Dylan - 13. Chapter Thirteen

The awkwardness of the following week was difficult to play down. The comfort and joy of having Emma in our house was contrasting starkly with bleak schooldays and emotional turmoil thundering in my head. I felt like a broken calculator - all the data I needed was there, but I still struggled to compute and make sense of it.

“Are you still ignoring him?” Elle whispered as she sat beside me on the bench.

“Yeah.” I exhaled, wiping sweat from off my forehead.

“He called me last night.” she said.

“What did he say?”

“He’s worried about you. He’s starting to freak out.”

“Fuck…” I lamented, pressing my wet hair into temples.

“You stink. Go take a shower.”

“I have two more tracks to run. I’ll see you at trig.”

Nauseating sense of guilt forced me to overdo it on the stadium and all of my muscles were sore for the rest of the day. Jake didn’t deserve it. I was supposed to gather courage and talk to him about it. I needed to honest with him, to give him a chance to explain everything and finally put my mind at ease. I knew what the right thing to do was, so why was I so fucking anxious about it? He was growing more and more worried in his texts. We haven’t seen each other in six days and I kept coming up with ridiculous excuses.

Could I really trust him? I thought I knew him well, but Jacob Williams proved to be a very gifted lier. At the very least, he knew how to hide the truth from me, which was getting me nervous. I always thought I knew people, that I could read them well, instinctively. Liam was a prime example - twisted shit boiling in his mind was right there on the surface of his tongue, clearly evident in expressions of his handsome face. If he could lie in the first place, he failed miserably when I was on the receiving end of his attempts - this was true ever since we were both kids. But then again, he never really needed to lie to me back then. I was there for him, always on his side, regardless of what he did.

Lies were not something I did very well, either. That’s why I wasn’t ready to face Jacob - I knew I won’t be able to pretend like everything was the same, when it wasn’t. Another challenge ahead of me was hiding behind fading bruises on the face of Liam’s mother. Emma and I spent hours talking in the evenings, and I wasn’t sure how to keep her secret from her son. In the past week, Hank Henderson paid a visit to the humble, dilapidated porch of our house thrice. All three times, he had to speak to my mother, and Helen wasn’t very polite in her expressions. I haven’t caught him even once, but I could still imagine the heat my fearless mom poured on his sorry ass.

Seeing her back in touch with Emma made my heart thaw out. Over the last few days I’ve had countless déjà vu’s, calling out to the old days, when our families were so close. The only missing puzzle in that heartwarming picture was a spoiled 19-year-old brat, drowning his sorrows on the mountainous slopes of obscenely expensive resort in Aspen.

“Do you remember when you guys went fishing in 4th grade?” Emma asked, as we sipped on the cup of hot chocolate on the couch.

“You mean that time with uncle Hank? When I fell off the boat?”

“Yes.” she chuckled, covering her mouth with the palm of her hand. “I wasn’t even there, but Liam told me so much about it I swear I could almost see it.”

“Well, I bet he didn’t tell you he was the one rocking the boat!”

“No way. Are you serious?”

“Yup. I think he got jealous that I caught a huge sturgeon earlier. I was tightening the fishing line and he rocked the boat.”

“That bastard!”

I laughed, for some reason. It was a very sweet memory.

“Not really…” I whispered, staring down the carpet lint. “He jumped after me like, immediately, and pulled me out. We were laughing so hard, uncle Hank was pissed that we scared all the fish away.”

“Yeah, but I remember that sturgeon he brought. It was huge!”

“That was my catch!” I proudly stated, tapping on my chest.

Mom walked in with a laundry basket and gave me a rather disgusted look.

“What happened to your shirt?” she asked.

I was still in my Baskin Robbin’s uniform, too tired to take it off after I came home from evening shift.

“Somebody vomited on it.” I said, pointing to the stain she clearly meant.

“Oh my god, really?!” Emma gasped, jumping up on her seat.

“Nah, it’s just the ice cream.” I chuckled. “Occupational hazard.”

“Pull it off, I’ll throw it in the washer.” Helen said, extending her arm.

I hurried to follow her orders and crashed my back against the cushions, shirtless.

“Pick it up from the laundry room in the morning.”

“Yes ma’am.” I nodded.

While mom was busy with her chores in the kitchen, Emma and I watched the soap opera on TV.

“Is it difficult?” she asked, quietly. “Working there?”

“In the ice cream shop? Not really. It’s fun!”

“You know, I always admired you for helping out your mom. You’re a great kid, Dylan.”

“I know, I’m pretty amazing.”

“And humble.” she laughed.

“So humble!” I echoed sarcastically.

“I wish Liam was a bit more like you…”

I got quiet. My eyebrows moved closer together and I looked away.

“I’m sorry.” she said. “I know you don’t want to talk about him, but… I just can’t stop thinking where it all went wrong. You guys were so happy, you loved each other so much...”

I didn’t know what to answer, so I remained silent and watched the cheesy scene play out on the screen.

“I should’ve done more.” she said.

“I don’t think you could have, Emma.” I exhaled.

“He never worked, not a day in his life. He never knew struggles or hardships...”

“You think that’s what shaped me into who I am today?” I asked. “The hardships? My work?”

“You don’t think it contributed?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Not even in part?”

“Not really. Not much about me has changed since I turned fourteen.” I said, confused. “I think Liam shaped me the most. Back when we were growing up.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. He was very brave, I remember how I admired that about him.” I recalled. “You know he used to pick up centipedes and spiders with his bare hands? I thought it was crazy. He was always kind to animals too, he would pull his car over every time he’d see injured dog on the road. Also, I think I started liking dark chocolate because he always smiled like a dork when he was eating it...”

“I see…” she uttered. “You know, he still does it when he eats it? What’s up with that?”

“He just loves dark chocolate. Everything with over 65% of cacao and he’ll go crazy about it.” I said with a chuckle.

“You know him so well.”

“Huh… I would strongly disagree.” I smiled. “Too bad I didn’t influence anything about him. He must’ve found better role models.”

“I doubt that…” Emma exhaled with a sad smile on her face.

The chilly night made my nipples harden and I felt a bit awkward sitting beside her half-naked. As I covered myself with mom’s favorite throw, my phone rang in my pocket. Jake’s face lit up on the screen, and I stared at it like an idiot, not knowing what to do.

“Boyfriend troubles?” Emma asked, picking up on my unease.

“Maybe. I’m not sure.” I said, locking the phone and glancing her in the eye. “I’m still thinking about what you’ve told me…”

“If you don’t feel comfortable around him-”

“It’s not that. I just…” I interrupted her and stumbled. “I don’t know if I can trust him.”

“Is he kind to you?”

“Yes. Very.” I nodded. “I know he loves me.”

“Do you love him?”

Suddenly, everything went silent. The TV was still on, but the ringing in my ears turned all the sounds from it into a white noise. I looked at the dimly illuminated rug and focused on the red wine stain in its corner. We never managed to get rid of it.

“You don’t have to answer.” Emma whispered quietly.

“No, I… I do. I like him…”

Emma didn’t say anything else, and I felt like I wasn’t clear enough.

“He’s very good to me. He cares about me so much and he makes me feel safe and… I think he taught me to love myself.” I explained. “I needed that. After everything I went through with Liam, I really needed that…”

I haven’t noticed a tear, until it fell off my cheek and landed on my hand, splashing into tiny droplets. I was looking at it like a deer caught in headlights, losing my train of thought.

“I wished he realized how he felt about you sooner.” she said.

I raised my eyes at her.

“Did he…” I spoke softly. “Did he really speak to you about it?”

She nodded. I tuned away, feeling how flustered my face became.

“You know, people do crazy things when they repress how they really feel.” she said. “I won’t lie - I was shocked when he told me. But then I thought, what if that’s how he always felt about you?”

Awkward tension of our midnight conversation bursted like a soap bubble and I started laughing.

“You know, when I was in the middle school, there was a boy that liked me.” Emma continued. “He was awful to me. He pulled my hair, pushed me around, called me names...”

“Did he knock out your spleen?”

“No, but he gave me a wrist fracture.” she said, comically spreading her arms and raising her eyebrows. “He told me years later, when we were in high school.”

“Did you forgive him?”

“Not really.”

I gave her the ‘You see?’ - kind of look and she smiled.

“Have you thought about it?” she asked.

“What? That Liam was crazy about me this whole time?” I asked, unable to suppress a chuckle. “Nah, that thought hasn’t crossed my mind, to be honest.”

Now Emma was the one giving me the look.

“Honestly, it doesn’t matter.” I said. “Whatever it was that screwed him up, I don’t think it will make much difference.”

“It won’t?” she asked.

“Why would it?” I asked. “Did you throw yourself in the arms of that boy when he confessed?”

“No, but I wasn’t in love with him.” she pointed out.

“Well, that makes the two of us.” I said, coldly.

For a moment, we both remained silent.

“You see how much I’m struggling to open up to Jake, right?” I asked. “I can’t even fall in love with him properly.”

“I understand…”

“Emma, your son left scars on me so deep that they won’t ever heal. I don’t know if you really understand.”

“Dylan, I…” she said, stumbling. “You’re right, I won’t be able to understand. He put you through hell, I know that... But I’m still his mother, and I can’t watch him suffer.”

“Emma, I don’t care about-”

“He was surrounded by money and power, by all the wrong people that never cared about him, for too long.” she chanted, cutting me off. “The only genuine relationship he ever had was with you. You were the only person who loved him the way he was. He’s stubborn and slow, it took him forever, but I think he finally understands it now.”

The pace at which the anger boiled in my stomach was unexpected, despite the circumstances. I didn’t want to lash out on her, I loved her and I knew she was coming from a good place. But she had to cool it down.

I sat on the sofa and turned towards her. Helen was washing dishes in the kitchen, the sounds of running water and clanking glass created an eerie ambiance in the room.

“You know, a few years back, when I returned to school after a summer break for a sophomore year, I met your son in the hallway.”

She tensed up, visibly. I didn’t want to do it to her, but she had to hear it.

“He knocked down my books, pulled out my glasses, threw them on the floor and stepped on them. They were pretty expensive, mom could barely afford to get me a new pair, and I was walking around blind for a few weeks, waiting for them.” I said. “But broken glasses were the least of my problems that day.”

“Dylan…” she spoke quietly, getting uncomfortable.

“He grabbed me by the neck of my shirt and dragged me to the boys’ bathroom. A few of his friends followed us there.” I said. “Kids can be cruel, you know. Nobody wanted to miss the show, and very soon the bathroom was so full of them, that there was no space to turn around.”

The memories from that day were painful to replay, but I continued my story, ignoring the shivers running down my spine.

“He asked Mark and Sebastian to hold me in place, while he was beating me up. Then he went to one of the cabins and urinated in the toilet.” I spoke.

“Oh my god…” she whispered, covering her face.

“You see where I’m heading with this, right?” I asked.

“Dylan, please…”

“He shoved my head into the bowl and kept my face in that yellow water for over a minute. I was trying to break free, but he was pressing me down until I choked on his urine.” I said. “Everyone was watching and laughing. I was suffocating and he kept saying how happy he was to see my ugly face after such a long break.”

Emma stood off the sofa and looked away.

“I still remember the taste of his piss.” I whispered, looking her in the back. “But I think you might be right... He was simply in love with me.”

My sarcastic joke did not meet any laughter on her end. She was wiping her face, and I was glad I couldn’t see her tears.

“Silly me.” I said. “I should just forget it all and let him love me.”

“D-dylan… please…” she shuddered.

“The things he’s done… I don’t think you really understand.” I said, with sadness in my voice. “I know he’s your son and you love him. But I want to be very clear…”

She turned around and faced me. Wet trails on her cheeks were glistening in the dim blue light from TV.

“He doesn’t deserve my love.” I said. “He’ll never get it.”

The electricity in the air between us was strong enough to charge a lightning. It somewhat dissipated when Helen walked in, throwing the wet towel over her shoulder.

“Those damn dishes…” she whistled, placing her hands on her waist. “You guys are okay? What did I miss?”

“We’re fine.” I said, standing up from the couch. “I’m a bit tired. Heading to bed.”

“Goodnight baby.” mom said.

“Goodnight.” Emma echoed quietly, hiding her drying tears from mom.

“Goodnight.” I whispered.