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"But this was always temporary. We would both go back to our old lives and everything would be over. Playing out fantasies where we return to the world of our childhood and 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. "I could breathe around you, 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," I suggest.
"Where? How? Are you listening to me?"
"Okay, if you can't run away, 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 tried to change me, and I refuse 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 to all the shit I walked away from?" 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 real life is crazy, privileged, and unreal. I’m looking at a Dylan who’s a shell of the seventeen-year-old kid who gave up control to others, so he could get the life he wanted. Dylan did get 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 media tracks you down—Ican’tbe dragged into your life. Please."
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. Everything about this would take away that control. Your world scares me."
We face each other, and I shake at the realisation our fantasy world is crashing around our ears.
"Tomorrow. Wait until tomorrow?" he asks, eyes wide.
"What's the point? That’ll make this harder for both of us."
"The point is you don't have your car and it's late. If I'm leaving tomorrow too, I’ll have someone take you home."
My chest tightens. "You'll have someone take me home? I want my car back."
"Then you'll have to stay here, won't you? Until your car is fixed—the mechanic said tomorrow."
Perspiration covers my back again; I'm backed into a corner, but this is what life would be like if I dated Dylan. Dated.Ha.Whatever he thinks now, we couldn’t date. I’d be pulled into a situation I don’t want, my life dissected, and then humiliated when he dumps me. Can’t Dylan see that reality isn’t part of our connection?
Dylan's phone rings and he immediately answers. His face darkens. "What? Where? Then fucking deal with it!"
I chew on my lip as the world around continues to implode.
