AllFreeNovel
Share Us
7
Sky
The dayafter my visit from Dylan I end things with Ryan. Dylan brought into sharp focus how wrong the relationship with Ryan is. Ryan was the rebound but not from Grant, from Dylan.
Am I clearing the way for re-starting things with Dylan? Have I reached that level of insanity? His story disturbed me, but put into perspective of what I originally thought he’d done, what he told me is a small relief. But I’m certain something else underlies the story, and that I received a sanitised version. This story doesn’t seem enough to make him walk away like he did.
My opinion of Jem has sunk from dickhead to pond life, and his decision to visit Lily last summer and I’m pissed off that he dredged the events up. Whatever Dylan says about this being his fault, Jem was as involved.
I check out Dylan’s story about going to rehab shortly afterwards and the dates match. Three days have passed since he came over and I’ve heard nothing from him or Myf. Maybe Myf was right; Dylan needed forgiveness and now he has that, he can move on. But I’m not the one who should be forgiving him, Lily is.
Heading into my first Christmas alone, I toy with the idea of what to do and where to go. My parents are separated and I’m not keen on my mum’s new family. She stupidly had new children in her late forties so I have a ten-year-old brother who is spoiled and I don’t like to be around him.
Dad lives overseas now. My brother, Connor, lives in the States with his American wife. Flights to the US are out of my current budget and I think Christmas in the heat of Florida would be odd.
Tara again invites me to her place for Christmas. She has a new man in her life and I have no desire to invade their love-struck first Christmas together. I picture Dylan’s estate in all the Christmas glory. What will Dylan do? Does he have family to go to?
Christmas alone sounds sad, but this is what I want.
* * *
Dylan
Myf tapsher fingers on my dining table with one hand and sends a text with the other.
“I don’t want you alone over Christmas,” she says.
“I want to be alone. I’m sick of everyone in my face for the last four months,” I retort, placing my bare feet on the table.
Complete lie. I want to be with Sky.
“I’d ask you to come to Oxford with us but…”
“I know, you’re spending Christmas with Miles’s family and they don’t know me.”
“If we were staying with my family, you know I wouldn’t hesitate to invite you.”
“Stop apologising, Myf.”
My soul aches to return to St Davids, to spend a family Christmas in the place I grew up, but I don’t have anyone to go to. Fuck knows where my dad is; I haven’t seen him for years—not since he came begging for money from his rich son he hadn’t seen for ten years. Since Mum died a couple of years ago, I haven’t been back.
Everywhere I turn in life there’s emptiness.
“Did you speak to Sky?” she asks hesitantly.
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“And I spoke to her,” I say gruffly. Since I saw Sky and left the song with her, I’ve waited for her to contact me. I have to hope the words speak to her. Sky is the first to hear the song; I can’t face sharing the rawness with anyone else and can’t listen myself now I’ve finished.
Myf stands and approaches, then grabs my head and hugs me into her stomach. “Dylan,bach, I’m worried about you. I wish you’d told me what was happening with you.”
Her Welsh endearment pulls me to the childhood I was just trying to forget, and I wrap my arms around her waist. She’s right, but she’s not the answer.
