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Dylan stands on the other side of my door, looking the same as he always does. Sweats, white grease stained tank under a flannel shirt—sleeves rolled up. But his eyes, his smile, they’re different. They’re settled. Like our conversation last night and the two days apart has given him the same sense of calm it gave me… until Jake stood exactly where Dylan is right now.
“Hi,” he says, and I release a breath, stand on my toes, and throw my arms around his neck. I squeeze tight, because I don’t know if it’ll be the last time.
Guilt. Guilt is such a fucked-up emotion, because it’s not one I should be feeling when his arms wrap around my waist, pressing my body flush against his. “I’ve missed you, Riley.”
“Me too,” I whisper, pulling away.
He grasps my top and brings me into him, like I’d done with him so many times before. “Come back,” he says, his smile getting wider. “You give such good hugs.”
We repeat the process, holding each other a little longer until his low, sweet chuckle reverberates in my ears and he releases me.
His smile falls when he looks at my face, the bags under my eyes, the redness from the thousand tears I’ve shed. “Has Jake spoken to you?” I ask.
With his eyes on mine, he slowly shakes his head. “What’s going on, Riley?”
“We should talk.”
His face falls. “I figured as much.”
I take his hand and lead him to my room, but there’s resistance. When I turn to him, he’s looking at my bedroom door. His throat bobs with his swallow. “Can we maybe go somewhere else? I just… I don’t think I want whatever is going to happen next to take away from the memories I have of us in your room.”
Nodding, I slip on my shoes and walk past him and outside. I don’t deflect from his prediction. I don’t tell him that it’s okay—that it’s not what this is about. I don’t say anything, because I don’t want my next words to be a lie. I want to give him the raw—and until today—unspoken truth.
He closes the door after him and takes my hand, then leads me to his garage. The same garage I once declared my clear and unquestionable need for him.
I stay silent as he opens the passenger door of his truck and I get inside, waiting—my heart slowly breaking—for him to join me.
He drives.
I don’t know how long he drives for but it’s not like it is in my dream because the idea of teasing myself with that moment, that wish, doesn’t just break my heart. It completely disintegrates it.
So I sit with my side against the door, as far away from him as possible.
We don’t say a word.
Not out loud.
But in my head, I shift through the jumbled mess—a dictionary of apologies and explanations—and I fight the tears, the sob brewing in my chest because the memories hurt, and I don’t have anything to dull the ache besides the man sitting next to me. And right now, he’s not enough.
Out of all the places he could possibly take me to, he takes me to a cemetery. Not the one I’m familiar with. It’s smaller, older and a little less well kept. He stays quiet as he gets out of the car and makes his way to my side where he opens the door for me and takes my hand to help me down.
I’m in a daze, too caught up in my own thoughts that I don’t even realize he’s walking ahead of me and I’m following cluelessly behind until he stops at a plot and starts picking at the weeds surrounding the headstone. Faded and damaged, the words on marble are hard to make out, but I read them.
Every single one.
Ruby Banks
My wife, my friend, the mother dear
In dreamless sleep repossess here
May those whose love to her was given
All meet and live with her in heaven
I try to cover my gasp, my tears falling with my blink as I look up at him. “Dylan,” I whisper, my breath as shaky as my hands.
“I wanted her to meet you,” he says, taking a seat on the dirt in front of the marker, “In case I don’t get this chance again.”
I sit down next to him and take his hand.
“It’s been so long since I’ve been here,” he tells me, shifting our positions so his arm’s around me and his other hand is on my leg. “My dad and Eric and I used to come here a bit when I was younger. I always felt out of place, you know? Because they knew her and could talk to her the way they would if she were alive. They could picture her, see her reactions to their words and I—I couldn’t do any of that. I couldn’t describe her to you, what she looked like when she smiled or the sound of her voice or the way she smelled.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugs. “My dad—he used to say, ‘It’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.’ I guess you just reminded me of it when I saw your face earlier. I kind of knew, you know?” He finally faces me, his eyes as sad as my heart. “Is this it, Riley? Am I losing you?”
I sigh. “Losing me would mean that you had me to begin with.”
His lip curves on one side. “I had you, Riley. Even if it was for a second, I still had you.”
I look away, because the hope in his eyes is too detrimental to my soul. “I messed up, Dylan.”
“How bad?”
“I don’t even know where to start type bad.”
He blows out a breath so heavy I can feel his entire body shift beside me. “You’ve been keeping it a secret from me?”
