Afterparty(74)

Mr. Saad does not look convinced, but before he can throw himself in front of the Volvo, Dylan jumps back in and I’m rolling down the driveway toward the open gate.

And I’m pretty sure, I’m almost certain, that Dylan wants to be here with me, too. Which, except for the fact that he makes me pull over before we get back down to Sunset so he can throw up in the gutter, could be somewhat romantic.

Maybe.





CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE


DYLAN GETS BACK IN THE car, smelling disgusting, and we roll down Sunset, not talking to each other. Dylan hangs on to the door handle and stares into the street, as if fascinated by oncoming headlights. Then he closes his eyes.

A stunning reconciliation with a guy who first throws up and then falls asleep, or worse, simulates sleep, seems less than imminent.

In a maybe slightly louder-than-normal voice, I say, “Are you asleep?”

Dylan makes a show of stretching, which is difficult for a tall person in my car. He pushes against the roof. He says, “I’m up now.” He does not sound very happy about this.

I say, “Could we please talk?”

“Isn’t that what you said the last time you were trying to bullshit me? No.”

He closes his eyes again.

I slightly poke him.

“Emma,” he says. “Please. I feel like shit.”

“Can’t you cut me five minutes of slack?”

“No.”

All I had wanted in life was to be alone in the car with him and for him to go, Hey, that was pretty bad but now I’m past it, hug, hug, hug, and basically acknowledge my existence. But whatever there was before is clearly gone. All that longing followed by what felt like the opening chapter of endless bliss and then, welcome to this.

The car might be jerking a little, or possibly a lot, and Dylan puts his hand on the steering wheel and he barks, “Let me out!”

We are sitting in front of a lit-up house on Alpine.

“I get that you’re just in my car to get home. Go ahead.”

Quietly, Dylan says, “Why are you being like this?”

“Maybe because you dumped me on Valentine’s Day, which was totally justified, I get it, but now you won’t even speak to me and you look right through me and I hate going to school.” This is punctuated by me splattering tears all over like a showerhead that somebody went after with a hammer.

“Aren’t you leaving out the part where you lied to me and made a fool of me?”

“Is it impossible for you to believe I might be sorry?”

“And made it very clear you’d rather be with Aiden?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I know you went over to Sib’s to hook up with him, okay?”

What?

“Who told you that?” I am pretty much screaming. “That’s not what happened!”

“I don’t want to hear this,” Dylan says. “I don’t want to listen to you trying to get out of it.”

“How do you get from I’m sorry to I’m trying to get out of it? Do you just stay mad at people permanently?”

“At least I don’t lie about myself&?!” he shouts back. “Unlike you. I stayed away from you for how long out of respect for a nonexistent French guy? What an idiot! And then, February thirteenth, you decide it’s a good day to cheat with my brother? Hey, be my Valentine.”

“I did not cheat with him!”

“Why should I believe anything you say?”

“Dylan! I kissed some random guy at the beach club, and then six months later Siobhan all but orders me to come over or she might jump out the window, and there’s the guy in the Jacuzzi with her. And all right, I got in out of cowardice. The things she was threatening to tell you if I didn’t: all true. You can call me nine kinds of bad person for that. But I didn’t want Aiden, hook up with Aiden, cheat with Aiden, or anything with Aiden other than push him away when he came at me, all right?”

Dylan pauses. “Oh Jesus, Seed.”

I dig around in my bag for a box of Tic Tacs and I give him a whole handful.

I say, “Well, are you ever going to stop it?”

He shakes his head. I can’t decipher if this is Dylan saying no or Dylan being rueful. “Maybe I’ll send you a one-word text message fifty-two times,” he says.

“I’m sorry!”

In a flatlined voice, Dylan says, “That fixes everything.”

I turn the key in the ignition.

“Nothing ever fixes anything, does it? Everything just gets hopelessly broken, and then we’re all permanently stuck with it.”

He says, “That’s your philosophy of life?”

“Like it’s not yours, too? Show me some evidence to the contrary. It seems remarkably accurate.”

This is when he brushes back the hair at my temple and he kisses the side of my forehead.

And when we get there, when my car has made its loud approach to his house, crunching toward the guesthouse on the part of the gravel that’s probably supposed to be a walkway, when he opens his eyes and his hand is covering my hand, when he walks around and opens my car door and takes my hand again, I rest my head against him for a minute.

Then I follow him inside.

? ? ?

A light from the bed of white roses outside the bedroom window is the only illumination in the room.