Page 73 of Glass Half Full
I can’t find my own to answer, but I tighten my grip on his arm.
“Just the other day, I bumped into someone,” he explains, “someone...from my past. I keep thinking everything happened long enough ago that it can’t touch me now, and then something will remind me how close the past always is. It’s always fucking there, hanging over my head like my damn criminal record. That’s the worst part of it all. The record. That thing is going to be with me for the rest of my damn life. How could you want that associated with you? How could anyone want that?”
I’ve never seen him look this hopeless before. He’s sunken, shrunken, nearly unrecognizable from the guy I’ve seen bouncing around the bar using a spatula as a microphone.
“I’m still here.” I wish my voice wasn’t wavering so much, but at least I’m able to speak again. “I know now, and I haven’t run away.”
“You don’t even know what I did.” He lets out a shaky breath, and I realize I’m about to get the story. “I stole my little brother’s medication.”
He pauses, like he’s giving me a chance to get up and leave, but I don’t move a muscle as I wait for him to continue.
“My mom had drilled the ‘don’t do drugs’ thing into me since I was a little kid. I still don’t know exactly why it was such a huge deal for her, but I think my dad had something to do with it. When I was a teenager, one of my...myfriends”—he all but spits the word out—“Kyle, got into dealing. I thought he only bothered with weed. I never touched it myself. Not that I have a problem with people smoking, but I just...I never wanted it. I pretended not to know just how deep into the drug scene Kyle had gotten. Turns out I didn’t have a fucking clue.”
His shoulders start shaking ever so slightly, and I can’t stand the separation anymore. I slide closer, pressing the side of my leg up against his as he continues speaking in a dull, almost dispassionate voice, like the only way he can get through this story is to distance himself from it.
“I’d just lost my job at a convenience store. They were going under and couldn’t afford to pay me anymore. I was saving up to go to college at the time, and I had all these application fees to pay and bus tickets to buy so I could visit the schools, and Mom was working so many extra hours just to put food on the table, and it just seemed like there was never enough money. I was so fucking sick of it. Then one day Kyle found my brother’s medication in our bathroom and told me the street price for Adderall.”
He raises the arm I’m not holding and drags his hand down his face. A long moment passes before he continues.
“It took a few weeks, but eventually I came around to the idea. We went to this party, and that’s when I realized just how far things with Kyle had gone. That party...I don’t even know if party is the right word. There were so many drugs, and all this cash, and people had fuckingguns, and then the cops showed up. I don’t know where Kyle went, but he wasn’t around when they got me. I had my backpack on me. They found the Adderall and...almost two thousand dollars’ worth of weed Kyle had asked me to carry for him.”
“But...” I struggle to slow the whirlpool of thoughts spinning around my head. “But they were his drugs, and you went to jail?”
Dylan shrugs. “I carried them. I knew they were there. I stole the Adderall. I went to the party with the intention of selling. It didn’t make much of a difference to the judge—not that it should have. I stole my own brother’s medication. Who does that?”
“What...what about Kyle? What happened to him?”
“He had the money to hire some lawyer who got him out of any charges. We’d only just arrived at the party when the cops showed up, so no one remembered him being there. They weren’t looking for guys like me and Kyle, anyway. It was a bust to go after the big guys. I got caught up in the crossfire.”
I don’t know what he was expecting this story to make me feel, but the urge to pull him closer is overwhelming. Nothing he’s said has made me want to push him away.
“When...when did this happen?” I ask.
“Just after I turned nineteen.”
I do a double take. “Dylan, that was nine years ago.”
He nods.
“Almost a decade,” I clarify, since the information doesn’t seem to be hitting him the way it should. “You think you’re not good enough for me because of a mistake you made when you were barely more than a teenager?”
So much for being gentle and understanding. I can’t mask my incredulity; it’s just too hard to fathom how he could actually believe that.
“It was more than a mistake,” he replies, “and it’s not something that just goes away. My record has made so many things impossible for me. There are jobs I can’t do, places I can’t go. I’ve learned to handle it as best I can, but that was before...before you. What if one day you want something and you can’t have it because of me? It’s a mark, Renee. It’s a mark that doesn’t fade. You deserve somebody spotless.”
I really do jump off the bench this time. “I don’t want somebody spotless!” I thrust a finger at my own chest. “I’m not spotless. No one is spotless. I don’t want somebody who’s perfect. I want somebody who’s perfect forme. And Dylan? This changes nothing about the way I’ve always seen you. You are so perfect for me.”
This is the tipping point. This is the precipice. This is the moment he either jumps off the cliff with me or backs away from the edge. I can feel it with every bone in my body.
“Renee...”
I close my eyes. I wait. I don’t care how this looks or who’s staring. I just stand there, hardly daring to breathe.
“I’m not perfect. I want to be that for you, but I’m not.”
I can’t make him see it. It’s something he has to see for himself, and it hits me then, how futile this is. I’d keep battling if I knew it would make a difference, but this isn’t my fight. It’s his.
“I meant every single thing I’ve said today, Dylan.” I move close enough that our knees brush as I stare down at him on the bench. “Don’t you forget a single word. You are one of the best people I know, and I do want you. Not anyone else. You. You’ve lifted me higher than I thought I could go, but I have to keep climbing. Come find me when you’re ready to start climbing too.”
