Page 113 of Because of Dylan

He takes a step closer. “I know everything you told me.”

“Not everything. I—” I drop my voice. “I killed him. I watched him die, and I did nothing. I walked away and stayed away for hours. By the time I came back, my mother was screaming in hysterics, and the cops where wheeling Theodore out in a body bag.”

Dylan watches me.

I punctuate each word with a thump to my chest. “I. Let. That. Happen.”

“How?” Dylan asks.

“What?”

“How did he die?”

“An overdose. What difference does it make? He’s dead.” My head pounds in rhythm with my heart.

“You couldn’t have killed him, then. Not unless you somehow shot him full of drugs. What did the police report say?”

“What does it matter?”

He leans closer. “What did the police report say?”

“It said he OD’d because of a combination of alcohol and drugs. They found Oxycontin, Vicodin and hydrocodone in his blood.”

“And how is that your fault?”

“Did you miss the part in which I said I watched him dying and walked away?”

“Did you give him the alcohol and drugs?” He hisses the words.

“What? No! Of course not.”

“Then, again, how is it your fault? You didn’t hurt him or cause him to die. You walked away, which is a lot less than I would have done. His death is not on you. And good riddance.”

I stand there and look at him. Now he knows everything. Why isn’t he running as fast as he can? Why is he still standing here?

“I can’t do this, Dylan. I can’t.”

“We can figure it out together.”

I need to make him stop. I need to make him understand we can never be. I need to push him away. Now. Before I cave in. I heave in a breath and square my shoulders. Dig deep for the coil of anger inside me. Grab a hold of it. Let it spring.

“I’m not your pet project. I don’t need your pity. I’m not your dead girlfriend. You can’t redeem yourself through me.” The words taste like venom on my tongue, and they bite me.

He flinches, his eyes dull, and he takes a step back, hands dropping to his side.

He looks smaller somehow. “No, you’re not. You’re not a pet or a project. And you’re not Annelise. You’re nothing like her.” He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, they’re brimming with pain. “Annelise was weak, timid, afraid of life. Even before what happened to her. The world was always too much for her to take. But you? You are none of those things.” He comes forward, cutting the space between us in half. “You’re strong. Alive. A fire burns inside you. What happened—what that scumbag did to you may have molded your life, yes. It may have even broken you, but you didn’t fall apart, and you didn’t give up. You rose above, and made yourself better than them and your circumstances.”

My head shakes in denial with each word he speaks. My body rejecting what my heart has been trying to tell me for months now. Muscle memory attempts to take over and fight him and everything he says. I cannot accept his kindness. The chaos inside my chest barely contained.

Fear is fighting hope.

Anger fighting trust.

And hate fighting … love?

Yes. Underneath it all, there’s love. Fragile and tentative, like a candle flame in the breeze, it flickers and sways, not sure if it wants to grow or extinguish itself.

I don’t know when it came to happen. I don’t know when I started to care for this man standing in front of me. But I do. I care about Dylan, and I crave him as much as I despise myself for wanting him. I don’t want to want him. I don’t want to love him. I don’t want my skin to anticipate his touch, and my stomach to clench when he’s near me.

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