Page 88 of There’s A Thin Line Between Love and Hate

“Was there a reason you were calling?”

“Umm… yeah.” I scratched my head. “Aubrey wasn’t answering her phone. I just wanted to make sure she was alright.”

“Awww, Dylan. You’re a mothers dream for their daughter. I’ll tell her you called.”

“Thank you. Have a goodnight.”

“You too.”

I hung up with her mom. I was livid, for all I knew she could have been dead somewhere. My anger got the best of me. I took my phone and threw at the wall. I watched it break just like my heart had.

I went home by myself the next afternoon.

I drove to her house as soon as my plane landed. I barely had my Jeep in park before I opened the door to get out. I made it up her porch steps in three strides and knocked on her front door, but no one answered. I knew her mom would be at work. I stepped back and looked up at her bedroom window, it was dark and I couldn’t see a thing.

I knew she was in there.

I could feel her.

“Darlin’, please…” I shouted, praying that she would hear me and open the front door.

She didn’t.

I sat on her porch with my back against the door for hours, knocking every few minutes. I realized she wouldn’t answer, but I hoped that maybe her knowing that I was there, still waiting for her, would reassure her that I wasn’t going anywhere, no matter what.

I nodded off a few times and woke up to my phone that I replaced that morning, pinging with a text message. I swiped over the screen.

Please. Leave me alone.

I didn’t have to wonder who it was from. I replied back.

Never.

She stopped texting me. That was the last message I received, and I went home an hour later. Days of not seeing her, of not talking to her, turned into weeks. Not for my lack of trying. I was going fucking crazy, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Not one damn thing.

All I could was wait.

I was all out of prayers.

“Hey,” Alex said, sitting beside me at her parents’ restaurant. “Why aren’t you surfing with the boys?” She gave me a worried look. It was out of character for me not to be surfing, but I wasn’t up for anything lately.

I shrugged, looking out at the patio from the corner table.

“Are you okay?”

I shrugged again.

She picked up my arm, placing it around her tiny frame to lie against my shoulder. We stayed like that in comfortable silence for a while.

“The first time you boys started bringing girls around, I hated every last one of them. I thought you were replacing me with boobs and blonde hair.”

I chuckled, and it sounded so foreign coming from my mouth. I couldn’t remember the last time I laughed.

“You know I never felt that way with Aubrey. Not once. I loved her instantly. She is like the sister I never had, other than Lily of course.”

I nodded, hugging her closer to me.

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