Page 51 of Even in the Dark

My breath hitches.

“Dylan,” Diane says in that same calm voice. “Please. You’re going to—”

He aims another swift kick with the heel of his foot, but at the desk chair this time. It careens across the floor, then crashes against the wall, and before it’s even fallen onto its side, he’s turned back to the desk, and kicks it three more times in a row. Hard.

“Please, Dylan… Please, just sit.” I can tell Diane’s fighting back tears now, but she’s determined to sound calm and in control. “You are going to hurt someone. Or hurt yourself more than you already have. Please… just sit down for a few minutes and breathe.”

As if on cue, a drop of blood slides from his hand onto the carpet, almost in slow motion.

And oh my God—his hand!His right hand is dripping with blood, his knuckles smashed, the skin completely peeled back in one spot. It’s where most of the blood came from, I realize—the crimson smears across his torso, and all over dad and Phil’s fingers… Their shirts. Phil’s cheek.

“You’re scaring me.” Diane’s breath hitches. “You’re scaring the girls.”

Dylan’s eyes flicker back to his step-mother and widen for a brief second. He swallows, then stumbles back again, and his back hits the wall. Both hands lift to his freshly cut hair, his bloodied hand limp while his left hand fists the damp strands. He slides slowly down the wall until his butt hits the floor, head tilted back, hands still clutching at his damp, disheveled waves, streaked red in some places now from his bloodied hand.

Phil and Diane exchange a look. “Thank you,” Phil mouths. She gifts him a wobbly partial smile. Phil sighs, leaning with dad against the wall adjacent to the one where Dylan is sitting with his head propped back, knees bent, fingers fisted in his hair. He closes his eyes, his long, pretty lashes a harsh contrast against his blood-streaked cheeks.

“Fuck.”

I’m stunned at how he makes that one word—the most crass, un-original swear-word in the English language—encapsulate so many emotions in that moment. And then he almost negates it when he lets his head drop forward, eyes opening to take in the extent of the destruction he unleashed, and utters, “I’ll clean it up.” His tone empty and monotone. As if the mess he created is what this is really about. As if the pain and rage and deep-rooted turmoil can all be cleared up as swiftly as a thorough room clean. Tidy, sweep, and throw it all out in trash bags on the curb in the morning.

No one says anything. I think Diane is still in shock. Processing. Dad and Phil are recovering from the past fifteen-minute scuffle, both still pink in the face, Phil’s shirt sleeve torn and stained with Dylan’s blood. And Dylan looks like he’s somewhere else entirely, his gaze hovering above the upturned desk chair, distant and almost empty. A few inches away from his left foot, the blue plastic number six Kenz gifted him lies on the rug, still tied to the leather string he attached it to, but obviously ripped off during the scuffle.

“We should take you to the ER,” Phil finally says. “Get your hand seen to.”

Dylan blinks, then glances down at his mangled hand. “Probably just a couple broken fingers.”

Like a couple of broken fingers is just a scratch. No big deal.

Diane turns to him. “And then we should talk about—”

“I’m done talking.”

“Alright, well… We’re not going to just ignore—”

“I’m. Done. Talking,” he repeats, the edge to his voice a warning that the rage is still there, simmering just beneath the surface. It’s enough to send everyone back into another couple minutes of silence.

I see the moment Dylan’s eyes land on the plastic six. They settle there for a minute, his eyebrows furrowed the tiniest bit. His tongue pokes at his lip ring, then he tugs it lightly between his front teeth.

Diane sighs. “Okay… Well, let’s all take a breather for the rest of the evening. But we do need to talk about this at some point, Dylan.” She glances over at Phil. “I spoke with Dr. Morley a few minutes ago. The three of us are going in to meet with him in the morning.”

Dylan drops his head back again. He looks drained. Whatever fire was fueling all that rage might still be there, but it’s simmered to embers. Still scorching and probably easily combustible, but not nearly as lethal for the time-being.

“Mama?” Kenz appears on the landing. She approaches the bedroom before mom or I can intercept her. Takes a step into the room and gasps. “Mama, what happened?” Her mouth drops open. “What happened to Dylan’s room?”

My gaze flashes to Dylan, who stretches out his left leg until his toes are touching the plastic six. He covers it with his foot and drags it closer, hiding it from his sister. The gesture breaks my heart a little. And maybe that’s the answer to his question earlier, about why I care what he thinks. Maybe it’s because he does these subtle little things like this that make me like him, despite all the other things he does that make him soun-likeable. Or, at least, they make me want to get to know him better. Because, despite everything, that psycho didn’t thoroughly break him. Somehow, through it all, Dylan managed to hold on to these tiny little scraps of humanity—a vulnerability that reveals itself in these brief glimmers. And those glimmers make me want to scrape the surface of his ice-hard shell to uncover more of them. Because I know there must be more.

Diane gets to her feet. “Kenz, honey. We’re coming down really shortly. Can you please wait with Chloe and Sadie downstairs?”

But Kenz doesn’t even look like she heard her mother. Her wide eyes are still taking in the wreckage. They finally land on Dylan. “Why did you do this?” She looks thoroughly dismayed. “How come you were yelling at daddy and yelling at Craig and you screamed the ‘f’ word and you did this to all of your special stuff mama got for you?”

Dylan meets her gaze. His eyes look so empty right now. Like he’s battling a hundred different emotions, but can’t land on any single one of them. And like he wants to be anywhere but here. He swallows, but doesn’t say anything.

“You need to say sorry,” Kenz tells him. “Kay? You need to say sorry to mama and daddy and you need to never do that again… Okay?”

Dylan’s fisted left hand unfurls and he flexes his long fingers, pressing them against the hard wood. His tongue pokes at his lip ring, then along his lower lip as his Adam's apple bobs again.

He sucks in a deep breath through his nose… Dips his eyes. But doesn’t say a word to his sister. I’m not sure he knows what to say.

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