Page 101 of The Rules

“Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”

The meekness of her voice weighed his shoulders even heavier, like she’d all but given up on him. “Cat, look. I know I messed up with Dani, and I know it’s a lot to ask, but can you and I get back to cool? Please? I’m running low on friends at the moment.”

Cat pulled a long breath through her nose, then pointed across the room to her dresser. “Can you get me that hair elastic?”

He found it and handed it to her, waiting while she gathered her mess of dark hair on the top of her head.

She patted the bed beside her and he fell heavily on top of the duvet, his muscles sighing in relief. She was right. Hewaswalking around like his dog had run away and it was exhausting.

“I want us to be cool too, Dylan. But why didn’t you think about this before you broke my best friend’s heart?”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“But you did.”

If only he had the balls to admit he’d broken his own heart too. “Cat. You have to believe I didn’t want this. Idon’twant this.”

“I do believe that, but she’s sosad, Dylan.”

His heart cracked again and he could barely get his voice to work. “I joined the site. Eight Dates or whatever. I tried to answer every question the way I thought Dani would so it would match us, but it’s been weeks and nothing. I know she’s moving on.”

“Oh, Dylan.”

“She won’t even talk to me.”

Cat was quiet for so long, he thought maybe she’d fallen back to sleep. Finally she whispered, “Do you love her?”

“Cat…”

“Do you? Yes or no?”

“I don’t know what that means, Cat. What it feels like. I’ve never even been close.”

Cat frowned. Either she felt bad for him or she knew he was full of shit.

“I know I miss her,” he said. “I know I’m happier when she’s in the room.”

She sighed, pushing herself up against the pillow. “Okay then,” she said. “Think about the worst thing that’s ever happened to you.”

“What?”

“Just do it. Put yourself in the memory and feel it.”

Dylan didn’t know where Cat was going with this, but he was willing to try anything if it helped him figure out what to say to get Dani back. He closed his eyes again and sat on the old brown couch in the den of his childhood home. The buttons of his father’s plaid shirt strained against his middle, round from indulgence, and his stringy, sparse hair fell over his eyes as he stormed around the house, shouting—something about being done with them, with all of it. All of what, Dylan had always wondered. What was it he ever gave any of them in the first place?

Dylan’s mother was crying at the kitchen table. He felt like crying, salt burning the corners of his eyes, his forehead damp with the exertion of holding it in, but he wouldn’t let himself be weak like her.

“You’re on your own, kid.”

“What about it?” he asked now, the memory squeezing his throat until his voice sounded like sandpaper.

“When you think about that moment, who do you wish was there to hold your hand? Who do you want to tell about that moment and let them hold you and tell you it’s going to be okay?”

Dylan’s vision went blurry and a bitter acid burned at the back of his throat. He visited that memory often, using it like kindling to stoke whatever fire he needed at the moment. Sympathy to deal with his mother. Motivation to succeed in his work. But he never let himself feel it fully, never went all the way there. He brought a hand to his hairline and scrubbed it back and forth over his brow, then let his head drop to Cat’s shoulder. There was only one person he’d ever told about that moment. Not even Josh or Shawn. He’d held Dani’s warm, naked body, and spilled like a geyser from the deepest part of himself. But there were other parts he still wasn’t sure he could ever give. The part where he was desperately afraid of being that man in the plaid shirt, disappointing everyone who ever trusted him. But he was also afraid of being his mother. Loving someone so much it made you a fool.

“I don’t know if I can do it,” he said. His voice sounded like an old rusty hinge. “Love, marriage. All that soulmate shit. I don’t know if I even want it.”

How could he when the only example he had was one person sucking the life out of another? Are some people just born knowing how to sort that out? How to separate your past from your future? His sister had done it. Somehow she had, but whenever he thought of love, he thought of disappointing someone or being disappointed every day for the rest of your life until love and hate felt the same.

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