Page 43 of One Last Time?
“I didn’t know you have a brother. Is he like you?”
“No, not one bit. He was the perfect one.” It was the way he saidwasthat gripped me. “He died seventeen months ago in a car accident.”
I had to sit up. I couldn’t believe something like that had happened to him and he was only just telling me now.
“Oh God, Dylan. I’m so sorry.” I couldn’t imagine what the hell I would do if anything happened to one of my sisters. We were all so close, like a lifeline. Vanessa may be the only one of us who lived by herself, but we all spoke to each other every day. Whether that was a text or a phone call, or physically seeing each other. I would be devastated if anything happened to any of them. I couldn’t even contemplate death.
“Thank you. It’s okay…” He reached for my hand and smoothed his thumb over the top.
“Why didn’t you tell me… before? Why wouldn’t you tell me that?”
“It’s hard to talk about, and I almost never do. I feel guilty about it because I was in the car with him. He came to pick me up from the airport because I was too wasted to get home myself, and that was what happened to him. A drunk driver crashed into us, and Tommy died instantly. I lived.”
The story just got worse. I took his hand and covered it with both of mine.
“Dylan, that is awful, but you can’t feel guilty for that.”
“I know… but I do. I do because that was what I was like. The guy who wrecked everything and had no concept of reality. I told you I was bad.” He chuckled, but it was a laugh without humor. “I wish I could have been more like I am now. If I had been, it wouldn’t have happened. He wouldn’t have been there. I wouldn’t have waited the hour I did in the airport for him to pick me up. I would have found my way home myself like a normal person. But it is what it is.”
“Please don’t blame yourself. Things happen, and we can’t explain or understand why they happen. I just know we shouldn’t blame ourselves for things we have no control over.”
“Yeah, you’re right… Come here.” He pulled me back to him and rested my head against his chest. I loved the feel of his heartbeat against my ear. “He taught me about the stars when he took me camping. We used to go every month without fail.”
“Every month?” I smiled. I would have hated to go camping. “Was he how you learned to sail too?”
“Yup, that was him too. We’d alternate between camping out in the wild or camping at sea.”
“I like the sea. We should do this again.” I said that without thinking. If things went according to plan, this might not happen again. We had two weeks and a day left.
He pressed his chin to the top of my head. “We should do this again.” He repeated the words but with more fervency than how I’d said them.
I lifted my head, and he guided my lips to his for a kiss that spoke to my soul.
Open mind, open heart…
What was I opening myself to? The fact of the matter was, I loved being with him.
I loved the way he made me feel. It was different. Different than when I thought I was in love.
Different than everything, and I didn’t want to say goodbye.
* * *
The thought still weighed heavily on my mind the next day when I got home.
It was late in the afternoon.
I expected an empty house, but Abby was here. She sat out on the terrace looking at the garden like she had stuff on her mind.
It wasn’t often that I’d seen my sister look so deep in thought. She smiled when she saw me and seemed to brighten.
“Thought you might have another all-weekender with Dylan,” she cooed.
I sat beside her. “I could have, but I thought I should come home. He wanted me to go back to his place.”
“Why didn’t you, Taylor?”
I looked down at the stone floor, then back to her. “I thought that maybe it would be best to start distancing myself. I don’t know. I don’t want to, but it feels like I should.”
