I wouldn’t have come here for anyone except Dylan. I realize I never stopped loving her. I was in love with her the moment I saw her face in Omaha. Because I didn’t say no to her. It’s not very often you agree to revisit your demons. People don’t normally welcome back their worst nightmares.
My eyes start to blur. I don’t even know if I’m entering the right highway. But I need to put some distance between us and this town and the driving helps. It’s a small amount of control in this world so out of my control. I like how the highways bend and turn out here. It forces you to focus on driving, not just zone out like you can put life on auto pilot.
While I drive, I watch Dylan out of the corner of my eye. She sits back in the seat and her eyes are locked on some point in the distance. I turn the music up louder and I understand how she feels because I’ve been there.
I see a motel off the road and I slow down. It’s hardly visible behind a thick wall of pine trees. The parking lot is on a narrow side street, and I like that it’s hidden. Sometimes, when life slams a door in your face your only defense is to shut it out for a while. Dylan doesn’t understand this, her mind doesn’t go that dark. She never feels the need to hide, so tonight I can show her how.
I park and look out at the moon and the stars. They glow above us like a chandelier, suspended by invisible chords. I wonder what keeps them from crashing down.
I turn off the motor but the music is still playing around us, surrounding us and we are just surfaces for sound to bounce of off. Dylan shifts in her seat and her eyes look over at me and they focus on mine. I can tell the windstorm in her head is starting to settle.
“Thanks,” is all she says.
I get out of the car and walk across the parking lot to the lobby but my mind isn’t in my body. It’s floating with the starlight, looking down on my precarious situation. My movements are in slow motion, or maybe I’m simply trying to stretch time out and make it last. I know this might be my last night with Dylan.
The hotel manger hands me a room key with a plastic handle. When I find our room, Dylan heads for the bathroom and I bring in our bags. In the side of my duffle bag is a box of condoms I bought at a gas station this morning. I doubt Dylan will be in the mood, but it’s better to be safe than, well, in her sister’s situation.
I sit on the end of the bed and look around the room. The carpeting is dark green, like seaweed, and the walls are hung with generic ocean prints. I feel like the bed is an anchored ship.
I hear the shower running in the bathroom and I scroll through channels on the TV. I have a feeling Dylan will want to crash after all the drama today. I hear the water turn off and a few minutes later the door cracks open and a puff of steam lazily spills into the room. Dylan walks out in her bare legs and the green over-sized t-shirt. She’s combing her wet hair with a brush she bought earlier today and it falls straight and dark, touching the tops of her shoulders. I look at her legs and her wet shining hair and I remind myself to behave, but the ways she looks at me, like she’s looking inside of me, makes it hard.
“Good news.” My voice cuts through the thick silence. “Sleepless in Seattle is on. Our favorite movie stars.”
Dylan doesn’t respond. She keeps her eyes on me and narrows them a little.
“Okay, you’ve said seven words in the last hour,” I say. “That’s a record for you. And it’s really freaking me out.”
My eyes follow her as she walks over to the edge of the bed. She stands in front of me and takes the remote out of my hand and turns off the TV with a buzzing snap. My hand still lingers there, hovering in the air, in the space between us. I have strings and they are connected to her hands and she’s playing me. And she knows it.
Dylan tosses the remote on the floor and she climbs onto my lap. Her legs straddle my waist. She lifts her shirt over her head and she isn’t wearing anything underneath. Her freckled skin glows in the golden light.
I inhale a sharp breath. I look over her body, something I couldn’t do last night in the dark. I take my time, drinking in every soft feature. I wrap my hands around her hips and pull her close. She rests her arms on my shoulders and her fingertips feel like tiny bites on my skin.
The only sound in the room is the shower still dripping beads of water onto the linoleum. I can almost hear the steam rolling as I move my hands higher up her waist and all these emotions flood through my head and into my heart and then explode through my veins. Even my eyes hurt, everything hurts because I am holding the only thing I want. I press my lips against hers before I say something stupid, like ask her to marry me, or do something stupid, like cry. My hands are shaking and that’s the scary thing about love. It makes you shake.