Wrong in All the Right Ways

by Tiffany Brownlee

  “Oh, okay. Do you want me to help you practice?” I haven’t spent time with Matthew in forever, and I don’t want him to think that I don’t want to be around him anymore.

  “No thanks. Dylan always practices with me right before we read comic books together at night.” I feel a twinge in my left side. I used to practice reading with Matthew before Dylan got here.

  With the rejection from my brother still fresh, I turn my attention back to my father. “Dad, my dance tournament is in January. On my birthday, actually. You guys are gonna be there, right?”

  “Do we ever miss any of your competitions or awards ceremonies?”

  “Or birthdays?” my mom cuts in.

  “Of course we’ll be there.” This makes me feel better, especially seeing as Dad was on the fence about me joining the team at first.

  “Yeah,” Dylan says, taking his eyes off the screen for a second. “We promise.” I can taste the sarcasm in his voice, and I don’t appreciate it. I know I haven’t been around much, but I don’t deserve to be treated so coldly.

  “I’ll, um … I’ll be in my room. Good night, everyone.”

  When I finish showering, I climb into bed and immerse myself in schoolwork. My grades have dropped slightly since the new me took over, but at least I’m still at the top of the class rankings. As I pull my history textbook from my shelf, another book falls. It’s Wuthering Heights, the limited-edition one with the gold pages that Dylan gave me. I’ve been so distracted that I can’t even remember where I left off in it.

  “I haven’t seen you pick that book up in a while,” Dylan says when he comes to my room. “Funny how time flies, isn’t it?” He has a point. I’ve been so preoccupied with everything else that I haven’t been keeping up with all the things that used to feel important.

  I can’t blame him for being mad at me. I’ve broken so many late-night art dates and hangout sessions that I’m not even sure if we’re a couple anymore.

  “It sucks that Cedar Pointe hired a new English II teacher. I kind of liked having you in class with me. We didn’t even get the chance to finish out the semester together.” When he doesn’t respond, I change the subject. “How’s your hand? Does it still hurt?”

  “It’s getting better.” His bandage has a crimson-colored stain on it, and I wonder if it’s just because he hasn’t changed it in a while or if it’s because the cut was so deep that it’s still bleeding.

  “You sure you don’t want to go to the doctor? Mom and Dad wouldn’t mind taking you.”

  “Emma, again, it’s fine. I’m fine.” His terseness slices into me. He never used to shut down when we first met, but now it’s like he’s holding everything back. “You haven’t spoken to me in almost a week, and your only concern is my hand? Really, Em?”

  “Well, we’re not in the same class anymore, so—”

  “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”

  “Look, I’m sorry if I’ve been busy, but I figured you’d understand. This was all for you, anyway.”

  “No, actually, I think it was for you. We were fine until you brought him into the picture, but he’s changing you. You’re breaking promises, missing dates. And this isn’t you.” His voice grows louder with every word he speaks, and he’s starting to scare me. “He’s even changing the way you look. Nice contacts, by the way.” With a warm jolt sweeping across my cheeks, I sneak a glance at my reflection in the vanity mirror across the room. He’s right. I have changed.

  “Dylan—”

  “You said that this arrangement was supposed to help conceal us, but all it’s really doing is getting in the way of things. Of us.”

  “But, it is helping hide us, Dylan. I mean, I got Mom and Dad off our case, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, but at what cost? He’s got his tongue so far down your throat that you can’t even think straight.”

  Okay, I might have deserved that one. I have been enjoying Keegan a little too much. I think in the middle of pretending to be with him, I actually fell for him. I’m a cheater.

  “You haven’t been the greatest of girlfriends, okay? I’ve had some stuff going on, and you haven’t really been here.” He breaks eye contact, and it makes me feel lower than low; he can’t even look at me when he speaks. He’s needed me, and I haven’t been here. I’m worse than a cheater. I abandoned him.

  “What’s going on? Tell me.” I urge him to sit next to me, and when he does, I inhale his soapy scent. I’ve missed it. “Dylan?”

  I watch him with careful eyes as he raises his hand and places it on my shoulder. At first, I think he’s trying to prepare me for the breakup bomb he’s about to drop, but when he pulls back, holding a single strand of my golden hair between his fingers, I narrow my eyes at him. “Did you know a strand of hair is about twenty micrometers in diameter?”

  What?? How could that possibly have anything to do with what we’re talking about right now?

  “No, I didn’t know that. What’s that got to do with—”

  “Twenty micrometers, and we never would have met. I wouldn’t have gotten the chance to get placed in a foster home, or even be put up for adoption. Twenty micrometers closer to my heart, and I would have died. Twenty micrometers, and my father would have been a murderer of two people … not just one.”

  This is it. He’s finally going to tell me about what came before. “Dylan,” I say, taking his right hand in both of mine. I have to choose my words carefully, but there’s no other way to say what’s on my mind. “Did your father … shoot you?”

  “It felt cold at first. I guess that was the shock coursing through my veins. But as time went on, the cold turned to fire. In my chest … in my arms. Tell you the truth, I thought that was it, and then I blacked out, reflecting on the fact that I was leaving this world before I could put a good stamp on it. I woke up in an all-white room, blank and disoriented.” I witness a wide smile break onto Dylan’s face just before a chuckle escapes him. “The doctor kept telling me that I was lucky. He missed my heart by a hair.”

  “What happened to him? Did he go to jail?”

  “No. They took him to a psychiatric detention center on account of his mental instability when he … did it.” He pauses, I guess waiting for me to ask the question everyone else before me has asked when he’s told them this story. But I don’t, so he continues. “My dad had problems. You never knew which side of him you were going to get. Some days, he was all right. A loving husband and father just like anyone else. But on the other days—the bad ones—it’s like a switch was flipped that turned him into this monster that me and my mom were afraid of.” Dylan inhales deeply before speaking again. “He’d break things and threaten us and curse us out like we were after him, like he had no clue who we were. At least twice a month, my mom locked us in my bedroom until his episode passed.

  “He bounced in and out of at least five mental hospitals while I was in middle school. We’d convince him that he needed help and he’d oblige, but every ‘new beginning’ quickly dissolved. Soon after his release, we’d be right back at square one, hiding away in rooms and closets waiting for him to return to … normal … so we could, too.”

  “Dylan, I’m so sorry. No one should ever have to go through that.”

  With his lips pressed together, he nods, trying his hardest to hold back tears.

  I’m not sure if I’m supposed to play the role of his sister or his concerned girlfriend. Should I try to comfort him like a lover would do, or give him advice like a sibling? I don’t know which one to be. I choose lover and scoot closer to wrap my arms around his waist. “So is this why you’ve been acting so … not you … lately?”

  Untangling himself from me, he ignores my question. I don’t think my words came out as uncaring or coldhearted, but from the look Dylan gives me, I’m not sure if I succeeded.

  “Your mom and dad got a call the other day from the judge presiding over his case.”

  “And…?” I’m so far on the edge of my seat that I almost reach down his throa
t and pull the words out myself. “What’d they say?”

  “They’ve been trying to get him to sign his parental rights away since he’s pretty much going to live out the rest of his life in a mental institution. He was given those papers before, when my group home parents were thinking about adopting me, but he refused to sign them. He has this idea in his mind that when he gets out, we’re going to be a family again. Just me and him.”

  I remain quiet, not wanting to express my feelings on such a touchy topic.

  “Your parents found out that he’s moving to another place due to overcrowding, and…” I watch as Dylan balls his hands into fists and then opens them several times before continuing. “And I think I want to go see him. Maybe a visit from me will convince him to sign the papers. Convince him that the life we once had ended when he pointed his gun at my mom … and then me.”

  “Y-you’re going to go visit him?” I ask as I try to remember the woman and boy in the portrait that he painted when he first moved in here. His mother was delicate and beautiful, and he’s her spitting image, with almond eyes and dimples to match. It’s hard to wrap my mind around the idea that someone who’s had to endure unthinkable pain and heartbreak can still find a way to make beautiful things.

  “Yeah, tomorrow actually.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me what was going on?” I inquire gently.

  “You haven’t been the easiest person to track down.” Well, why didn’t you text me? “And I would have texted you, but this isn’t really a conversation meant for text message.” I like how he still has the ability to read my mind; we haven’t lost that piece of our relationship yet.

  “I know, and I’m sorry.”

  He gives me a look. “Sorry doesn’t make things better.”

  “I know that, too.” I’m a half-second away from apologizing again, but that wouldn’t help my case. “So how are you going to make this happen?” I ask, trying to get the conversation away from me and my horrible girlfriend behavior.

  “I’ve set up an appointment to see him after he gets transferred to the new mental hospital.” As he speaks, I feel my stomach harden and a burning sensation ripple through my chest. Switching into sister mode, I wonder, Why? He’s been here for a little over two months, and, although it’s not official official, he’s a part of our family now. He’s Matthew’s and my brother, and my parents’ son. I know that his dad is his closest living blood relative, but is it wrong of me to want to keep them apart? “I’ve been trying to catch you to tell you this for some time now, but you’ve had … other obligations.”

  “So you’re sure about this?”

  “Positive. But I’m not sure if I want to go alone.” He’s quiet for a moment, as if trying to pick his next words very carefully. I expect him to say that he wants to take Dad or Mom for parental support; that’s what I would do if I were him. But no. He has something else in mind. “Do you want to go with me?”

  I have to repeat his question several times in my head before I say anything.

  The answer is a no-brainer: of course I want to go with him. I am his girlfriend. But something deep down inside of me tells me that I shouldn’t go, and neither should he. This time, though, the kinder parts of my brain win me over, and I find myself saying, “What time do you want to go?”

  “Right after school. It’s a half day, and this place is in LA, about two hours from here.”

  “But I have practice tomorrow,” I say, biting my lip. “It’s competition season, and I can’t afford to miss.”

  “You’re right. I don’t know why I asked you. You barely even speak to me anymore.” He gets up to leave, and as he does, I grab his hand to give it a squeeze. The words are on his lips, I can feel it. It’s over, Emma, I imagine him saying.

  “I’ll find a way to get out of it. This is really important to you, and I can’t miss it. I’m in.”

  * * *

  Our trip to Los Angeles is all I can think about, and I barely get any sleep that evening. When I meet his dad, will he want me to go as his girlfriend or his sister? How will he introduce me? I can’t calm down all night.

  We decide to take my car, but Dylan forgets his ID and wallet, so we have to return to the house before we leave, putting us fifteen minutes behind schedule. My dad is outside in the pool when we pull up. Lately he’s been into water resistance training, which is a little off-putting because his chest is so hairy. But if it makes him happy, then who am I to knock his passion? I wouldn’t want to do to him what he does to us.

  When my dad sees Dylan run into his art studio, he climbs out of the pool and grabs a towel. “Hey, Dylan.”

  “Hey.” Dylan’s face crumples with confusion, and I know it has everything to do with the impending face-to-face he’s about to have with the man who almost killed him. “What’s up?”

  “I know you didn’t want to enter that art showcase, but I got a call today and they are really interested in your work. The deadline to accept is coming up, and I don’t want you to miss out on this opportunity. Can you accept their invitation? For me?”

  I see Dylan’s mouth morph into a deeper grimace, and the sight of it all hurts my heart.

  “They’re not asking a lot. Just enter five original pieces made in the past two years. What do you say?”

  Dylan nods, but it’s not one of the cheery ones that I’ve seen him do at school sometimes. This one is slow and forced. I can tell that he still doesn’t want to do it, but I’m sure he sees how happy it’s making my father, and so he goes along with it.

  That will be his fatal flaw, I think to myself. He’s always so set on pleasing others that he pushes his wants and needs aside. I should know; he’s been putting me before himself for a while now, letting me run around with Keegan and leave him at home. He’s never going to be content in life if he keeps doing this, but I can’t help him. Rather, I don’t know how to help him. I admire his altruism, but I know it can be suffocating. Dance team saved me from that feeling, but Dylan never does anything for himself. He only operates on what others want him to do. I hope he breaks that habit before it breaks him.

  We ride in silence for the first twenty minutes. It’s only us and the music, but no one is singing to it.

  “You don’t have to do the showcase if you don’t want to,” I say to break up the stillness. “You could tell him no. He’ll be disappointed, of course, but he’ll get over it.”

  “I don’t want to let him down. If he went through so much trouble to enter me, I might as well honor his request.” He stares out the window as he speaks, and I envision him imagining how different his life would be if he felt he could say no sometimes. “Speaking of saying no, how did you get out of practice?” he asks after a while. “What did you tell them?”

  “Well, first they were super pissed at me for skipping, but when they heard why, it was all fits and giggles,” I say as I see a smile slither onto his face. “Don’t laugh, but I told Coach Denise that I had a bad case of diarrhea and needed to go home.” Before I can finish the sentence, Dylan is already bursting into a fit of laughter. “Hey, you said you wouldn’t laugh.”

  “I did not,” he says in between his hoots, the veins in his neck throbbing. “And what did she say?”

  “Well, first she looked me up and down, and wrinkled her nose. Then she said to go home and rest, and not to return until I’m fully better because, and I quote, ‘We don’t need you giving us the sick shits.’ Unquote.”

  “Nice,” he says, throwing his head back against the passenger headrest again to laugh. This is the most I’ve seen him smile in a long time, and it’s refreshing.

  “Yeah, so you better be grateful, because I’m completely mortified.”

  “I am.” He reaches down and grabs my right hand from my lap; it’s a little sweaty, but I don’t complain. This is one of the few perks of being a lefty; I can drive comfortably with the left, and do other things—e.g., hold Dylan’s hand—with the right. One time, I remember Karmin saying that her boyfriend would kil
l for her to be a lefty—or ambidextrous, really—so she could give him hand jobs while she drives. I told her that wasn’t really my style, and changed the subject. Her sexual openness makes me uncomfortable sometimes.

  “What is this generic crap you have us listening to?” Dylan says, reaching down for the radio knob.

  “Haven’t you ever heard the shotgun-seat rule about not touching someone else’s radio? It’s the ultimate form of betrayal.” I wasn’t listening to the song, but I’m able to catch the end of it before he switches the station. “And that was Taylor Swift. She’s, like, the queen of pop, rock, and country, you know?”

  “You mean ‘pocktry’?” Sometimes Dylan mixes words to create a better word to describe something. Another one of his creations is lover-alls, which he uses to describe a group of girls at school who love overalls so much that they wear them at least twice a week, even though overalls aren’t exactly having a retro-chic moment.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “I’m not a fan of the way she uses her music to whine about her failed relationships.”

  “Say what you want, but Tay Tay has gotten me through high school. I never dated anyone before you, but her music makes me feel experienced enough to know what to do in this relationship sometimes. And, by the way, she is not whining, she’s liberating herself from the total assholes who’ve broken her heart.”

  “‘Tay Tay’? Really? That’s it. Now we’re breaking up.” He laughs again. “You already have a guitar—now go make a pocktry hit about me.”

  Good. I know he’s only joking, so as of right now, we’re still together. This is good.

  I hear him humming a piece of one of her songs as he finds a new station. “Is that Tay Tay that I hear you humming?”

  “It’s catchy, and don’t judge me.” He chuckles, which makes me wonder if Taylor Swift is one of his guilty pleasures.

  “So how are you feeling?” I ask after a while. “Are you eager to see him? Your dad, I mean.”

  “Not exactly eager … more like nervous.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Eager implies that I’m somewhat excited about any of this, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. I haven’t seen him in almost two years, and I have so much to say to him. So many questions to ask.” He gives my hand a light squeeze, and I squeeze his back to tell him that I understand, even though I have no clue what he’s going through.