by Lisa Swallow
Myf holds both palms over her delicate features and studies me, then drops her hand to touch mine.
“What happened?” she asks.
“Which bit?” I ask gruffly; she’s pissed me off now, delving too far into the hidden.
“With Sky.”
Since the day Sky left, I haven’t told anyone outside of Jem and Steve why. Letting people think I’d got bored of her was easier than raking through the shit again. Because I’d poured everything out to Myf that night at the party, there’s no way she’d believe Sky meant nothing.
I turn and lean against the granite bench, gripping the edges until the cool stone bites into my hands. “Lily.”
Myf straightens. “What do you mean ‘Lily?’”
“She spoke to Sky.”
So many more words fight to escape, but I don’t want to let out the frustration and anger I know will come with them.
“And I suppose she lied again?” Myf’s lips thin.
“She told Sky that I raped her.”
The words are out. I squeeze my eyes closed, swallowing down everything else. Lily. Jem. Sky. The whole fucking mess.
“You told Sky the truth, right?” I don’t respond. “Dylan?”
Taking a shaky breath, I open my eyes. “What would be the point?”
“Umm, that you didn’t rape her? Fuck, Dylan! Why didn’t you tell that to Sky?”
“Because I feel like I did do it.”
“No. That’s bullshit and you know that. You didn’t touch her that night.”
“Not that night.”
Myf rubs her temples. “I know this is complicated and that I don’t know everything that happened between the three of you, but I sure as hell know you didn’t rape her. This is Lily’s sick revenge on you, accusing you of something you didn’t do!”
“Myf, I just had a long flight and a fucking long four months. I don’t want to get into this now.”
She grabs my arm as I turn to leave. “You didn’t even fight for Sky?”
“What’s the point?” I shrug her off.
We face off; Myf’s small figure is drawn up to her full height, but she’s still a foot shorter than I am so the stern look is amusing rather than threatening. The concern glistening in her eyes disturbs me, the truths I need to face spilling between us. I shift my gaze to pristine white kitchen walls, if I keep looking at Myf she’ll pull more out of me.
“Dylan. I think…”
I hold a hand up to indicate she needs to stop talking and she huffs, stepping back and crossing her arms over her chest. A door slams at the opposite end of the apartment; Miles’s arrival home saves me from a Myf lecture.
I leave for my bedroom before Miles appears; I don’t feel like chatting. My half-packed black rucksack lies on the floor, dirty clothes strewn across the pristine cream carpet. The room is gleaming clean, neat and everything in its carefully organised place. If only my life could be the same.
Why didn’t I fight for Sky? I’ve asked myself the question over and over, and at the heart of why is fear. A fear of resurrecting the past I deny and pulling myself back down.
I’m scared of seeing hatred in the eyes of the girl who believed in the person I could be.
On the day when Sky discovered who I really was in Broadbeach, the Dylan she met was wiped away and replaced by a different man.
But the real Dylan Morgan isn’t who she met in Broadbeach, or the person she accepted into her life afterward.
Chapter Three
Sky
I’ve taken time off work until after Christmas, and I spend the day lying on the sofa with endless tea and chocolate, reading.
I guess I should do some Christmas shopping, but a week to go, and there’s not time to post anything to Spain now. My brother’s in America so definitely too late to post gifts to him. A thought strikes. Online. I really need to get onto Tara’s internet shopping kick. I got burnt on eBay once, buying some dodgy electronics from China so I don’t trust that site. There’s Amazon, I suppose, and I forget they sell more than eBooks. Feeling pleased with myself for my sudden ingenuity, I log onto my laptop to order gift vouchers.
Sifting through the offers for holidays to exotic destinations and car insurance in my email inbox, in case someone has sent anything interesting, I come across one titled ‘Dylan’. Immediately my chest constricts as I check the sender, hoping to hell the message isn’t from Lily Parker telling me he’s also a mass murderer.
The sender is Myf Roberts. I hover the mouse icon over the delete button; it’s a long time since anyone emailed me digging for information about Dylan so why start now? Another crazed groupie?
Then the name jogs something. Myf is an unusual name, one I’ve heard recently. Is this the girl Dylan was with at the party? I stare at the screen willing the email to disappear, so I don’t have to decide whether to read the message or not.
After four months, opening this email will be like re-opening the raw part of my heart and acknowledging his existence again. Dylan never attempted to fix anything, why is this Myf person getting involved now? This question is enough to prompt me to click on the email.
< Sky,
I hope you don’t mind me contacting you. I’m a friend of Dylan’s and I think you need to hear some truths. I know some of what happened with Lily and what she said to you. I also know why. I need to talk to you about this.
Myf >
No contact details.
I respond to her email.
< Thank you for your message. I appreciate your concern, but I’ve moved on.
Sky >
Liar…
I focus on the important task of buying Christmas vouchers for distant family members. Within minutes, another message from Myf appears.
Broadbeach floods my mind, a sudden replay of everything Dylan and the fantasy by the sea. No. He’s gone; he never existed. Myf’s email confuses me; how can any woman be okay with his actions?
I don’t reply, but the message follows me all day, popping into my head as soon as my mind’s empty of thoughts. Pushed away memories resurface, as if those few lines have poked a hole in the box I held everything inside. What if there is more to this? Why after four months would Myf choose to contact me?
When my dreams are filled with Dylan for the first time in months, I know I have to see Myf. He has a grip on my headspace again if he’s back in my subconscious. If Myf can explain the things he didn’t, I could get the closure I need.
****
I wait in the expensive cafe where I normally meet Tara, taking comfort from meeting Myf on familiar ground. Myf apparently lives in London, the fact she takes a trip out to Bristol to speak to me indicates how important this is to her.
Last time I saw Myf was in the dark, when I thought Dylan was hitting on her; all I know is she’s short with long dark hair.
A woman a little older than me, wearing skinny jeans and a tailored brown coat strolls into the bar. Her long dark hair shines and, despite her lack of height, she takes up a lot of space in the room through her presence. A few heads turn; she’s dressed simply and inexpensively but she’s stunning. This has to be Myf. If I’d seen her face that night at the party, my jealousy would’ve been tenfold. This woman is beautiful.
She searches the room and when she sees me, she waves as if I’m an old friend. I give a half-wave back, heart thumping already. As Myf orders a drink, I debate whether to leave. What the hell am I doing, allowing myself to be dragged back into this? I was moving on.
Apart from I wasn’t; whom am I kidding?
Myf slides her china cup of coffee across the table as she sits on the chair opposite me. “Is the food any good here?” She has a Welsh burr to her accent, stronger than Dylan’s.
“Pretty good, great cakes.”
“I might order something, I haven’t had lunch.” She picks up the laminated menu.
“Was the drive from London okay?” I a
sk.
“Not bad, thanks,” she replies, still studying the menu.
I expected awkwardness, but Myf is at ease, behaving as if we’ve known each other years. No formal greeting, just straight to chatting. I hope this will make the conversation easier.
I take a deep breath. I don’t have patience for small talk. “Why did you wait until now to contact me about Dylan?”
My abruptness doesn’t faze her; she merely glances at me before running a finger along the list of meals. “Because I only just found out what happened. I hadn’t seen Dylan since July.”
Which means… “Is he back in England?”
“Yes, he got back a couple of days ago.”
The knowledge Dylan is in the same country again knocks my world off its axis; the surety I won’t see him gone. What if he starts stalking me again?
My awesome response to this information? “Oh.”
Finally, Myf places the menu on the table and folds her hands onto the table. “He’s not good, Sky.”
“He’s nothing to do with me anymore,” I say quietly. “We knew each other a few weeks, I found out what he’d done and things ended. Things probably would’ve ended anyway.”
“But they shouldn’t have ended like they did. I think Dylan is as cut up about what you think of him as he is about things not working out between you.”
I stiffen and lower my voice. “He didn’t give me any reason to think anything else. Someone told me he’d raped her; he wouldn’t explain. Why would I believe any different to what Lily told me in this situation?”
Myf rubs her pink painted lips together. “Let me order and we’ll talk about this. Is that okay?”
As she stands at the counter, I deliberate whether to leave. Is she giving me a chance to leave? Already my mind heaves the conversations with Dylan back to the forefront. What does she mean he’s not good?
Myf returns and lowers herself elegantly into the chair opposite. “Are you okay to talk about this?”
“You came all this way, the least I can do is hear you out.”
The familiar noise of my place of retreat fades into the background. The voices and music muffle as my attention switches to Myf. “The reason he won’t explain is because he hates the person he was back then, and blames himself for a lot of what happened. But Dylan didn’t rape Lily.”
I twist some of my hair around my fingers, unsure I want to go on. “How can you be sure? Nobody knows what happened apart from Lily and Dylan?”
“And Jem. Dylan told me what happened, and how he was dealing with the situation, and I warned him to back off before things got messy.”
Her cryptic statements irritate me. “What do you mean? Don’t tell me half a story.”
“There are secrets between them, something happened one day at Dylan’s house between the three of them, something that triggered off the whole fucked up situation. I know some of the story but not all. Afterward, Lily saw Dylan as the good guy and she wouldn’t let things go. She was… weird. He did some stupid things, rejected her, and this is the outcome.”
Myf isn’t making sense. Dylan, Jem, and an obsessed girl. I drink my coffee, more confused than before.
“Sky, I can’t explain all this properly and I don’t think it’s my place to. The real reason I came was to ask you to see Dylan and let him talk.”
I choke on the coffee as my throat constricts. Attempting to regain my breath, I stare at her with watering eyes. “No. I can’t.”
Myf passes me a paper napkin and I wipe the coffee from my mouth. I can’t look at her anymore, because the earnest look in her dark brown eyes, and the amount she obviously cares about Dylan interferes with my resolve.
“Lily got what she wanted, Sky. She tried and failed to get revenge three years ago, and now she’s managed to by coming between Dylan and his chance of a new life.” Myf’s soft voice pierces my resolve.
“Revenge for what? Girls don’t randomly accuse men of raping them.”
Myf blinks. “You’re right; rape is a serious accusation. But in this case, I’m positive that Lily’s accusation is a lie.”
“You didn’t see her face! She was telling the truth.”
Myf rests back in her chair, lips pulled tight. “I’ve known Dylan since we were kids. I know him better than anyone and I feel like I’m losing him.” I look at her sharply. “I’m not saying this is all you, he was going downhill again before you met. Then, when I saw him the other night when he got back from the States…”
The uptight and stressed Dylan who rear-ended me in the summer springs to mind, but the concerned lines on Myf’s face suggests he’s worse. The thought of the man I fell in love with suffering squeezes my heart. If what Myf says is true, he’s not the monster I thought.
“What’s wrong with him?” I ask.
It’s Myf’s turn to refuse to meet my eyes, and she sips her coffee looking over my shoulder. “He’s not coping with life. Even if you don’t want him, at least talk to him and forgive him. If someone like you tells him he’s not a bad person, then he might be able to forgive himself and move on.”
“I think he needs to do more; he needs to walk away from his current life.”
“I completely agree, and that’s one of the reasons I pushed him to try to make things work with you in the summer.”
“You pushed him?”
“I mean, I told him not to give up on something that filled his empty eyes with hope again.” I widen my eyes at her words. “Sorry, that sounded dramatic but he did come back from Broadbeach ready to move on. Then Lily dragged him backwards.”
Broadbeach. I dismiss my memories of Dylan by the sea; an image of him playing in the water, happy and free, had come into my mind. “Does he know you’re here?”
“No.”
“He didn’t ask you to do this?”
“No, he’s holed up in his London flat ignoring the world. I think the tour has knocked him.”
He wasn’t going to go on tour, and he subjected himself to the life again? I waver, maybe I could see him, but how and where could I speak to him?
“I really don’t know; he’s had months to contact me himself.”
Myf twirls her coffee cup on the table in front. “I have a guy in my life who I knew the day I met him would always be in my life. I’d dated other guys but never clicked like I did with Miles. It’s impossible to explain to someone who has never experienced that connection with another person. You hear people talk about soul mates and it sounds like a bunch of crap but within days of knowing him, I knew I’d never love anyone else.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I say hoarsely, as she describes an uncomfortable similarity to me.
“Dylan told me the idea of soul mates was horseshit in no uncertain terms when I shared how I felt about Miles with him. Then he came back from Broadbeach and told me he knew exactly what I meant. And the positive aura around him told me this was true.”
“Yeah, things were pretty intense, but…”
“But you don’t believe in fairy tales?” smiles Myf. “I don’t blame you for being cynical, I’m the same, but I think our hearts win in the end. If in your heart you believe Dylan is a bad person, I’ll go away and not tell him anything about our meeting. But if you’ve got your emotions on lockdown, listen to what your intuition says.”
This strange, softly spoken woman emanates truth and serenity in a way I’ve never come across before. Dylan’s guardian angel sits across the table, her voice and look imploring me to listen. The love Myf has for her friend is clear, and I think there’s something very wrong with Dylan for her to take the step of coming to see me.
I know the reason. Nobody else cares about him.
Chapter Four
Dylan
I stand in the floor to ceiling window and stare at the city skyscrapers defined against the leaden grey sky. The thick winter clouds threaten snow, and England is in the perpetual dull of winter. I count to ten in my head, so I don’t lose my temper with Myf.
&
nbsp; “What the fuck did you think you were doing?” I ask through gritted teeth, keeping my back to her.
“I want to help you,” she says quietly.
“When? When did you see her?”
“Yesterday.”
Cars crawl along the spider webs of roads, and standing in the penthouse of the huge tower of apartments, I’m looking down on them the way I feel I’m looking down on myself sometimes. The spaced out times when I’m someone looking in on Dylan Morgan.
“Did she tell you to fuck off?” I ask.
“No.”
Hope. An emotion I’ve not experienced for months pushes away some of the grey and I turn to Myf. Her pale face betrays her fear she’s done the wrong thing.
“What did you say to her?” I ask more gently.
“That you’re not a rapist and she needs to hear the truth.”
I flinch at the word. “Even the truth would be enough to make her hate me.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t know Sky.” She never appeared the forgiving kind; the way she spoke about Grant was scathing. I don’t think Sky is someone who has time for men who treat women the way I treated Lily.
“You’re right, but maybe you’re underestimating her?”
The Christmas tree sparkles with stupid fucking lights and I’m ready to tear the monstrosity down. Myf knows I don’t cope with Christmas and she has forced that on me. Now she’s pushing me to see Sky.
“So she wants to talk to me?” I ask.
Myf picks up her phone. “She gave me her number and said I was okay to give it to you. But she warned you not to turn up on her doorstep at 3am.”
I smile at the Sky comment. “Yeah, I get that. I already have her number.” Myf gives me a disparaging look. “What?”
“Why didn’t you call her when you got back?”
“Because it’s easier to forget about things.”
“You big fat liar! You never forgot. I know you.”
“And I know you and I should’ve expected you to interfere,” I say with a mock pout.
She crosses her arms. “I don’t want to see you end up in the same mess as last time you couldn’t cope, Dylan.”
