Falling Sky

by Lisa Swallow

  “Careful,” he says.

  His pale blue eyes search mine as I grab his sleeve to steady myself and I’m seconds away from burying my head into his chest and allowing his familiar arms to hold me. I compose myself and step to one side.

  Dylan appears to misread my action. “Do you trust me enough to be alone with me?” asks Dylan, as we climb into the black Audi.

  “I told you, I don’t think you’re a rapist, whatever else happened,” I say in a low voice.

  A muscle in his cheek twitches and he stares out of the window.

  I agreed to go somewhere with Dylan, although neither of us had any real clue where. Public is awkward and there’s no way I’m going to his house.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  He grins, brightening his gaunt face. “Fish and chips on the beach.”

  I tip my head and look out of the car window at the grey skies. “You are kidding, right? It’s the middle of bloody winter!”

  “We could go to a restaurant?”

  “Dylan, when I met you, you spent several days hiding from the public, and now, you’re going to take me to a public place? Do you want the paparazzi to join us?”

  Dylan shifts to face me, the movement sending the fragrance I associate with the encompassing emotions of the summer into the space between us. “Do you pay much attention to the celebrity news?”

  “You know the answer to that question.” He doesn’t, I’m not admitting my recent obsession with all things Blue Phoenix.

  “Jem.”

  I tense at his name. “What about him?”

  “He’s screwing around with royalty.”

  I choke back a laugh, visions of Jem and the Queen appearing in my mind’s eye. “I read about that somewhere but didn’t believe it.”

  “Not proper royalty, but close enough to the Royal Family to have the press pack in constant pursuit. I think she’s some heiress who’s two hundredth in line to the throne or something stupid.”

  The ridiculousness of Jem’s situation melts some of the tension and I giggle. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in weeks. You have to show me pictures.”

  Dylan shifts closer, solid thigh touching mine. When he pulls up pictures on his phone, I hardly focus on them, the awareness of Dylan’s proximity suffocating. I close my eyes he could be the summer Dylan again, not the one who Jem dragged up for me to see.

  The girl in the pictures is a lot younger than Jem, and I suspect that’s adding to the media frenzy. She has adopted the edgier rock chick look, bottle blonde stylishly messy hair, dark make-up, and grungy clothes. I bet her appearance goes down really well with her privileged family, about as well as her involvement with Jem Jones. There are plenty of pictures of the pair of them at clubs, or walking down the street, always tightly bound together and Jem’s face always pissed off. The protectiveness of his embrace surprises me.

  “Takes the heat off me, anyway,” he says and tucks his phone away.

  Do I move my leg or stay close? My inner battle wages but Dylan makes the decision and moves away.

  “You want to take me to a cafe and eat fish and chips?” I ask.

  His face takes on the childish expression. “No, I want to eat them on the beach.”

  I sigh and shake my head, comfortable with this Dylan who never changes. The one I’m never sure is serious when he says these things.

  Even Dylan admits the beach is a bad idea once we reach the shore and the icy wind blasts his face. The seaside town is forlorn, the shops and attractions would be filled in summer but several days before Christmas on a clouding winter’s day, the place is a ghost town. I realise this is why he chose to come here. I hunch into my thick coat, burrowing my nose into the top as the sun retreats and the temperature drops. Dylan wears a scarf over his leather jacket, and replaces his beanie with the same baseball cap as he wore in Sandchurch on his head.

  We choose a cafe on the very edge of the empty tourist area, a tiny place with orange booth seats and melamine tables. Christmas shopping pulls most people’s attentions several days before Christmas, and we’re the only customers. The grey-haired man behind the counter smiles broadly, as we enter the warm cafe, and I suspect we’re also his only customers so far today.

  I order while Dylan shuffles into the booth, and I gaze at the chalkboard menu, attempting to quell the sick excitement of Dylan’s presence, which spoilt the fish and chips last time. The stocky man attempts to chat about Christmas as he fills and passes polystyrene containers piled with the greasy food.

  I head back to Dylan with the meal and cans of Coke, then slide into the booth seat opposite.

  Dylan pulls his container toward him, and I pass the wooden fork. “Remembered the forks this time?” he says.

  I don’t reply, knowing his ulterior motive is to connect us back to the night of our first kiss.

  “Sorry, the date isn’t very rock star,” he says, pushing a chip into his mouth.

  I blow on the hot food. “I’m not a rock star kind of girl.”

  “Yeah.”

  The narrow table has little room for his long legs beneath and our knees touch. I don’t move mine this time, knees resting against the warmth of his muscles. Why are our dates always teenage? I study him when he’s not looking. His eyes match the dullness in his skin; he’s sporting more than a couple of day’s growth of stubble and he’s closer to the defeated Dylan I first met.

  “How’s the tour going?” I ask.

  “Long.” He bites down on a chip.

  “When do you go back?”

  “Never,” he mutters, still staring at his meal. “End of January.”

  “Which?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.” Dylan cracks open the can and gulps the Coke.

  Conversation closed down, I grasp for a new topic. “Are you spending Christmas at your little house in the country?”

  “No way, the guys are there. I want to be on my own; I’m staying in London.” He pauses. “What are you doing for Christmas?”

  “Nothing much.” I almost tell Dylan this is my first Christmas alone ever, but I don’t want to give so much away.

  He nods, and I kick myself at the awkwardness of the conversation with the man I was comfortable with a few months ago. So many new questions have circled my mind since we last met, and I use this as an excuse to myself for meeting him again.

  Propping my elbows on the table, I lace my hands together, setting them under my chin. “Did she contact you, too?”

  “If you mean Lily, no.” He pokes around at his food, not looking at me.

  “I need to talk to you about this, if we… ”

  “If we what?”

  “If we want to start again.”

  Dylan stops, fork hovering over his chips as his wider eyes meet mine. His scrutiny unnerves me, because I’m unsure what he’s thinking.

  “Start again?” he asks quietly.

  Away from Dylan, convincing myself he was a monster, for four months I extricated my heart from him. Because I hadn’t wanted to give him myself anyway, it was easier to turn away. I underestimated my ability to push out the Dylan who’d landed in my soul though.

  “We’d need to start from the beginning,” I say. “This has wiped everything away.”

  “I’m okay with that.”

  He reaches across the table to touch my hand and I tuck my hands under the table. “But I need more answers.”

  “I tried to tell you everything.”

  “You told me facts, you didn’t tell me why.”

  He slumps back against the seat and places his ringed fingers on the table. Dylan could be an ordinary man in the empty café; without public scrutiny, that’s who he is to me. “Anything you ask me, I’ll tell you.”

  “I’ll ask you one thing, and then we can finish this… date?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why did you treat Lily like you did? You knew she wasn’t interested in either of you and she tried to leave. Why did you stop her? And then why s
ee her again if you weren’t interested?”

  He shifts. “They’re pretty big questions, Sky.”

  “They’re pretty big issues, Dylan.”

  Dylan rubs his hand across his face. “I’ve spent years not thinking about this shit, then the past four months with my head full of it. The ‘what ifs’, the ‘why the fuck did I do thats’. I have no excuses.”

  “The most important thing to me right now is that you understand what was wrong about your behaviour. If you can’t see that, then Lily’s right about one thing - a man who can treat a woman like that will never change.”

  “What was wrong? Nothing I did was right. I thought I did the right thing after the night at the party by checking up on her, but I just fucked things up further. I let her believe she meant something to me; when to be honest, I was worrying about what she was going to say or do about Jem. Steve told me to be nice to her, hoping she wouldn’t take things further, but the plan backfired.”

  Steve. Of course, his hand is in all this.

  “Backfired?”

  “Fuck. Okay. Lily was upset one time; that’s when things went too far and we had sex. At that point, she thought she meant something to me because I’d visited her a few times. Back then, I didn’t do relationships and would take everything I was offered.” He picks at his meal and his words turn my stomach away from eating. It’s as if he’s describing a different man. “Jem was fucking obsessed with her. Like I said, when he found out, he went straight to Lily and told her I was using her to get back at him.”

  “Were you?”

  “Sky, I could sit and talk to you about this for hours, and I don’t think you’ll really understand everything. But please, take away this: I was a stupid, fucked up, arrogant dickhead who didn’t think how his actions would fuck up other people. I couldn’t see beyond the edge of my own ego. I deserved what I got from Lily; I put her in that position with Jem, then I used that to have sex with her myself later.”

  “That sounds deliberate!”

  Dylan sets his fork down and rests his head in one of his hands, elbow on the table. His lack of response sends a shiver through.

  “Okay. The truth.” His voice flattens. “I still wanted to be the one she said yes to. I wanted to win against Jem; I think part of my motivation in seeing her was that. So, in the drunken moment at her flat, when I had to decide whether to have sex with her, that was in my mind. After we’d finished, I walked away.” He inhales. “Tell me who you think was the abuser in the whole situation? Jem or me? And I fucking hate myself for who that makes me.”

  I have no words. Nothing about the Dylan Morgan I know matches the actions he’s describing. This is why he couldn’t tell me. My appetite gone, I push the polystyrene container away, dizzied by the two versions of Dylan in my head. I didn’t want to believe Lily; however, when I replay the meeting with her in my head, nothing was there to suggest she lied. In the centre of my being, the place where Dylan connects to me, I know he didn’t rape her. What I am certain of is he abused her.

  Dylan takes a drink from his can. “I don’t think any of what I’m saying is helping my cause, is it?”

  “You’re telling the truth.”

  “As long as you believe that.”

  “That’s not the kind of story you tell if you want to impress a girl,” I say softly.

  “If it makes any difference, I hate myself for every decision I made from the evening of the party to how I treated her. Pretty much from the moment I saw how much damage I’d done, I thought I deserved the accusation. If she knew what was behind my actions, she’d have said no, wouldn’t she? She was eighteen years old, for fuck’s sake. Twice I abused her - once by handing her over to Jem and then again by using her for sex in revenge against him.”

  “You’re not that man,” I say to him. “Not now. If you believe you’re still him, then you’re holding yourself back.”

  “I fucked up.”

  “Morally, not legally. And the fact you’re cut up about your actions shows me you realise that.” I pause and tentatively place my hand over Dylan’s. “Why did you wait four months to tell me?”

  “Lots of reasons. I switched off. I didn’t think you’d believe me over Lily, and that the truth I’ve told you is as bad. I wanted to keep the memories of the Sky who looked at me as if I was special, and not have my last memories of you hating me. Instead, I switched off and ran. I was out of the country and I could pretend you didn’t exist.” I wince and Dylan curls his fingers around my hand. “I couldn’t though; you were with me every day.”

  “You denied me the chance to make up my own mind,” I say, “If anything that upsets me the most.”

  “More than what I told you?”

  “Yes,” I say truthfully and put my hand over his.

  The thread that joined our lives, that tangled us together when we crossed paths, thinned with the distance between us, but never broke. I half-understand why he couldn’t tell me, but this was years ago. If he can’t let go of his past, and he lets himself be dragged down by the man he no longer is, he’s lost. We were both stuck the day we met, both needing to grow up and move on. He needs to leave Blue Phoenix and I need to leave Bristol. My inner struggle matches his, the need to let go of everything I know

  We head back toward the car. The pale grey clouds suggest snow is imminent; the temperature’s too low for hanging around by the sea. Despite the conversation, the awkwardness hasn’t left. The Dylan Effect is no less prevalent than it was, and when he slips his hand in mine, I shift so I’m closer to him as we walk.

  Dylan and Sky can start again, but we need to make a lot more changes yet.

  ****

  The snow drifts down heavier than recently and by the time we get to my place, the dark clouds bring the winter’s night on early. Dylan parks behind my snow-covered car.

  “If we’re going back to the start, I should really rear-end that car?” He looks at me sideways with a grin.

  I’m busy calculating my next move and trying to anticipate his because he’s turned the engine off. The snow settles on the windscreen.

  “White Christmas, do you think?” I ask.

  “A few days to go yet but maybe.”

  “I’d better get inside before…”

  “Before what?” He turns in the seat and I stiffen. If I kiss Dylan, that’s it. Over. I’m lost again.

  “Before the roads get bad for you,” I say the words but I’m unaware of anything but Dylan, the leather scent of his jacket is different to the summer Dylan, a new flavour mingling with the familiar.

  “I’ll be okay,” he says, his gaze on my mouth.

  I lick my dry lips and his pupils dilate, even without his hands on me, Dylan’s stirring arousal. He reaches out a hand, pushing a strand of hair behind my ear the way he always used to, his fingertips grazing my cheek with heat. Hesitantly, he moves his face closer, reminding me of the first time he kissed me. I tense as his warm breath strokes my face, dragged into the charged moment before his lips touch mine.

  Dylan softly presses his mouth to mine. Then waits. I push my lips to his and our mouths move together, the hesitant kiss of those just met, not of reuniting lovers. I fall into space, past the stars into his universe, pulled to the man who has never let me go. The world outside of the heating space of the car doesn’t exist, our bubble transplanted to here and now. I grip the growing curls of his hair and hold his neck and he leans across the middle of the car, pulls me close and lets go of his gentleness. Dylan holds both of my cheeks, the way he did on the beach in the rain, and kisses me like a drowning man desperate for air only I can give him.

  My winter coat and his jacket prevent complete closeness and I fight the urge to slip my hands inside his jacket and feel his warmth and strength. If I do that, I know he’ll reciprocate and in a car, in the street, isn’t the right place to start. Dylan switches his attention to my neck, flicking his tongue into the sensitive spot he knows turns me on and I grip his neck harder.

  Slowl
y, Dylan unwinds my fingers from his neck and shifts his head away. We breathe in sync, rapidly, reflecting the desire to reunite that we both have. But not now, not yet.

  “I’ve missed you, Sky,” he whispers, cupping my cheek.

  “Life lost a lot of colour without you,” I say. “And not just the tattoos.”

  “Will you see me again?”

  “Yes.” I softly brush his lips and draw away. Dylan’s lips part and I place a finger on them. “But I’m not ready for the intensity again this soon.”

  “I get that.”

  “Which is why I’m going inside alone.”

  “Unfortunately, I thought you’d say that.” He kisses my forehead and sits back.

  As I open the car door, Dylan catches my hand. “Tomorrow?”

  There’s a hint of the old Dylan, reaching out to the old Sky he’s just resurrected. “It’s always tomorrow with you, isn’t it?” I ask, echoing the words from the summer.

  Chapter Seven

  Dylan

  The eerie light from snow at dusk surrounds the car as I watch Sky enter her building; I’m two seconds from running in after her. Her taste is on my lips, sweet and sexy, and I fucking ache for her. Touching Sky flooded everything back, the need for her ready to consume me again. And went straight to my dick. Shit, I can’t help that. But timing… Good thing our clothes were in the way, because if I’d managed to get her curves beneath my hands, I’d have been a wreck.

  My body courses with hope and relief; when she told me there was a chance I wanted to jump up and hug her, shout to the world ‘she’s mine’. But she isn’t yet. I need to remember how our relationship took tentative steps the few days before Lily spoke to her, and not scare her.

  She believes me and forgives me. Why the fuck did I walk away in the summer presuming she wouldn’t? I need to learn not to run from shit. I could’ve saved us both so much pain. I’m a fucking idiot. But the man who did those things gnaws at me, reminding me of who Dylan Morgan is.

  Before I leave, I scroll through the messages on my phone. Plenty from Myf, I return them, telling her not to worry. A couple of messages are from Steve asking me if I’ve seen Jem. Serves him right, maybe his loose cannon is about to blow. That takes the heat off me with Steve too, not just the press scum.