Color of Forgiveness

by Madeleine Beckett

  Dylan can’t help but chuckle. Chad has a weird way of showing it, but he protects the ones he loves. It makes Dylan feel good to know that Chad already likes Myra enough to feel protective of her, and he knows without a doubt Chad would come to Nyssa without hesitation if he asked.

  * * *

  “Bye,” Myra says with a wave as Dylan helps her into the truck. As soon as Dylan closes her door, she wipes her eyes. Saying goodbye to his family just about killed her. They were all so sad to see them leave.

  “I cannot believe mom and dad came back today to say goodbye to you again. They told you goodbye last night. Jesus,” Dylan groans as he backs out of the driveway.

  “Oh, it was sweet. Admit it.”

  “Annoying, not sweet...”

  Dylan stops at a stop sign and looks at Myra. “Hey, I wanted to ask you something.”

  Myra’s stomach drops to her feet when she sees the expression on Dylan’s face. Does he know? Did Natalie tell him? She promised she wouldn’t. Myra swallows hard. “Okay?”

  “I was thinking of stopping by the cemetery. Would you want to see it?”

  She blows out a heavy breath, every muscle in her body relaxing. “I’d love to.”

  “Good.” Dylan looks relieved as his eyes move back to the road. He puts his hand on her thigh, and she wraps her fingers around his.

  As they drive, Myra’s heart feels heavy; this secret she holds and carries inside of her burdening her with guilt. It was only hours ago that she found out… that she’s pregnant. She’s going to have a baby… Dylan’s baby. She’s beyond terrified about the whole thing. She knows Natalie was right, and she has to tell him soon, but when? How in the world is she going to break the news to him?

  Myra’s thoughts are interrupted when Dylan turns through a set of large wrought iron gates. Driving slowly, Dylan follows the curved, narrow road towards the back of the cemetery. He pulls the truck over to the side. After turning the ignition off, he just sits staring straight ahead.

  He clears his throat. “Myra, I wanted to warn you that there’s a picture of me, Sabrina, and Mel on the tombstone. Remember when Sabrina and I got into that argument, and she insisted on adding some pictures?”

  Myra nods.

  “I just didn’t want you to be upset about it.”

  “Thank you for telling me.”

  He leans in and gives her a quick peck on the lips before he gets out and opens her door for her. He entwines his fingers with hers and leads her to a section underneath a tree, stopping in front of a beautiful flat stone. She stares down at it, her eyes becoming so blurry with tears that she can barely read it.

  Mitchell Evan Lawson

  “Mel”

  Sleep, my little one, sleep

  You will live on in our hearts forever

  Dylan drops her hand and bends down and starts flicking leaves and dirt off of it. She quickly wipes her eyes. She doesn’t want him to see her breaking down like this. She needs to try to keep it together. Her heart aches as she watches him.

  She focuses in on the pictures. The picture on the right is a photo that Myra recognizes from the album Dylan showed her. It’s a professional photo of Mel by himself. But the picture on the left is one that Myra hasn’t seen before. Dylan has his arm wrapped around Sabrina, and Mel is sitting on his lap. They look like the perfect family, all of them unbelievably beautiful and looking so happy. This is Dylan’s past, Myra tells herself as pangs of jealousy hit her. She’ll never be in a photo like that with Dylan with his ring on her finger and their child on his lap and joy on their faces…

  Dylan stands and wipes his hands on his jeans. “My hands are a little dirty, but I want to hold your hand again. Do you mind?”

  Myra smiles and grabs his hand. “I don’t mind,” she says, squeezing his hand gently.

  “I’m really glad I brought you here. It feels good. I like having you know about this part of my life.”

  “I’m glad you shared this with me.”

  Myra hears a car pulling up. They both turn around to look, and Myra’s mouth drops open.

  “What the fuck?” Dylan mutters angrily as Sabrina gets out of the car and stalks towards them.

  Sabrina’s eyes flash with anger as she glares at Myra. “What are you doing bringing her here to our son’s grave? She has no right to be here. He was our son! Ours!”

  “I can bring whoever the hell I want here. It’s a free goddamn country the last time I checked. How did you know we were here? Did you follow us?”

  “I come here every Sunday to visit Mel, you know that.”

  “Oh,” Dylan says. “Well, we were just leaving.”

  “Wait! Can I speak to you alone for a minute, Dylan?” Sabrina asks as she gives Myra the evil eye, her gaze dropping to their clasped hands.

  “Not alone. If you have something to say to me, you can say it in front of Myra.”

  Sabrina sighs and shakes her head. “Never mind… I’ll just catch you another time.”

  Dylan pulls Myra towards the truck. She frowns as she stares out the window at Sabrina. She has such a forlorn, sad expression on her face. Myra’s gaze drops to Sabrina’s hand hanging limply at her side and the stuffed monkey in it that she clutches. She didn’t notice it earlier.

  * * *

  “I’m really sorry she showed up like that,” Dylan says.

  “It’s okay. I’m sure it’s really hard on her to see the two of us together.”

  “That still doesn’t excuse her behavior. Damn it, I need a cigarette. These fucking patches aren’t cutting it,” he mumbles in frustration as he touches his pocket, wishing like hell a cigarette would magically appear in it.

  “Dylan!” Myra shouts. “Pull the truck over!”

  “What?”

  “Pull over! I’m going to throw up!”

  Dylan veers to the side of the road and slams on his brakes. Myra undoes her seatbelt and scrambles to the other side of the truck and has it opened before Dylan can barely blink. He jumps out and races around to find her hunched over, dry heaving. “Are you okay?” he asks as he grabs her hair and holds it back for her and rubs her gently on the back.

  She answers with a few more dry heaves. “Mom’s casserole making you sick?” he asks lightly as he pats her on the back a few more times. She coughs and wipes her mouth on the back of her sleeve before she straightens and looks at him. She slowly shakes her head.

  “You got one of those stomach bug things?”

  She slowly shakes her head again. Her face is so pale; she looks scared half to death.

  He frowns. “Then what the hell is wro—” he stops mid-sentence as he watches her hand move to her stomach. Her fingers splay out across her belly in that particular way women do when they’re…

  His throat tightens. “Are you… you’re… what…?” he stutters, his eyes furtively darting from her eyes to her stomach. He can’t breathe. He can’t get any air into his lungs.

  She nods, a tear streaking down her cheek, and his world shatters.

  CHAPTER 10

  SLATE, CONSEQUENCES

  “Dylan, please,” Myra cries as she steps closer to him, her eyes fixed on his stricken face. Her trembling hand reaches out towards him, so desperate to touch him; to reassure him that everything will be okay. But instead, he recoils from her, stumbling backwards and landing hard against the side of his truck. She sucks in a quick breath as the sharp pain of rejection stabs her in the center of her chest.

  As she pulls her hand back, tears leave wet streaks down her cheeks. This is not how this was supposed to happen. She was somehow going to break the news to him slowly, gently. But she’s ruined any chance of doing that by throwing up on the side of the road.

  Dylan turns away from her and hunches over, gasping for air as he leans his shoulder against his truck. His eyes scrunch tight as one arm curls around his stomach. His mouth hangs open as he heaves in gulps of air. Myra knows what’s happening.

  Clenching her fists tightly to keep herself from autom
atically reaching for him, she tries to talk him through it. “Dylan?” she asks her voice thick from crying. “It’s all right. Calm down.” Her fingers quickly swipe at her cheeks. “You’re okay. It’s just a panic attack. Can you sit?”

  He ignores her and continues gasping like he can’t get any air into his lungs. “Dylan!” she shouts. He reacts, his frightened eyes darting to hers. “Sit down.” Her voice is firm as she points to the ground. He sinks to his knees, and Myra drops down into the dirt beside him.

  “Try to slow your breathing. Deep breath in and blow it out slowly.” She demonstrates for him, hoping he’ll copy her. “You’re okay. Everything’s going to be all right.” The words hurt because she knows they’re lies on her lips, but Dylan needs her right now, and she’ll do anything to help him. After a few more minutes of soft, calming words, his breathing starts to return to normal. Once she sees that he’s going to be okay, she scoots away to give him some space, not wanting to make him feel crowded. Pulling her knees up to her chest, she wraps her arms around her legs and watches him closely.

  With a groan, he moves into a sitting position with his back against the truck, one leg pulled up to his chest, the other one sprawled out in front of him. He sits like that with his eyes closed for several minutes before he slowly opens his eyes. He just stares, unblinking, a strange, blank expression on his face, void of any emotion. Myra searches his eyes, desperately trying to read something in them, anything. But she sees nothing and it hurts so much. Her eyes drop to her knees and the tears start again. All she can do is just sit and wait.

  Time passes. How long they sit there by the side of the road she doesn’t know. It feels like hours, it could be only minutes. From her peripheral vision, she sees him shift, trying to get into a more comfortable position. He breaks the deafening silence by clearing his throat. “How long have you known?” he asks his voice rough.

  Quickly wiping her eyes, she looks up at him. “I just found out… this morning.”

  His eyes darken instantly. “What?”

  “Natalie… she had a test…”

  “Natalie knows?” he shouts, his face livid. He stands and Myra scrambles to her feet as he continues shouting. “How the fuck is it that Natalie found out before I did?”

  “She guessed that I was. I didn’t tell her. Dylan, I would never do that to you, never. She heard me throwing up and… she was so nice to me,” Myra says, her voice trembling before a sob breaks free. Swallowing hard, she quickly uses the back of her hand to wipe her eyes again. “She had a test, upstairs. We went up there, and I took it.”

  “This is fucking unbelievable,” he growls as he turns and leans both hands against his truck, his head hanging down. “I can’t believe this shit!” he roars before he angrily kicks the door of his truck, leaving a huge dent in it. “Goddamn it!”

  Myra winces as tears flood her face.

  He turns, his eyes narrowing in anger. “So you weren’t even on birth control?” he asks, his voice incredulous. “Was this your way of helping me get over Mel?”

  “No!” she shouts. “I was on the pill, I swear.”

  “Then how in the hell did you get that,” he spits, his eyes flicking to her stomach as he waves his hand towards it, “if you were on the pill?”

  She feels bile rising in her stomach and swallows hard, desperate to keep it down. “Remember when I fell? On the ice?” she says, breathing heavy. “And got stitches?” He doesn’t answer so she continues. “I missed a couple of pills. But I took them as soon as I realized it.”

  His look is scathing. “Then why the hell didn’t you tell me about that? How in the hell could you do this to me? When you knew about everything I’ve been through.”

  “It was an accident, Dylan, I swear. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I would never, ever hurt you like that.”

  His eyes are cold and unrelenting. “But you still did, didn’t you…?”

  “I didn’t even know about Mel when we slept together that first time. You didn’t tell me about him until later so I didn’t even know at that point. And you sure didn’t seem to be worried about birth control since you never bothered to ask me about it!” she shouts. “Not even once!”

  “That’s because I thought you had that shit taken care of,” he snarls.

  “Seriously? You just assumed that it was my responsibility to take care of the birth control?”

  “Yeah, you’re the woman.”

  “What?” Myra shouts, her hands curling into fists. “I cannot believe you just said that to me.” Myra’s hand itches desperately to smack his face. Her anger ignites. “If not having any more kids was so important to you, why didn’t you use a condom?”

  “Because I wasn’t thinking straight back then and because I’ve never used a condom in my goddamn life!” he shouts at her. “Sabrina was always on the pill and I—”

  “I’m not Sabrina!” Myra shouts back. The reality of those words hits her so hard it almost knocks her flat. Her voice drops to a whisper. “I’m not Sabrina,” she says again, her lip trembling. “I’m Myra.”

  They stand there silently for a few minutes, the tension thick and heavy between them.

  “How far along?” he asks his voice tight.

  She sniffs, shifting uncomfortably. “I’m not sure. Natalie said maybe six weeks. I think it happened that first night; the first time we were together.”

  Dylan’s eyes widen as his breathing picks up again. His face turns white. “What? No. No…”

  Myra frowns. “What’s wrong?”

  “That…” He can’t get the words out for his panting. “The date… The date,” he mumbles as he sinks back to the ground.

  Myra drops on her knees beside him. “What date?”

  “Mel. It was Mel…” he mumbles, bending forward and gasping.

  She desperately searches her memory for any significant dates. The slept together the first time at the end of February, the night he rushed back from Boise after visiting Mel’s... And that’s when it hits her. And her blood turns to ice.

  The date she saw on Mel’s tombstone and the date they first slept together are the same date. The date she got pregnant.

  A heavy breath escapes her lungs as her chest tightens painfully. She gasps for air, feeling on the verge of a panic attack herself. But she has to get control because Dylan needs her. Her eyes shoot to him, and she immediately gasps in horror as she watches him collapse onto his side on the ground.

  * * *

  Dylan sees flashes of Myra’s worried, tear-stained face. First, she was frantically talking to someone on the phone. Then, he’d felt the touch of her skin on his as she rubbed his cold hands in hers, warming them. Her soft voice had whispered sweet words. But then, his thoughts are hazier. Why had his dad helped him into the back of his truck? And why did he see Chad hugging Myra? It seemed that somehow Sabrina had been there too, crying. Why was his mom hugging her? None of it makes sense. Still confused, Dylan groans and tries to shift, his neck and back aching. He frowns when he feels something in his hair, and his eyes immediately fly open. His head is on Myra’s chest, her arm wrapped around him as she runs her fingers through his hair.

  He sits up quickly.

  “It’s okay,” Myra says softly. “You just fell asleep.”

  Frowning, he turns to look at her and finds Myra sitting next to him in the backseat of his truck. She looks like a mess with red splotches on her cheeks and swelled, bloodshot eyes. His eyes shift to the front seat. His dad’s driving his truck and his mom’s in the passenger seat. He has no idea what the hell is going on.

  “Dylan, honey?” Sherri asks as she turns around, her face pinched with worry, her eyes swelled. “How are you feeling? We’ve been so worried about you. I wanted to take you to the hospital, but your dad wouldn’t let me.”

  Still frowning, he shakes his head, having no idea why she’d want to do that.

  “Son, I knew you’d be upset if I let her drag you to the hospital,” Dennis says, making eye co
ntact with Dylan in the rearview mirror. Thank goodness his dad put his foot down. He nods at him to let him know he agrees.

  He looks at Myra and clears his throat. “What happened?”

  “You had another panic attack,” she tells him. Her voice drops to a whisper. “You scared me so badly. You were kind of out of it, and I didn’t know what to do. So I called Natalie.”

  Some of his clouded memories start becoming clearer.

  Myra.

  Pregnant…

  February 23rd

  He swallows hard, his heart rate speeding up. His mouth feels dry and parched. “They know?” he asks, not really wanting to hear the answer.

  Pain crosses Myra’s face. She nods slightly.

  “Myra did the right thing, Dylan, so don’t you dare get upset with her,” Sherri says. “She was stuck on the side of the road with you and didn’t know what to do. You were barely coherent when we showed up. Have you ever had that happen before?”

  “No,” he says, “and don’t give me any shit about seeing a doctor because I’m fine.”

  Sherri watches his face for a moment. Her mouth opens and closes like she’s about to say something, but instead, tears collect in her eyes before she turns back around in her seat.

  Dylan takes in a deep breath and stares out the window, watching the trees and the landscape go by as he tries to piece his thoughts together. So he had another panic attack, which is no fucking surprising considering what he’d just found out. Apparently he’d been out of it, which he knows to be a damn fact since everything’s so hazy. Myra called Natalie who then told his whole fucking family about their goddamn private shit and they came running to the rescue.

  His eyebrows crease in concentration as he vaguely recalls seeing Chad hugging Myra. Did that really happen or was it a hallucination? He looks at Myra. “Was Chad here?”

  She nods. “He’s behind us. He’s driving your dad’s truck.”

  Dylan turns his head and sees his dad’s work truck behind them, Chad behind the wheel.