by Stahl, Shey
“Don’t,” Dylan interrupted reaching for my phone I dropped on the floor at his feet. “Forget I said anything. Call your parents.”
“I have one more question.” Dylan gave me a nod to continue. The worry evident in his eyes at what I was going to ask him. “What did you say to Eric about it?”
“Nothing, I’m sure the baseball bat through his windshield gave it away.”
How did Eric think I wouldn’t find out about this? It probably would have taken some time had Dylan not slipped with the text messages but I wasn’t stupid. I’ve known for years that my life wasn’t what it appeared to be. Did I do anything about it? No. Now I was and that’s what I focused on.
The more I thought about it, the more it pissed me off. In my mind, I knew this was happening between Eric and Mercedes. The worst part was that Eric and I hadn’t had sex, but yet he was messing around with her, or maybe she wasn’t the first. The thought was revolting to me.
Pissed, I decided to call Eric first and give his cheating ass a piece of my mind.
For some privacy, I stepped onto the balcony and closed the door behind me. Dylan watched me walk out there and then moved to the bathroom with a towel.
It only rang once before he picked up. “Bailey where are you? Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
“Oh give me a break. Don’t act so fucking innocent.” I was actually quite proud of myself. It seemed I had all kinds of courage today. “How’s Mercedes doing?”
Any girl, and I don’t care who you are, has a vindictive side. Being in high school, you find out quickly that they all have them. Mine was starting to show its ugly face.
“What are you talking about?” he honestly sounded alarmed, which just pissed me off even more.
“Don’t give me that bullshit, Eric.” Unable to stand still, I started pacing the balcony. “I know about you and Mercedes. Who else have you been with? Let me guess, Jessica too?”
“He’s lying to you.” Eric claimed stumbling over his words. “I never slept with her. He’s saying that shit so you’ll fuck him.”
I laughed bitterly clenching my phone tightly. It felt like I was trying to strangle my phone to make up for not being able to strangle Eric. “You just proved my point right there. I never said what I knew about.”
“I didn’t do anything she didn’t ask for.” Eric’s voice was sharp as if he was pointing out the obvious. “And why don’t you ask Dylan about Mercedes. He’s gotten to know her pretty well too.”
“Wow, so that’s why, because she asked you to?” I asked ignoring his comment about Dylan. “Come on Eric, you’re smarter than that Mr. Excitement.” Over the years of playing football his entire life, Eric had gotten the name Mr. Excitement for his ability on the field. I had always hated the name and never used it.
“It’s not like that, Bailey.” Eric pleaded his words rushing knowing I would hang up on him at any moment. “Just come back and we can talk about this. Don’t just throw away four years over a guy like Dylan Wade.”
“This has absolutely nothing to do with Dylan and you know it. There’s nothing that we need to talk about any more.”
Eric groaned. “So what, you’re just gonna run away with Wade now? This is so childish. Bailey, you can’t―”
“Save your bullshit for someone else.”
I pressed the end button and surprisingly, felt better.
My dad’s greeting wasn’t much better. “You listen here Bailey Ann Gray―you get your ass home right now! Do you realize the situation you have put me in now? Do you understand the heat I’m getting over not being able to control my own daughter? Come back.”
“That will be a little hard to do, dad. I’m in Mexico,” I lied watching an Escalade in the parking lot below try to park in a compact spot.
“What has he talked you into?” I could hear my mom drilling him in the background. “This is just insane. Get back here.”
“He didn’t talk me into anything.” I told him trying to remain adamant that I wasn’t coming back just because daddy said so. “I asked him to go.”
“You come home right now!”
“No dad, I won’t. I’m eighteen and I can make my own decisions.”
He paused for a moment and said the words I never expected him to say. “Fine, have it your way, Bailey. If you are not home by tomorrow morning, don’t bothering coming back. I will not tolerate this type of behavior in my house.”
“You mean to tell me the first time I get into trouble you’ll disown me?” I laughed. “That’s awesome. I date the perfect guy in your mind because he’s what you approve of, well you know what, that perfect guy of yours has been fucking around with my so-called best friend. I picked the school you wanted me to go to because you approved of it, well guess what, I don’t care anymore. I’m not going.”
“If you’re going to run off with the town delinquent Dylan Wade, then yes, I will disown you.” He clarified in a tone I recognized him using with members of the city council. “I will not tolerate this type of behavior from my daughter.”
“Fine, disown me Mayor Gray.” Without another response, I tossed my phone off the balcony under that Escalade that still hadn’t got into the parking spot.
Dylan was finished with his shower and now sitting on the bed, phone in hand, dressed in a pair of jeans and no shirt.
My stare went to the tattoos first on his arms and chest and then the rest of his toned appearance. It was evident that he worked out or he had one heck of a metabolism.
“Hey,” he said, anxious as I closed the sliding glass door behind me.
“So my dad disowned me.” I said this nonchalantly at first like it meant nothing but to me, it meant something. How could it not?
“Figures,” Dylan grumbled pulling a shirt over his head.
I have no idea why but the sound of Dylan’s voice was my breaking point. Like a dam breaking, I burst into tears.
Classic runaway move right there. As soon as the shit hit the fan, I broke down.
Dylan hesitated and then moved to comfort me but he seemed uncomfortable doing so.
“I’m sorry,” was the only thing he said to me.
I cried even harder.
All my life I had done things for everyone else and the one time I decided to do something for myself, my family disowned me. The life I thought I knew with Eric was a lie and he had done the most disrespectful act of dishonesty someone could do.
My only thought seemed to be how do I trust anyone now? And that quickly flowed into that I now had nothing to go back to.
Dylan said nothing more and held me until I stopped crying.
Twisting away to look at him, his eyes still held worry scanning my face he brushed the away the hair that stuck to my face from my sticky cheeks. “Do you want me to take you back?” he asked, hesitantly, his eyes searching mine for any indication that I wanted him to. “I will if that’s what you want.”
“I have nothing there I want to go back to.” I wiped my tears off my face attempting to come out of my crying fit. “Did you call your dad?”
He shook his head, the sadness returned. “No.”
“Are you going to?”
He shook his head again. “There’s no point.”
“Did he disown you too?”
Protected by a cautious front, he looked at the floor and said nothing. Rubbing the back of his neck, the frustration eased. “He disowned me long before this.”
I had a feeling there was a deeper meaning to that statement but decided to give him his space and not pry into something I didn’t understand and wasn’t capable of understanding at the time. There was a side to Dylan that I might not ever get to know, the side that kept his fears deep inside.
I reached for my wallet inside my bag to see how much cash I had, knowing damn well my credit cards wouldn’t work now. I counted to myself as Dylan carefully watched what I was doing.
“I have just over nine hundred dollars. How far do you think we can get with that?”
&
nbsp; He laughed and shook his head. “You’re not funding this adventure, I am.” Although laughing, his tone was set.
“I refuse to let you pay for this entire trip.”
His eyebrows flickered up and I could tell then he was deciding whether to be dirty or not. Not wins out. “There are always those sexual favors, so…”
I punched his shoulder for his lewd suggestions and handed him the money. “I insist on paying for my half of the trip.”
Pushing the money back at me, he shook his head. “I have more than enough money. When I turned eighteen my trust fund kicked in.”
“I’m not taking your trust fund money. That’s yours for college or whatever.”
It wasn’t a secret around town that Dylan and his brother had a hefty trust fund from when his mother died. Yet I refused to let him use that money on this adventure.
“I’m not going to college.” He smirked as if the possibility of him going to college was ridiculous. “Looks like we’re back to those sexual favors.” he suggested and leaned back on the bed and placed his hands behind his head. To make his point more clear, he winked and gestured south lifting his hips slightly.
What a pervert.
It was then that I was no more concerned about being murdered. Deep down he was too goofy to commit a crime as grave as a murder. At least that’s what I was telling myself.
Lying beside him, he looked at me and I confessed about my temper tantrum outside. “We have to use your phone from now on.”
“Where’s yours?”
“Under an Escalade outside.”
“Nice.” He propped himself up on his elbows. His feet dangled off the edge of the bed. “Are you hungry?”
“Actually yes, I’m starving.”
Removing himself from the bed, he pulled on a clean t-shirt from his bag on the floor and then put his flannel back on over the top of it. I noticed all his shirts were neatly settled in his bag where my bag looked as if hurricane Katrina had packed it.
“Get up. I’m taking you to dinner.” He told me walking around the bed and standing near the door. “I suggest you change out of that ridiculous gown though. I’m not going to dinner with the valedictorian.”
“I thought I looked hot in it.” I suggested twirling around trying to remember my ballet moves from when I was younger.
Nice flirting.
Dylan didn’t say anything for a moment so I looked back at him wondering if he even noticed my moves and he smirked keeping his eyes low.
“I agree,” he mumbled softly and turned to the door.
I didn’t wait for him to leave the room before I stripped my gown off. Usually I wouldn’t have done something that bold but I did it to tease him for the sexual favors comments. I stripped down to my bra and underwear. When I snuck a glance in his direction, I noticed he was still standing by the door putting his shoes on.
Clearly, he hadn’t noticed yet so I stalled for a second pretending to rummage through my hurricane mess and then pulled some jean shorts and a t-shirt out of my bag. When I turned around before I put my shirt on, I noticed he was now looking at me but said nothing.
I chuckled walking over to him. “What? You can make suggestions that I perform sexual favors on you but I can’t get undressed in front of you?” I asked, winking at him.
“No, by all means undress,” he said offering his own wink. “It’ll just make those sexual favors easier.”
3. Naïve – Bailey Gray
As promised, Dylan took me to dinner at a small Mexican restaurant that we found up the street within walking distance. I ordered steak fajitas and he did the same.
Full of commotion, the restaurant provided a good distraction to the world I was now facing. Each time the waiter walked by, I wished that we were old enough to order drinks.
After everything, I could use one. I’d never drank before but I really wanted to know what all the fuss was about.
“I could really use a drink.” I said to Dylan suppressing a sigh when I saw another tray of what looked to be margaritas.
“Did you ever drink before?”
“No.” I admitted ashamed that I had lived such a sheltered life. “Have you?”
“That’s a dumb question.” And if you knew Dylan, that was a dumb question. “You want a beer?”
“We’re only eighteen.” I found it strange that I had to point this out to him. “They’re not going to sell us beer.”
“Sure they will.” He waived a waitress over. Sure enough, with a smile from Dylan she came running. “Hey, can we get two Corona’s?”
“Sure sweetie,” the waitress, too old to be flirting with an eighteen-year-old boy, told him with a smile that he returned with a wink. He was playing her game. “I’ll bring them right out. Can I get you anything else?”
“No,” Dylan smiled again, his usually wintry blue eyes melted and I knew then he knew how to play people when needed, “that’s all.”
“Hardly fair…you played her.”
“Played?” He looked at me as if I had wounded him but cracked a smile regardless.
“When did you have your first beer?” I asked changing the subject slightly.
“Eleven.”
“Jesus, started young huh?”
He shrugged looking out the window.
“Drugs?”
Dylan looked from the window to me and then back to the window. “What about them?”
“Have you done them?”
A nod was all I got, no details, just a nod. It wasn’t like I was expecting details though. I knew enough about Dylan to understand I wouldn’t get any details.
“Whatta ya say we play a little game?” I suggested. The waitress returned with the beers and set them in the middle of the table along with a basket full of warm tortilla chips and a small bowl of salsa.
“Depends, what kind of game it is.” Dylan reached for the chips and salsa placed on the table between us and began eating. I did the same.
“Twenty questions.”
“Only if I can go first,” he clarified chewing slowly. For a moment, I watched his jaw, the clenching of his muscles and the spark in his stare.
I felt comfortable around him.
“Fair enough,” I motioned with my hand, “go ahead.”
He waited for me to take a drink of my beer, smiling as I gave the bitter beer face but choked it down regardless. I wouldn't order this drink again.
When I thought about the game twenty questions, and knowing what my life had been like, I was sure I could guess some of his questions. I also knew a few questions I wanted to ask him.
“What did you ever see in Eric James? I mean seriously Bailey, yeah, he can throw a mean spiral but fuck, and he’s Eric James for Christ sakes.” Dylan looked at me like I had been dating the devil for the past four years.
After today’s turn of events, maybe I had been.
I wasn’t sure how to respond so I told him the truth. “Honestly, I dated him because it was expected of me.”
“That’s bullshit.” Dylan said calmly but his words held meaning. “You always have a choice.”
Given the chance, I would not have chosen someone like Eric James to spend my life with. We were complete opposites in every way and when I looked at him most days, and the life I saw that we would live, had I chosen him, it made me want to scream. I saw us living in suburbia hell with two point five kids, a dog and white picket fence where the wife had dreams and doesn’t pursue them because she’s stuck at home playing the perfect wife. That wasn’t me. I grew up around that and to me that’s a painted hell in my mind.
If I had envisioned the perfect life for me, it would be unpredictable and never planned. I wanted to be late, photograph the world, stay in bed all day, and not brush my hair, where jeans with holes in them and wear black nail polish just because I could.
Dylan shook his head and looked back at the salsa dipping another chip into it. “I can’t believe you fucked him.” He mumbled shoving the chip in his mouth. “I though
t you’d have better taste than that.”
Just as he said that, I had taken a drink of my beer.
He was now wearing that drink.
“What did you just say?” I choked out still coughing, beer coming out my nose which then caused me to cough.
Glaring, he proceeded to wipe beer from his shirt. Around then was when I thought to myself that his neatly packed bag might have been some kind of obsessive-compulsive-disorder.
Dylan’s eyes held no shred of amusement when he spoke. “You obviously heard me.”
“What would make you think I was sleeping with him?”
I’ll admit that I was tad bitter.
“You can’t sleep with a guy like Eric James and expect him to keep quiet about popping your cherry, did you?” he replied, irritated and refusing to look at me. Instead, his eyes focused in the distance over my shoulder where a couple in their late twenties sat at the bar, laughing and completely comfortable with each other. The situation was an exact opposite of what was happening with us.
“I didn’t think you were that goddamn naïve.”
That’s when I lost myself right about then in a slur of words but I think I said something similar to this. “I wouldn’t expect a guy like Eric James to keep quiet if that had actually happened!” I yelled, probably too loud for the restaurant. “I never fucked him.” Slumping back in the booth, I muttered a little more to myself but losing steam as I crossed my arms over my chest. “That son of a bitch.”
Now I wished I hadn’t destroyed my phone. I wanted to give Eric a little verbal lashing for this shit. My life may have been planned but I had always been the same type of person. I didn’t like people believing lies about me and not knowing the truth. Maybe this came from my upbringing being the Mayor’s daughter but someone believing a lie about me was crushing.
“You had no idea?” Dylan looked amazed that I didn’t which had me speculating there were more rumors Eric had spread about me or Mercedes for that matter.
How could I have been so naïve about it?
Dylan was right. I was naïve whether I wanted to admit it or not.
“How could you actually believe that?”
He shook his head running his hand through his hair and settling his hand on the back of his neck again, a motion he did often but seemed to ease the frustration he was feeling. “I don’t get why you’re angry with me. You’ve been dating him for the last four years; it’s not so unbelievable that you hadn’t slept with him by now. People do that you know, date and have sex.”
