Hear Me Now

by Melyssa Winchester

  Calling to him was supposed to stop him. He knows how hard it is for me to say anything out loud, at least when there are other people around. He always reacts to me when I speak but this time, it’s like he didn’t hear me at all.

  Fighting Tim, he was doing it for me even though it’s the last thing I want him to do. I’m doing everything I can today so his father can’t take him to a fight and here he is attempting to pick another one. Tim’s words didn’t hurt me, I didn’t react to them at all. I’ve heard the word retard enough that it’s lost all meaning to me and deep down I know Dillon knows this.

  He thinks he’s doing right by me, but he’s not.

  I hate violence. I would rather just ignore what I saw Tim say then fight with it, physically or verbally. You can’t change ignorance by beating a hole into someone’s face. Doing that only makes you as ignorant as they are.

  Kayden stepping in and pulling Dillon off, it should have put an end to everything, but I could see what no one else could. Dillon’s eyes, there was a rage in them, a look I haven’t seen since the day that he faced Eric down in the hall and seeing it now, knowing that it was directed at someone he used to call a friend, it turned me inside out. Being with me is not supposed to tear him away from his friends, even if I think the people he hangs out with aren’t that great. It’s not supposed to change anything at all, other than making us happy.

  He’s the opposite of happy as he’s looking back at the boy he just beat into the ground, this sick twisted smirk on his face, feeling accomplished at having taken down the guy saying things about me. I saw Kayden’s lips moving, an obvious attempt to smarten him up and bring him back to reality. I even saw his head move in my direction, which means whatever he was trying to say to get through to Dillon, had my name attached.

  That’s when I make the decision. I couldn’t stay there, seeing him react that way, knowing that it’s second nature to him. It’s not that way for me and I’m not going to spend my last two days here with that version of him stuck in my head. I want to leave here at the end of the week remembering the Dillon with the soft heart who is nothing but tender and sweet, not the monster he’s failing to distance himself from.

  Slamming my way through the bathroom door, I head for the sink and turn the tap on. Watching as the water starts pouring down, I cup my hands under the stream and bring it up to my now flushed and overheated face.

  This is all wrong. None of this should have happened. I thought being with him was making things better but in reality all it did was mask what was there all along and made everything worse.

  Leaning over again, splashing more water on my face, I try to wash away everything I’ve just spent the last few minutes witnessing, but I can’t. All I can see as I stand here, looking in the mirror at my own reflection is Dillon’s cold eyes staring back at me and it makes me want to break all over again.

  I would rather be bullied than be haunted by those eyes for another second longer.

  Backing away from the sink and turning toward the door, I see the pair of shoes come around the corner first, ones I’ve seen multiple times. Seeing them now causes my heart to seize in my chest until I look up and see that it’s not who I thought it was.

  It’s Kayden.

  “He’s in the hall, and he’s pretty messed up.” He explains slowly, reacting to the obvious shock that must be written all over my face at him being the one standing here.

  “Don’t want to see him.”

  “I figured that, which is why he’s out there and I’m in here.”

  I’ve never noticed it before, but when he talks to me now, his lips move slower. There’s an ease to them that reminds me of the way my mom is. She takes her time when she speaks because she knows that speeding up means there’s going to be a lot that I’m going to miss and it seems he’s the same way.

  I don’t know why I notice it or why I even care, but it’s comforting to me. The way he’s reacting is putting my mind at ease, which I need since I can’t seem to slow it down on my own.

  “He’s never going to change.”

  “Cadence, I can’t believe I’m gonna say this because I want to agree with you considering everything I’ve been through with the guy, but that’s not true.”

  “You saw what he did.”

  “I also know the reason why he did it. Do you know how many times I’ve wanted to beat on Dillon, Tim and the others for the shit they’ve said and done to Isabelle, even after I warned them about it? It’s a daily thing. I have to focus every bit of energy I have in order to control myself because I swore I was done with the fighting.”

  The reason Dillon did it was me. He doesn’t even have to come right out and say it, but the fact that he’s sympathizing with it throws me. I know the two of them were taking steps to understand each other again, getting along a bit, but actually agreeing with each other, that’s a shock.

  “I didn’t want that.”

  “I know you didn’t. You’re a lot like Belle. She’s so used to hearing shit about her that it rolls off, but Cadence, what you guys don’t get is, we can’t do that. Dillon and me, despite all the horrible shit in our history; when someone talks shit about someone we care about, we can’t walk away and ignore it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well—we’re guys. If you haven’t figured it out already, we don’t think with our head a lot.”

  He’s making a joke, putting me at ease and I want to laugh but I can’t. I know what he’s trying to say but it doesn’t change anything for me. I can’t handle Dillon reacting that way. I’m strong enough to take care of myself when something like this happens. I don’t need a knight to come to my rescue. He’s taking things too far and just like every other time with us, I can’t let him skate by on it because I have feelings for him.

  “The Dillon you know and the one you’ve heard about, they’re two different people. He’s even different from the way he was when I met him freshman year. Dillon cares, he’s just spent so long being told that it’s wrong that when he has anything remotely close to an actual feeling, he does whatever he can to sabotage it or make it go away.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I have no idea. I can still barely stand him most days, but right now I understand him a lot more than I thought I ever would because for once, we’re walking the same road.”

  “What road is that?”

  “The one where someone comes into our lives and in the span of a few days turns our entire world on its axis. We question every single thing we’ve been taught, told or experienced before we met the person until we’re so tied up in knots that we don’t know from one minute to the next what the hell is even going on. Cadence, the way Dillon is right now, is the way I was a few months ago.”

  “When you met Isabelle.” I whisper, putting together all that he’s trying to tell me so that the need for questions stops. This is something I don’t need to have him answer because deep down I already know it.

  “No, not when I met her. When I fell in love with her.”

  He can’t mean what I think he means. If they’re walking the same road and everything Kayden just explained is what Dillon is going through then he thinks Dillon is in love with me and as much as my heart wants to grasp at the words like they’re the truth, I don’t think I can make my head believe in it.

  “He’s not in love with me.”

  “Cadence,” Kayden sighs. “I’m not gonna sit here and tell you how to handle this because even though we’re pretty similar, he’s not me and you’re not Isabelle, but I know Dillon. What happened out there, that’s not him acting like a dick and getting angry over nothing. It’s him trying to do right by a girl he’s head over heels for, but not thinking it all the way through first.”

  Well there’s one thing he says I can agree with. Dillon didn’t think it through. I don’t know how much truth there is to the rest of it, but I do know that much. The only way I’m going to find out the rest is by doing the one thing that when I ra
n from him, I’d been trying to escape from.

  I’ve got to talk to him.

  Dillon

  The second Kayden comes out of the bathroom, I’m up off the lockers and heading straight for the door. The guys from the soccer team might have done what he asked of them before he went in but they weren’t gonna keep me from her anymore. If Kayden was done, it was my turn.

  I needed to know that she’s okay. I can take her being upset with me, wanting to kick my ass and even walking away from me again if it means that what she just saw me do out there didn’t break her.

  It’s this exact thing that I was warning her about a couple days ago. I know what I’m like and I know what kind of mindset I get into when it comes to fighting. It doesn’t matter who I’m going up against, whether it’s someone ten times bigger than me or someone smaller like Tim, it’s always the same rage fueled reaction. That’s why I told her to run, because I knew if she stayed, there’d be nothing left of her by the time I was done.

  She needs to be okay. She doesn’t need to turn into me. One Dillon is enough.

  “How is she?” I ask the minute he meets me in the middle, my eyes not on his but on the door that’s standing between me and the girl I need to fix things with.

  “Messed up man. You scared the shit out of her.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “You want the truth?” he asks and I just nod. Now’s not the time to sugar coat anything. If’ what I did to Tim a few minutes ago is gonna be the one thing I can’t fix, I need to know before I go in there and try. It won’t change what I do, but it will help me in coming up with a way that can turn this around.

  “You need to go in there and you need to say goodbye to her. She’s leaving in a few days and what she saw today, what you did, I don’t think you’re gonna be able to fix with a few nice words and there’s not a whole lot of time for actions. Let her go, Dillon.”

  That’s not happening. I’m not letting go of the one thing in six years that makes me feel right again. I don’t care if it’s selfish or not. I won’t ever let her go.

  “Not happening.”

  “Dillon, this isn’t a game.”

  “I know that. Now she just needs to know it too.”

  Moving around him and following the same path he did, I ease my way in and wait until the doors completely shut before reaching out and locking it behind me. Whatever happens now, I don’t want an audience for.

  Coming around the corner, I see her and the minute the shadow of my body crosses over her place under the bathroom lights, she looks over at me, her head staying level with my chest, making no attempt to go higher.

  Seeing her this way, it tears me apart inside. I know how she feels about my fighting. I mean the entire reason I’m supposed to spend the night at her house tonight is because she wants to keep me safe and away from it. She wants to find a better solution then me going toe to toe with some random person my father hand picks to beat on. She wants better for me even though I’m not sure I deserve it.

  “Dillon…” she says, and as always, the sound of my name coming from her lips, warms me in a way that I used to despise but now can’t get enough of.

  Bridging the gap between us, I go to her and lift her head up to meet my eyes, wanting to make sure that whatever I say now, she’s able to see because I don’t want her to miss any of it.

  The only way I’m going to get through to her, the only way to make her stay and not walk away after everything that just happened is for me to go all in. I need to lay everything I feel, everything I think out there for her even if she doesn’t believe it. The last time I stood before her like this, I made the decision to let her know the real me and now, I need to stick to that, even if the real me is too much for her to handle.

  I don’t want to be anything other than completely real with this girl.

  “Caddy, I’m sorry. When he said those things about you, I couldn’t handle it. It bothered me at first, but when he said it again even worse than the first time, I lost it.”

  “Why didn’t you just yell at him? Why did you have to beat him up?”

  There’s no answer for this, other than it’s all I know and that’s not good enough. I’m not sure why I didn’t just rip into him and walk away. If I had then none of this would be happening now.

  “I don’t know. I just lost it.”

  “Do you lose it a lot?”

  I lower my head and nod, her words getting to me more than I want to admit. I do lose my temper a lot and there’s never really a good reason for it. Things just set me off and instead of thinking things through rationally, I always just let the anger consume me until there’s nothing left but the rage.

  “I can’t do this anymore.”

  Reaching out as her eyes lower to the ground, I run my hand across her cheek and bring my other hand up to level her to me again. As painful as it is for me hearing her say that she’s giving up, it pains me even more having her look away and I don’t even want to start with how it feels inside my chest, the way everything is all torn up because I’m standing here and not even touching her the way I want to.

  “You can’t do what?”

  “I liked you for you, Dillon. The way you were right from the start. I knew that you weren’t a nice guy, I knew everything you did to people, but I still saw past all of that and liked you anyway. I didn’t want you to be different, but then you decided that you needed to be.”

  “I did need to be different.”

  “Why?”

  “For you because the person you talked to that first day wasn’t someone worthy to even sit near you, let alone talk to you the way I did.”

  “Dillon, stop it.”

  “Stop what? Telling you the truth? I’m sorry. I can’t do that.”

  “I need you to hear me!”

  It’s the first time I’ve ever heard her shout and even though she sounds the same to me as she always has, there’s something completely different about this. Her words, it’s like she’s punched me in the stomach, that’s how powerful they are.

  All this time I’ve been going about things the wrong way. Cadence isn’t the one that’s deaf. I am. I’ve been able to hear her speak to me all this time, something that she doesn’t have the luxury of doing with me, relying only on the move of my lips for understanding, but I haven’t really heard a damn word she’s said, despite my claims otherwise.

  I’ve listened to her, been captivated by her, but never actually allowed myself to hear her.

  “What do you need me to hear?” I ask but before she can answer, I place my finger to her lips. “I didn’t hear you before, but I swear I’ll do it now.”

  “Dillon, you don’t need to be anyone else when you’re with me. You only need to be you.” She stops, taking a breath her eyes not giving any hint of what she’s about to say next and I brace myself. “The parts of you that you hate so much, they’re parts of you that I love because even though they’re not so good, if you lost them completely, you’d lose you. I don’t want that. You’ve been doing it with me a lot, thinking you have to act a certain way, say things differently, being someone other than you.” Again she pauses and I wait, afraid to speak until she’s done.

  “I hate the fighting, the violence, the reactions you have. They scare me, but they’re you. I don’t want you to stop being you. It’s why I can’t do this anymore.”

  “You can’t do what?”

  “I can’t do this. I can’t be with you and watch you change because you think it’s what I need or want. I can’t be the reason you change or even lose yourself.”

  “But the way I am when I’m with you is better. You think that I’m changing into something I think you deserve and that’s true, but for the first time in six years, Caddy, I’m changing into someone I can actually stand being around. I’m changing back into me.”

  “Dillon—”

  “I love you—don’t do this.”

  The way it feels letting those words slip, it’s p
owerful and as much as I didn’t want to admit to her, let alone myself, it’s the truth. I’m in love with her or at least what I believe love to be. If saying those words is what stops her from doing what I know she’s going to do then I’ll say them as many times as I need to.

  I can’t let her walk away.

  “I—I have to go. Goodbye Dillon.”

  She moves so quickly that in the time it takes me to adapt to the change in atmosphere, she’s around the corner and I hear the door opening and closing behind her. Coming in here, I thought that if this is where things were going to go, I could stop them. Admitting the truth to her, telling her how I feel even though I know it’s fast and it could possibly be too much to take was supposed to put things back together again.

  It didn’t do that. All it did is leave me facing something that I never wanted to again.

  Being alone.

  Chapter Twenty

  Cadence

  Falling back into my old routine, waking up in the morning, making my lunch and waiting for my mom to finish her daily ritual of spending an hour trying to tame her hair so that she could take me to school was easier than I expected it to be.

  Sure, those were the parts of the routine that haven’t changed with the pipes bursting but where I expected to wake up today and school to be the last place I wanted to go, it wasn’t and things fell into a comfortable groove almost immediately.

  The four days leading up to it weren’t quite so easy.

  Thursday, I didn’t even bother going with my mom. I couldn’t face what happened the day before and the way when I walked out on him, I bailed on the plan of having him spend the night. She knew there was more going on than I was telling her and in her usual way, she didn’t let up on me until it all came spilling out.

  ~*~*~