Page 209 of The Storm

“What are you gonna do?” Dylan asks.

“I don’t know!” I say desperately. “I was kind of hoping I would tell you, and you’d have all the answers and some great wisdom to share. So go ahead. Impress me.”

They exchange one of those in-love smiles that do nothing for my mood, and I let out an impatient breath.

“Stop making eyes at each other,” I mutter.

Adrian’s grin widens, but Dylan makes an effort for me and stops staring at his boyfriend like he just hung the moon for him.

“You should tell him,” Dylan says.

That’s exactly the kind of reasonable answer I didn’t want to hear. I cover my mouth with my hand and stare at nothing for a bit.

“He’s not going to forgive me,” I eventually say.

“You don’t know that until you talk to him,” Adrian says, “so stop being a coward.”

I turn my head and eye him warily.

“Look, you’ll tell him how you feel, and he’ll either feel the same way or he won’t. Either way, you’ll know.”

“Yeah, but that’s the thing,” I say. “I don’t want to know. As long as I don’t know, I can still hope.”

Dylan sighs and shakes his head. “There comes a point where it’s not hope anymore, it’s torture.”

Adrian presses his lips together and looks at Dylan. There are a lot of unspoken words flying back and forth over my head, and Dylan’s squeezing the back of Adrian’s neck wordlessly.

“You know why you and I got along so well in San Francisco?” Dylan asks.

“I mean… I’m hot. You’re hot. I’d continue speaking, but I’m pretty sure Adrian will stab me.”

Dylan gives me a look and shakes his head. “We both kept everybody, including each other, at arm’s length. You didn’t want anything from me, and you didn’t have anything to give me, and vice versa. Two lost souls in love with other people. I guess pain recognized pain.”

He purses his lips and leans closer to me. “When I left this place to run off to San Francisco and away from my feelings and Adrian… It hurt more than anything else ever had. But when I left, when I cut that cord… there was also relief. It was a kind of closure.Ishut that door. I don’t think you ever got that. I think Nick left, and you stayed in a state of limbo. One foot out the door, but always ready to drop everything and run back inside if there was any sign he was holding it open for you. That’s why you never managed to even begin to move on. You never got closure. I think you owe it to yourself, first and foremost, to tell him how you feel. I think you owe it to yourself not to be silent this time around.”

I lean forward, prop my elbows on my knees, and stare at my toes.

And I let myself remember that moment. The realization, standing in the doorway of his empty room, that he was gone. That he’d left me. Forgotten me.

And I remember the waiting. Because he was going to calm down, and he was going to come back.

Dylan’s right. I’ve been waiting ever since.

“You made a mistake when you were nineteen,” Dylan says. “Nineteen. We all fucked up when we were nineteen. You need to figure out a way to let it go, because you deserve better.”

I don’t know why those words catch me so off guard.

You deserve better.

Do I?

For the first time in a very long time, I don’t immediately dismiss the sentiment.

Instead, I think...

What if I do?

I leaveDylan and Adrian’s place in the afternoon and drive back to Boston along the coast. The window is down and the sun is shining through it. I can feel the warmth of it on my skin, even though my mind is elsewhere.