SEVENTEEN

 

Someday soon, Taylor was going to throw out the note. He was going to stop looking at it several times a day. The paper was grubby now, worn around the edges and slightly torn along the fold mark, and it was ridiculous for him to be keeping it still.

It didn’t even say much. Short and not so much sweet as oddly formal, cold and remote, which was, Taylor supposed, better than a bunch of recriminations. Or was it?

 

We always knew that this wasn’t going to work out. I love you, but it’s better this way.

-Dane

 

That was all he got.

Time after time, he had thought about what would have happened if he had skipped his classes—because it wasn’t like he had paid attention in them anyway—and had gone home early and had tracked Dane down before he left.

But he hadn’t. He had been so sure that they could work it out later when their tempers had cooled down. Or his pride hadn’t gotten in the way. Or both. By the time he had gotten home, it had just been his mother and Danica, both of them very, very sober, and Taylor had known before he even opened the note Danica impassively handed him. Somehow, he’d known.

Dane had left. Taylor hadn’t been worth it, or Dane had seen the betrayal as too great. It was easier when Taylor could feel a little bit bitter about this, but mostly, even months later, he hated himself for what he’d done to drive Dane away.

Even the thought that Dane was probably right didn’t soothe him that much. It was nearing the end of his first set of classes, and maybe it was all the commotion of getting his heart broken for the first time, but he hadn’t enjoyed them at all.

The thing was, though, Taylor didn’t think that was all it was. He had always assumed that his natural affinity for computers would translate into a true passion for it, but he was learning otherwise. He was competent but not much more than that. Somehow, he had always thought that when he got to school, he would just naturally click into place, but that hadn’t happened at all.

He was already thinking that he should probably consider just dropping out after this term when his mother approached him. She had been just as loving as ever, but neither she nor Danica could hide that they thought that he was an idiot for letting Dane go. And he honestly couldn’t even deny that it was true.

So Taylor had been keeping his distance, and he winced when she pulled open his door, her we-need-to-talk look firmly on her face. He was in for it now, although some deep, dark, shameless place inside of him, he was glad that she still cared enough to come to him like this.

She would always be his mother, and he knew how fiercely loyal she was, but things, he had thought, had changed.

And yet, here she was, with that look of sheer determination on her face, and it was harder for him to believe that when he saw her. Maybe he had been too ready to write her off, to assume the worst. He did seem to have those pessimistic tendencies.

“What up, Mom?” he asked, figuring it was probably better to get to the point. She took that as an invitation to come in, and perched on the edge of the bed, looking at him with those deeply thoughtful, penetrating eyes. When he’d been a little kid, he had been sure that she could see right into his heart and soul with those eyes, and he wasn’t entirely sure, now that he was facing that look again, that he had been wrong.

“You’re not happy,” she told him finally, just as blunt as he had been. Well, at least there wouldn’t be a lot of beating about the bush, which was something. She knew when to be quiet, this woman, but she also knew when to speak her mind.

He tried to remember that as he fought against his urge to bristle at her, to push her away because damned if she wasn’t right. He wasn’t happy and hadn’t been for a while, but that was the last thing he wanted to think about.

“What gives you that idea?” he asked, trying to keep the edge out of his voice, but not sure he was succeeding. It probably didn’t matter. She was almost impossible to pull off of her chosen path once she’d decided to go for it, and that, she clearly had.

“Everything about you. You never talk, you’re always in your room or out at school, and I don’t think I’ve seen you smile in days,” she told him, her tone pitiless and brisk but not ungentle. Even as his irritation reared up, he couldn’t help but see that she was on his side, that the only reason she was here was that she cared.

And she was right.

“School is stressful …” he started, but she cut him off, still so effortlessly cutting through all of the layers of bullshit that he had drawn around himself like a suit of armor. All of the delusions, all of the lies he had told himself, she stripped away in a second.

“I’m sure it is. And I’m sure that it has something to do with why you’re acting the way you are,” she told him, and then her gaze slid down to his desk and lingered there for such a long time that his own dropped down to see what she was looking at. It could have been any number of things, his desk was covered in school books, and there were his laptop and his phone, but it was none of those things.

He flushed as he covered the piece of paper that she would recognize only too well. She had, after all, been there when Danica had handed it over to him. She had, not to his knowledge, at least, ever read the paper, but she would know what it was.

He pushed it under a textbook, but it was too late. She had already seen it, and he sighed softly and rubbed at his temples. A low headache was starting to pulse there, and this conversation could get a lot harder than this, he knew.

“It has a lot to do with it,” Taylor insisted. “Actually, Mom, I’m thinking of dropping out after this semester. I don’t think I actually want to be a computer programmer.” It was true, but even more than that, it might just distract her from the worn paper that Taylor had hidden. He had been too worried to tell her that before, but now might be the perfect time for it. Anger would be better than her probing too much deeper into Taylor’s state.

“Darling boy,” his mother sighed, and he had the idea once more that she saw right through him, that he wasn’t tricking her at all. No one on the planet knew him better than this woman did, and he winced when he saw the sadness in her eyes. “You don’t have to drop out. Just pick different classes in September. I know that you don’t want to go back to freelancing. So think of something else you want to do, or just take some time and try out different subjects and see if something feels right.”

It was like she had slammed him in the stomach with a two-by-four, which was what the impact felt like. Why had he never thought of that before? By the soft chuckle she gave, his bemusement showed clearly on his face.

“Sweetheart, why do you think you need to have everything figured out? You’re only twenty. You don’t have to have anything decided yet. You can take some time, think about what you’re going to do when you have more information about what’s even out there.”

“Mom,” Taylor whispered, and, acting on pure impulse, he shifted onto the bed where she perched and wrapped his arms around her. He had denied himself comfort since Dane left, or, honestly, since before that. But after Dane left, it had gotten much worse, and Taylor could see now that it was his own fault. He had been so sure that no one around him would be able to tolerate him since he had driven Dane away, so he hadn’t thought that he had deserved comfort.

But he had needed it. Deserving or not, he buried his face into his mother’s chest and felt her arms go around him, giving him the comfort which he had denied himself. How had he thought that she would take this away from him? He had seen only the worst, even when it wasn’t even there.

“I thought you were mad at me,” he admitted, his voice low and ashamed, well aware of how hopelessly immature it sounded, but it was true.

“I’m not angry,” she spoke soothingly, her hand rubbing over his arm and shoulder, just as it had when he was a child, and he had come running to her. “And even if I were, I would never stop loving you, or wanting to be there for you when you’re hurting. And you are hurting. You have been ever since …”

Taylor raised his head, alarmed.

“Don’t say it,” he whispered. He couldn’t bear it, and they both knew what she was going to say.

“Taylor, couldn’t you just talk to him?” she asked, after a brief silence where they were both, he was sure, contemplating his outburst. “I know you miss him, and so do your sister and I. He has had some time to calm down about the whole thing. You could call him and apologize and …”

As she spoke, Taylor sighed, and finally, it was just too much. He put up a hand, interrupting her, and looked into her eyes. His own were probably full of anguish, but he was past caring about that sort of thing. She had already seen through his act, had probably never been fooled by it in the first place.

But he still had to stop her, because she was obviously laboring under some misapprehensions.

“Mom, I can’t,” he sighed, resting his head once more on her shoulder, relaxing as much as he could as he let the warmth of her love and acceptance run through him. “I’ve tried.” He spoke before she could protest. “I’ve texted, and I’ve never gotten any response.”

He was telling the truth. He had texted, the first time less than a week after Dane had left, when Taylor had been so lonely that he hadn’t felt like he could even draw breath, and it had seemed to him that he would do anything, say anything, go down onto his knees and beg, if only Dane would speak to him.

But there had never been any answer. It hadn’t been hard to figure out that Dane didn’t want to speak to him, and why would Taylor keep on pushing where he wasn’t wanted? So he had stopped texting, and the months had passed, and somehow, he had thought that it would stop hurting as much not to have Dane around.

It never had.

“So call him,” she said, her tone implacable. Like it was such a simple answer, and on the surface of it, Taylor supposed that it was. Only to pick up his phone and call someone, to give Dane the chance to reject him all over again, he had never found himself to be brave enough to take that step. What if Dane didn’t answer at all? What if he did, and hung up the moment he heard Taylor’s voice?

His torment must have shown on his face, because she reached out and cupped his cheek, her hand gentle and affectionate.

“You need to know. If there’s no hope, then it might be easier for you to move on.”

“Yeah,” a little voice piped up from the doorway, and Taylor almost jumped out of his skin as he turned to face his little sister, who grinned at him, clearly amused by his reaction. But he’d had no idea how long she had been there. “You should call him. Right now.”

“Danica!” Taylor took a deep breath, watching as her sweetly malicious face only got more amused. “How long have you been there?”

“Long enough. Now call him,” she demanded, and it occurred to him that she was pretty spoiled, pretty used to getting her way. She did have everyone that she met, pretty much, wrapped around her little finger, but in such a sweet way that it was hard for him even to object.

All the same, he did find himself reaching for his phone, taking a deep breath as he navigated to his contacts. Dane’s number was still there, even though he had tried so many times to make himself delete it. To tell himself that it was over, as he had known that it was the moment Dane had walked away from him on the University campus.

But he still had it, and though he thought about asking his mother and Danica to leave, he thought they probably had as much right as anyone to see what happened here. Besides, he doubted that they would go even if he did ask.

A slight smile was on his lips, and there was something that he hadn’t felt in months. Hope. Seconds later, he hated that he’d felt it at all because that made it even harder than it would have been otherwise as that hope was crushed utterly into dust.

“Out of service,” he whispered, and he saw the devastation on his mother’s face, and his little sister’s, which matched what was in his own heart. “He must have gotten rid of that phone.”

There was a long, long silence, and then Danica spoke up, her face clearing and soon utterly untroubled. When she spoke, it was with brisk assurance, like she had found a way to arrange everything.

“Well, then,” she informed him, “You’ll just have to go after him.”

Taylor just stared at her, because she said it like it was the easiest thing in the world. And for just one breathless, giddy second, it was easy for him to imagine that it was, that he could break through years of reserve, of not letting himself feel, not letting himself take risks, and go after this man who he still loved.

Seconds later, cruel, cold reality came crashing down on him once more, the same logical practicality that had held him back from doing so much in his life.

“Danica, honey, I have school,” he spoke gently, but firmly. She had to get this idea out of her head right now before she got too much of her hope up. After all, even if Taylor did track down Dane, there was no way that Dane would want to see him. Dane had Taylor’s number, and he could have called or texted anytime, but he hadn’t.

“Not for much longer.” It wasn’t Danica who spoke this time, but their mother, who really should have known better. There was no sense in getting Danica’s hopes up, or Taylor’s for that matter. “And you were planning to take the summer off, anyway, right?

Taylor nodded slowly. That had been his plan, to skip the summer semester while he tried to figure out what he was going to do.

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I want to drive all over the United States to find him,” Taylor protested. He meant it, but he wasn’t at all convinced that they believed him on that.

Or, more likely, they didn’t want to. Now that they were addressing the elephant in the room, it was glaringly obvious that Danica and their mother missed Dane, maybe even almost as much as Taylor did. Only, in their case, they hadn’t done anything wrong, so neither of them could fix it.

That was on Taylor to do, and he wasn’t sure that he had it in him. When it came down to it, could he put himself out there when it seemed only too clear to him that Dane would never accept anything that he had to say?

Those texts, and there had been quite a few of them, hung over everything else in his mind. He had told Dane how he felt. How much he missed him. How sorry he was, and how he shouldn’t have lied. He had utterly humbled himself, and Dane hadn’t so much as deigned to respond. Why should Taylor go any further than he already had? Why should he spend so much time on something that he fully believed was doomed to fail? Why should he go out of his way to harass someone who had made it pretty clear that they didn’t want him?

“You guys, come on,” Taylor spoke, trying to sound firm, as they both looked at him expectantly. As if they half thought he might drop everything and do what they had suggested, and the hell of it was, there was a not insignificant part of him that was tempted.

“I know you’ll do what’s right,” his mother said, but there was a slight smugness to her voice, and in her eyes, that suggested that she knew what that was already, and was just waiting for him to see it, too.

One thing was abundantly clear. Taylor hadn’t heard the last of this.