Chapter Eighteen
AMBER
“Do you want pizza tonight?” Dylan was yelling at me from the other room. I just walked through the door. Kyle hadn’t shown up for therapy for the second week in a row. He wouldn’t answer my calls or my texts… I was worried about him and didn’t know what to do.
“I don’t care.” I tossed my purse and keys down on the table and sat down. As I was taking off my shoes, Dylan came out from the kitchen with his phone pressed to his ear. He had on a pair of jeans, but no shirt and no shoes. He hadn’t shaved in almost a week and his belly was starting to hang over the front of his pants. He’d traded in his alcohol and drug addiction for food and television.
“Pepperoni?”
“I don’t care.” He made a face and finished ordering his pizza, with stuffed crust and breadsticks.
“What’s wrong with you?” he said after he hung up.
“Nothing.”
He waited like he thought I was going to say something else. When I didn’t he said, “Seems like something.” He sat down next to me. He smelled like the horses.
“When was the last time you took a shower?”
He made another face, but to his credit, he didn’t say what I knew he had to be thinking… I was being a bitch. “This morning, why?”
“You smell like your horse.”
He actually smelled himself and then he said, “I was petting her when I went out to feed her. I’ll take another shower before bed. Did you have a rough day?”
Every day is a rough day when you’re pretending, I thought. “No, it was fine. I’m going to shower now if you’re not going to.”
He grinned. “I’ll just take one with you. The pizza won’t be here for forty-five minutes…”
“No, I just need a minute to decompress,” I told him.
“If the day was fine, why do you need to decompress?”
“Dylan, please…”
“Fine, whatever.” He picked up the remote and switched on the T.V.
I got up and went to take my shower. He lay down on the couch. I couldn’t for the life of me understand what either of us were doing. He acted as miserable as I was. While I was alone in the safety of the shower – in the bathroom that still had no door – I resolved that we had to have this talk and we had to do it tonight. We were both wasting our lives.
When I finished and got back out to the living room, I found him eating pizza. I sat down next to him as he handed me a piece. I sat it down and said, “Dylan, we need to talk.”
“About?”
“I can’t keep doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Jesus, Dylan! Do you not see how ridiculous this relationship is? You’re twenty-five years old. All you do is eat and watch television. I’m twenty-four and all I do is work and watch you eat and watch television. What kind of life is this?”
I saw something of the old Dylan flash in his eyes. He took a long drink of his Pepsi and then he said, “So, let me get this straight. When I was riding in the rodeo and partying and having a good time, you were miserable. Now that I’m not riding in the rodeo and not partying and having a good time, you’re miserable. So, the only common denominator is me. I make you miserable no matter what I do.”
“Do you love me, Dylan?”
“What?”
“You heard me. Do you love me?”
“Of course, I love you, Amber. I’ve loved you since I was a kid. It’s not me. I still want you. You turn me down every time I try and get close to you. I think the question is do you love me?”
I had to really think about the answer to that one before I spoke. I could tell by the look on his face that my hesitation hurt him and I didn’t like that, but we had to do this. Finally I said, “I’ve loved you since I was a kid, too. But…”
“Here we go.”
“Listen, Dylan. Please,” he didn’t say anything, so I went on, “But I don’t like you when you’re drunk and high and making threats to my sister and mean, bitter comments to me-”
“I haven’t been drunk or high for almost three months and you still haven’t let me touch you.”
“I wasn’t finished. I don’t like the guy who just sits around the house all day and rarely showers or puts on a shirt, either.”
“I’ve been riding bulls since I was eight, Amber. It’s what I planned on doing with my life. I didn’t go to college and short of working on a ranch for shit wages, I don’t have any skills. I’m good at it rodeoing. Good enough that I have enough money in the bank that I don’t have to rush into finding a job. I’m adjusting to being home all the time and being sober – it doesn’t happen overnight. They told me in rehab that I wasn’t going to stay sober if I continued to live the same lifestyle and hang out with the same people. I’m doing what they told me, and I thought what you wanted, Amber. I thought you were being honest when you said you wanted to see me through this…”
“I was being honest, and believe it or not, I am proud of you. I’m also relieved because at the rate you were going, you were going to end up getting hurt or hurting someone else. I do hope you did it for you, too, and not just for me.”
“It was for you at first, but yeah, I’m glad that I did it for me, too, now.”
Sadly, he was right. He did everything I asked and I’m still not happy. I know why, and I also know that I won’t ever be happy if I walk around with a heavy conscience. “Dylan, there’s something I haven’t been honest with you about and maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I’ve just been looking for ways to blame you for my unhappiness when it’s really me.”
“I have a feeling I’m not going to want to hear this.”
I had a feeling he was right. “I’m sorry, just know that up front, but the truth is that I’ve tried to feel differently and I just can’t. I think that I’m in love with someone else.” He looked like I kicked him in the gut, but not necessarily surprised. I guess when you factored in that he and I hadn’t had sex for about four months, it wasn’t a hard conclusion to come to.
“Who?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
“The point is that I didn’t set out to fall in love with someone else, but it happened and now I don’t know what to do about it. I assumed for so long it would be you and me forever…-”
“It still can be, Amber. Are you sleeping with this guy?”
“Not anymore. I saw him while we were separated.”
“You cheated while I was in rehab?”
“That’s not fair, Dylan. It’s not cheating when we’re separated. I’ve never cheated on you and since the day I moved back in with you, I haven’t even seen him.” That was because he hasn’t shown for his appointments, but Dylan didn’t have to know that. I hadn’t had any plans on continuing my affair with Kyle while I lived with Dylan. I just didn’t have that in me.
“Okay fine, whatever. You moved back in with me, that has to mean some part of you still wants to be with me, right?”
“Some part of me will always want to be with you. But it’s not fair to only give you part of myself.”
“If you’re not still seeing this other guy, then what’s to keep us from getting back to where we…shit…not where we were when I was being a drunken ass, but before that, when you wanted me and we were happy?”
“I don’t know if we can do that.”
“Are you willing to try? Amber, I was willing to change my whole lifestyle for you. Are you willing to at least give me a chance to make you fall in love with me again?”
I was looking into his eyes – the same pair of eyes I fell in love with and have been looking into for almost nine years. I had told Kyle that I owed it to Dylan to at least try, and I meant that. But since Dylan’s been home, I hadn’t been able to get Kyle off my mind. The question in my heart is if it be fairer to leave Dylan alone and allow him to find someone who loved him with their whole heart or stay with him and hope that eventually my feelings for Kyle would fade. Maybe it was only a crazy, mad attraction and if he’s not in front of me five days a week, I’d get over it. I wished I knew.
Meanwhile, Dylan was sitting here looking at me and waiting for an answer. The Dylan I had lived with for the past five years would have never done that. He’d be going off on me by now – more proof that he was trying to change.
“Okay, Dylan. If you still want me, I’ll put in as much effort here as you are and I’ll stop living in the past.” He smiled and opened his arms. I moved into them and I could feel his heart slamming into his chest as he held me. He loves me…and I love him. Kyle was just a distraction when Dylan and I were going through a hard time… I hope.