Chapter Fifty

I stared at the large door before me, my index finger lingering above the button that would make my presence known to the inhabitants within. Surprisingly, I had never actually ventured within the house. I had been on the driveway multiple times, but couldn’t recall having ever stepped foot in the dwelling itself.

      It was a homey structure of a stone color with a garage tacked onto the side, and a long driveway leading up to it. A cement path with grass and weeds spiking up between the cracks and colorful but untended vegetation on either side was what led up to the front entrance. There were a few windows scattered about on the front, blue curtains visible from the outside. It looked like a normal, quaint home—nothing overly extravagant, and relatively modest. From what I knew of two of the family members that grew up in the house, it was just right.

      Conjuring up all the bravery I had inside, I dared myself to push the doorbell, a faint echoing sound meeting my ears. Yelling could be heard, in addition to a faint set of footsteps, seeping their way closer and closer to the shut door, where I stood. In a swift second, I was standing face to face with a woman who looked slightly older than my mom, and was more accepting of aging as well.

      Her skin showed signs of a light tan that wasn’t from hours of lying on the beach or from a toxic spray, but rather a bonus of her heritage. In all the time that I had known her children, I knew little about the woman herself, besides the fact that she had Italian blood, and had two kids who loved her very much. She was a petite woman—the top of her head barely reaching past my chin. Dark hair with silver streaks in it was tied into a tight bun, and dark red lipstick coated her thin lips. Unlike both her son and daughter, however, her eyes weren’t an electric blue, but rather a deep brown that almost looked like black. She was in no means an ugly person from an appearance perspective.

      She wore a red apron and had a white collared shirt with the sleeves pushed up to her elbows lain beneath. From what I could tell, a pair of black pants concealed her short legs, and she wasn’t wearing any shoes. There was a certain air about her that just gave off the vibe that this lady was put-together and knew who she was. Though not a word had passed between us, and we were both currently staring at the other, there was something about her that I respected and liked.

      “H-hi,” I finally greeted shakily.

      “Who are you?” she questioned directly, her voice soaked in a thick New York accent that generally tended to subdue the further one went from the city.

      “Elizabeth Turner,” I introduced, sticking my hand out in an attempt to be polite, “Dylan’s friend.”

      She gazed at my hand for a moment, and then cautiously took it, shaking it firmly with her daintily manicured fingers of red. “You’re Lizzie?”

      “Yes, ma’am,” I affirmed with a nod, returning my hand back to my side.

      “Mac’s over at your house with her boyfriend?” the woman interrogated.

      “She was when I left,” I said, recalling that when I had first met Mackenzie I was told that the majority of people referred to her as “Mac.” To me, it sounded like what one would name a child destined to be a truck driver—not that it was a terrible profession, it just wasn’t exactly what I, personally, intended to pursue when I was forced to work. “Mac” wasn’t quite the name I had in mind when picturing Mackenzie Collins.

      “And you’re over here, why?” the Collins’ mother probed.

      “Dylan called me,” I answered with a nervous gulp.

      “Of course he did,” she muttered under her breath. “Well, come in then.” She moved aside from the doorframe, allowing me to warily move by her, entering the home.

      The first thing I immediately noticed was the succulent smell that seared its way into my nostrils. It was a smoky scent that also gave off the aroma of some type of meat, cheese, and an immaculate sauce. I didn’t even care what food it was—I wanted it. Aside from the heavenly odor that was pounding into my nose, I also noted a warmly lit atmosphere. Unlike in my house, there weren’t florescent lights that jolted one’s awareness as they walked into a room.

      We were currently standing in a front room of sorts with a couch and wooden chair set against a wall. In the distance I could see both a hallway and a kitchen. The walls weren’t a common white of a neutral tone, but more of a crimson that I was beginning to get the feeling the matron of the household held as a more favorable color than the rest. Simple wood was glossed over and formed the floors, adding to the inviting ambiance.

      “The loser is sulking in his room—first one on the right if you go down the hall. Please don’t have sex in my house,” Dylan’s mother pleaded, turning away from me, and moving over to the designated area for cooking where a tuft of steam had arisen.

      “Uh, thank you?” I called after her, her warning slightly alarming to me. Then again, Monica had once told one of my friends (of the male gender) as a sophomore that if we ever planned on “doing it” then we should be prepared. She then proceeded to give us both a pack of condoms, much to my mortification and his delight. Yeah, I never exactly spoke to that friend again after the awkward exchange with my dear mother.

      As per the instructions, I found my new objective to be going down the corridor that would lead to Dylan Collins—the boy who had mysteriously called me and requested my company. My feet noiselessly padded against the floorboards as I made my way down the directed passageway. I came to the door deemed Dylan’s, and lightly pounded my fist on it, making my existence known.

      “It’s open,” came a raspy voice. In uncertainty, I slowly twisted the knob, finding that it was unlocked as it creaked open.

      My eyes instantly began darting around the dim room, finding it to be similar to mine, the only difference being that there was fewer clothes on the floor and instead of Boston sports paraphernalia it was of New York. Minus the Yankees, Knicks, and Giants posters scattered about, it was a nice and simple room. The only thing that wasn’t too pleasant about it was the boy sitting on the bed in the corner, looking like a dead zombie as he held a brown bottle in his hand with a translucent attribute to it. Dylan.

      “Please don’t tell me you were about to drink that alone, brooding in your room like some alcoholic in his late thirties,” I exhaled, choosing to zero in on the object he held.

      “Hello to you too, Lizzie,” he said, taking a leisurely sip of the bottle in his hand.

      “Dylan, you look pathetic right now,” I remarked honestly. “Why did you ask me to come over?”

      “I don’t know,” he mumbled back, taking another mouthful from the russet alcoholic beverage. He wasn’t drunk, I was sure of that, but he was definitely on his way to getting a little buzzed.

      “Seriously? You look like crap right now.”

      “Thanks,” he muttered back sarcastically.

      “Why?” I demanded.

      “‘Why’ what?” he stalled.

      I sighed, taking in the large bags that were accumulating under his eyes (most likely from a lack of sleep), and the light traces of stubble that was glazing his face. He just didn’t look like the same carefree boy that I knew. “Honestly, Collins, drinking in solitude is probably one of the most depressing things that a person can do. Why?”

      “Why am I drinking? Because I feel like shit, and am hoping to get drunk enough to get rid of the feeling,” he answered, sipping yet another intake of the brew that would lead to the possibility of liver failure.

      “Well, if you’re drinking, then so am I,” I proclaimed, sauntering over to where he was and snatching the beer out of his grasp. I drew it to my mouth, and happily allowed the fermented liquid to travel down my throat. It had been a while since I had last tasted the acquired beverage.

      “Why do you drink?” Dylan suddenly asked the broad question, watching as I inhaled another amount of the liquor.

      “Truthfully?”

      “Truthfully,” he nodded in his less than tipsy state.

      “Well, I guess because it makes me feel…normal. I know that ‘normal’ has never been a thing to strive for, but even if it’s just for a few hours, it makes me feel connected to other teens, ya know?” I reflected, taking another large gulp of whatever brand of beer he had previously been ingesting. I smiled slightly as the fluid traveled down my esophagus, warming my stomach in a way. “It’s the first time in my life that I can actually drink without feeling totally guilty.”

      “What do you mean?” he queried intently.

      “Before I came here, to New York, my life was basketball. I practiced for close to fifty hours a week, meaning that I had no social life or time for anything besides the sport,” I exhaled, taking another swig as I thought about my life. Basketball. That was all it was. Wake up. Basketball. School. Basketball. Go to sleep. Repeat. It wasn’t the best way to live, but in the long run, I knew that it would be worth it. “Drinking wasn’t exactly an option for me when I was training. My system couldn’t handle it, and if my coaches had found out that I was drinking, I could’ve lost everything.”

      “So, I’m assuming that basketball wasn’t just a hobby for you?” he assessed.

      “Do you remember when my mom started bragging about how I had a scholarship to UConn and crap, a few weeks back?” I questioned, dropping on the bed beside where he was seated as I placed the close to empty bottle on the floor.

      “Yeah,” he nodded.

      “Well, it was a little more than just ‘getting’ the scholarship. Basketball was everything to me,” I told with a shake of my head. “Back then, basketball defined who I was. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it still does, but now I’m more than just a girl who happens to be really good at basketball. I like being more.”

      “Why?” Dylan chose to throw my one-worded inquiry right back at me.

      “‘Why’ what?” I did the same with what he had said.

      “Why did you change?” he elaborated, turning to me so that our eyes met. He was staring at me so intently, all the emotions that he had in his mixed up state being channeled to me through his enthralling irises.

      “Haven’t we been over this?” I laughed dryly. “Dylan, I promise that I will eventually tell you, I just can’t—not right now. I’m sorry.”

      “Fuck!” Dylan shot up from the bed and screamed, his hands flying over to his face and concealing it. After a tense twenty seconds following his outburst, I saw his chest rise and fall, both actions equally as concentrated. His hands slowly traveled down his cheeks, resting on his chin for a moment before they fell to his sides. “You know what I hate, Lizzie?”

      “School?” I guessed.

      “Fuck yes, but that wasn’t what I was going to say,” his eyes flew right back to mine. “I hate mysteries, Lizzie.”

      “What do you mean?” I asked after two seconds of silence, indicating that he was giving me the opportunity to speak instead of going on himself.

      “Just what I said.” Calmly, he walked back over to his bed, slumping down beside me. “I hate mysteries. Whether it’s in a movie, book, or even in life, I absolutely hate them,” he declared. “When I was little and was forced to read books or whatever for school, mystery was the one genre that I hated almost more than the thought of having to read in my free time. Obviously, I wasn’t exactly the most literate kid.”

      “Yeah, that doesn’t exactly catch me off guard,” I admitted.

      “Well, anyways, I’ve never liked having to wait or the buildup suspense. I know that some people love it and get a rise out of it or whatever, but that’s not me, Lizzie, I hate mysteries,” he expressed firmly. “I feel like you’re being like one of those torturous authors right now by trying to be mysterious and crap and just not telling me. If you were a book, Lizzie, I’d be flipping to the last chapter right now just to find out the ending.” His eyes began searching my own, as if wondering whether or not I would just drop everything and tell him the truth. Unfortunately, my “story” wasn’t at its ending point just yet, for it was still being written. I wasn’t ready for Dylan to find out everything, mainly because he couldn’t. “Why can’t you just cut the crap and tell me the ending?”

      “Because I’m a person, not a book,” I said, hopping up from the furniture piece used to recline and sleep generally in a nocturnal environment. I grabbed his hand, pulling him up from the bed as well as he gazed at me cautiously. “Come on!”

      “Where are we going?” he questioned as I dragged him out of the room and down the short area of the hallway.

      “The best damn place in this whole crappy town,” I replied verbatim to what he had said to me in our first encounter with one another.

      He didn’t say anything after that, for he either knew where we were going, or was just choosing to go down the mute road. Nevertheless, he allowed me to pull him along. Practically blindly, considering it was only the second time I was seeing the place before me, I led Dylan, about to reach the door when a voice cut in and paused our journey.

      “Dylan,” the woman’s harsh tone addressed her son, “nice to see that you’re finally coming out of your room. Where are you two going?”

      “Even though you’ve probably already met her, Lizzie, this is my mom, Vera Collins,” Dylan introduced, eluding his mother’s question as I dropped hold of his hand, staring at the woman I had, indeed, already interacted with once before.

      “We’ve met,” Vera said flatly. “I made dinner. Lasagna, Dylan—your favorite. Stay. You can stay too if you want, Elizabeth.”

      “Ma,” Dylan breathed, “as much as I love your cooking, we’re leaving.”

      “To go ‘hookup’ or whatever the hell you kids call it?” she snorted, placing her hands on her hips in an authoritative manner.

      “Ma!” the boy beside me groaned, his cheeks reddening slightly.

      “What?” his mom fired back with a smirk, knowing she had been the one to cause her son’s blushing. “Look, your father will be home in a few minutes and I can probably manage to somehow convince Mac to come over. We can have a family dinner…with your girlfriend.”

      “Oh, uh, I’m not his girlfriend,” I said, biting down on my lip due to the subject-sphere that we were slowly roaming into.

      “You’re not?” she blinked, caught off guard by my assertion.

      “No,” I shook my head, “I think I’m kinda dating Eric, but my relationship status is somewhat rocky at the moment.”

      “Eric Wilson?” Vera scoffed. I nodded. “He’s a loser.”

      “Ma!” Dylan exclaimed, his eyes growing wide.

      “What? It’s the truth,” she shrugged. “Listen, Lizzie, see my strange son over there? Yeah, that kid loves you. I’m not kidding. He really does.”

      And with one final “Ma! We are so out of here!” coming from Dylan, we left his comfortable little home and mom. We traveled down the pathway towards the elongated driveway where a red truck named “Fuck” that I was relatively familiar with was parked. I walked straight over to the driver’s side, instead of the usual passenger’s.

      “What do you think you’re doing?” Dylan demanded, also standing on the side of the vehicle where the steering wheel was located.

      “I’m want to drive,” I informed him.

      “No,” he instantly shot down, as anticipated.

      “Dylan, give me your keys,” I held out my hand expectantly.

      “Not a chance,” he denied once again.

      “Dylan Collins,” I whined, “you don’t even know where we’re going! Just give me your keys and I swear I won’t crash your truck! Please?”

      “If you get us into an accident I will not hesitate to kill you in your sleep, assuming we don’t die from your driving,” he threatened, fishing the object out his pocket that allowed Fuck to come to life. He handed them over to me like a mother allowing someone to hold her newborn for the very first time would—scared and with his eyes never leaving the metal and plastic object.

      “I’m not that bad of a driver,” I said, realizing that I would make a terrible self-advocate. Like, a really bad one.

      “I’m going to die,” Dylan grumbled, moving over to his rightful side, fondly referred to as “shot gun” for reasons unknown to me.

      I hiked my way up into the truck, and, after turning on the ignition, we were off.

      For the majority of the ride, it was pretty quiet, up until Dylan decided to start jostling with buttons until the radio came blaring onto a station that only played rap. I had a hunch that it was Macklemore Hour or something, because within ten minutes, literally, three of his songs played. I had nothing against the greatness that was Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, but three songs in a ten-minute span of time? It was a little ridiculous. Anyways, it gave me another way to distinguish between Dylan and Eric: Eric preferred bubblegum pop that was mind-numbing and mainstream, while Dylan preferred to unleash his inner gangster (much like myself) and listen to rap music.

      The expedition was a short one, for the time it took to trek to the highway was fairly short, especially with the natural light disappearing, and traffic practically nonexistent. My driving wasn’t exactly what one would call “expert,” due to my lack of a car and the whole aspect of basketball. Yeah, if I ever got a ticket for driving “badly,” I would be sure to blame it on basketball. When I was supposed to be learning how to drive like a “regular” sixteen year old, I was slightly distracted by my insane practice schedule. Honestly, it was still hard to fathom that I actually passed the test. Monica probably bribed someone at the DMV or something…

      Before I got out on my side, I decided to set some ground rules so that no one (meaning Dylan) got sent to the emergency room. “If you choose to try and act all gentlemanly-like and fuck by opening my door, I will punch you. Hard.”

      “Wait, what?” his face crinkled in confusion.

      “Just don’t open my door for me. Please,” I said in more simple terms.

      “Why?”

      “It’s one of my pet peeves—along with the phrase ‘pet peeve,’” I explained.

      “You’re so weird,” he mumbled as we both made our separate and own ways out of the automobile. I left empty-handed, but I noticed that this wasn’t the case with Mr. Dylan Collins.

      “Where did you get those, and why are you bringing them?” I demanded, pointing to the bottles that matched the one from his room. Dylan had beer. Lots and lots of beer.

      “They were in my truck and I honestly just want to get hammered,” he admitted. “You said it was depressing to drink alone in my room, so how does drinking on top of a tunnel with a gorgeous girl sound?”

      “Let’s just go,” I ignored what he had said, making my way over to the concrete mass. Without an ounce of hesitation, I began to scale the side of the cement, my ligaments latching onto the rusting rungs that served as a means to climb the side. I wasn’t entirely sure how Dylan would get up with his stash of brown alcohol, but I was more than confident that he would eventually figure it out.

      When I finally reached the top, a sense of serenity filled me at the sight. Like the past times that I had been to The Bridge, there was no one and nothing. It was bare with the exception of the pebbles, dirt, grass, and railroad tracks of deterioration. There was something comforting about the abandonment that was hard to place. It was as if it was reassuring to see a place where little occurred and changed. I liked it.

      I ambled over to the corroded segment of railway, sitting down on the edge and taking in the beauty that the setting sun cast on the world for a limited interval. It was almost magical. Dylan dropped down next to me, and opened one of his bottles, beginning to drink.

      “I’m prepared to get drunk because I feel like it, you can either join me, enlighten me to as to why you brought me here, or tell me a story,” Dylan invited.

      “All of the above,” I elected as he passed me a full canister of liquid I would probably regret drinking later.

      “Okay, why are we here?”

      “Because you didn’t look like you were in a good place, and this is the only spot I could think to take you to that would be quiet and stuff,” I expressed, sneaking a look at him. He seemed to be enjoying his beer and allowing my words to sink in.

      “Fair enough,” he said. “Now, can I hear a story?”

      “What about?”

      “You always talk about Boston, but what about the three years in between Boston and New York?” he indirectly asked me to tell him about my time in L.A. and Texas, something I could do fully without leaving out any details—not that there were many. I had nothing to hide when it came to the two other locations in which I had spent time living. And that was how I began story time with Dylan Collins and a bottle of beer on top of an uninhibited route for locomotives.

The door screeched as I pushed it open as quietly as I could, not wanting to disturb the stillness that the blackness of night had brought. Attempting to summon my inner ninja was a lot harder than I thought for two reasons: I had had a beer, so wasn’t entirely in the right frame of mind, and an eighteen year old boy was using my body as a means to not completely collapse onto the floor in an intoxicated heap. While I may have been sober enough to drive without ramming the truck into a stop sign, Dylan was far beyond the point where he found his lack of differentiation between people and inanimate objects to be amusing. There wasn’t even a word to describe how drunk he truly was.

      “Lizzie,” Dylan slurred, louder than should have been legal at the time at which we were returning to his house.

      “Dylan, you have to be quiet,” I shushed him as one would a toddler making a scene in a museum or library.

      “Oh, okay!” he said in his normal tone, but then repeated the words so that he was whisper yelling (a contradictory term of which I had never fully understood the existence). “I mean, oh, okay!”  

      Without saying anything more, I merely continued to drag him through his home after lightly closing the door behind me. The only source of light was that of a single bulb that was oddly lit in the kitchen. I hauled Dylan the best I could to the hallway, mentally reminding myself that over the summer I would be inflicting physical agony on myself through getting back into shape. It was pathetic that I found difficulty in supporting a boy who probably weighed only thirty pounds more than me.

      Finally, I somehow managed to move both Dylan and myself to his room that lay ajar, and whisk us in with little noise. I locked the door behind me to ensure that access was denied if one of his parents decided to take a midnight stroll to check up on their beloved son. Dylan sloppily drained from my grasp, spinning around so he could survey his new whereabouts.

      With staggering feet, he began to make his way over to his bed, but not before ripping off the T-shirt he had been wearing and his sweats, leaving only his boxers on and an uncomfortable Liz Turner. Instead of dropping to his mattress like expected, he swiveled back around to face me, a slack smile making it way across his face. He began to walk towards me, and once he reached me, clasped a hand around my wrist, tugging me away with a surprising amount of force for a drunken person.

      “Lizzie, w-will you sl-sleep with me?” Dylan questioned, already towing me back over to his bed. “Not, like, have sex! Like, sl-sleep.” He momentarily dropped my hand in order to press both of his own together and place them on the side of his head to demonstrate what he meant by “sleep.” Then, he plopped down on his bed, and patted the space beside him. “Pl-please, Lizzie? You owe me!”

      “I owe you?” I said skeptically.

      “Yeah! ‘Member when you were drunk and you made me sl-sleep with you? Well, now I want you to sl-sleep with me!” he articulated surprisingly well for his state.

      “No way,” I snorted, instantly rejecting his request.

      “Awww! C’mon, Lizzie! You can sn-sneak out in the m-middle of the night and I won’t even get m-mad!” he promised.

      “It is the middle of the night,” I pointed out bluntly.

      “Just sleep with me!” he whined, reaching out and grasping at my arm, pulling me towards the bed. I sighed, not wanting to argue with a person who had ingested way too much alcohol for his own good. It was impossible to reason, so I just gave up, taking his words to heart as I climbed onto the bed, lying prone beside him. I could just sneak out any time I wanted. Sounded good to me. “Yay! Lizzie’s going to sl-sleep with me!”

      “Dylan, be quiet!”

      “Sorry,” he yawned as two arms hugged my waist.

      “Dylan, please let go of me.”

      “Nope,” he laughed, on the verge of either blacking out or falling into a deep rest. The next morning this kid would probably be facing the worst hangover of his life. I really didn’t want to be there for that.

      I let out another stream of air from my mouth, accepting the position in which we had somehow come to be. “Whatever,” I mumbled.

      “G’night, Lizzie.”

      “Good night, Dylan.”

      “Can I tell you something?” he asked quietly, his breath fanning the back of my ear.

      “Sure.”

      He yawned once more, and then uttered four words that I didn’t have time to grill him about, for he then conveniently was out like a light: “I love you, Lizzie.”