pairings: cam/dylan with a trace of derrick/dylan
prompts: "girls have their head inside a dream," ivory roses, knee-high knit socks, watching catching fire for the eighth time
notes: Not sure how I feel about how this turned out, but happy Valentine's day, Lily!
-dm-
The final straw was when I blacked out at Christmas Eve Mass.
I knew Derrick was going to be there. He had mentioned it at the obligatory Harrington-Marvil Holiday Lunch earlier that day. I had done a good job of keeping myself under control there—no crying, no uncontrollable shaking, nothing to indicate the extent to which my heart was still broken.
Then, at the end of lunch, Samantha quietly asked him, "Is Olivia coming to church tonight?" He nodded yes, and something shut off in my brain.
In lieu of Christmas dinner, Mom dragged me and my sisters to a small get-together at Nadia Rivera's house. The caterers assumed I was 21 and kept refilling my glass with champagne. Having been trained by fraternity boys to never turn down free alcohol, I kept drinking.
Eight glasses in, I forgot the rest of the night. I woke up on the floor of my bedroom on Christmas morning, my face washed and my dress from the night before carefully hung up.
…
Mom lets me live in ignorant bliss for two days. She feeds me a constant stream of chicken tenders and Gatorade, trying to get my strength back up from my night of binge drinking. She keeps up appearances as relatives waltz in and out of the house with presents—"Dylan has a touch of the flu," she constantly says.
On the morning of December 27th, she tells me what happened.
"You blacked out at Nadia's house," she explains. "You didn't stumble or anything when we walked into church, thankfully. You met Derrick's new girlfriend, and when she walked away, you loudly told me and your sister how ugly you thought she was. You hiccupped through the entire sermon. You snapchatted all of your friends from school during the church announcements. You were steady on your feet, but the Harringtons were generally alarmed by your behavior."
"Does Derrick know?" I whisper in horror.
"He was the chalice bearer, so he didn't hear anything," Mom says. "I don't know if the Harringtons know what you said about Olivia, or if they realized how drunk you were, but I am extremely aggravated with you right now."
I am so embarrassed that I can barely move when she tells me what is to happen next.
"You're going to go live with your Aunt Marsha for the next month," she says. "No alcohol, no clubbing, no cigarettes, no weed, no Derrick."
-cf-
A girl with auburn hair and a sad smile moves in to Kristen's house just before New Year's.
"What's up with her?" I ask.
Kristen rolls her eyes. "My cousin. Some asshole broke her heart, so she tried to break her liver. She's taking her winter term off to sober up before heading back to university."
I grimace in response. These girls have their head inside a dream about the right guy, The One, and whenever one of us even remotely fits the bill, they just can't let go.
"Do you two get along?" I ask.
She shrugs. "She's two years older than me. She's always been absorbed in her friends and her mother's fame. She doesn't know how to talk about college without talking about fraternities." Kristen pauses to pick at her cuticle. "You two would probably get along better than me and her."
"My fraternity isn't exactly throwing the best ragers on campus," I say.
"At least it's a starting point," Kristen replies.
…
I run into her for the first time a couple of days later. I am coming back from a party; she is puking into her aunt's rose bushes. I stop and stare for a long time. I have never seen anyone throw up with such grace before—she holds back her own hair and delicately spits out the contents of her stomach. I realize that she has probably done this many times before.
Finally, she looks up and stares at me with guilty eyes.
"I'm sorry," she says to me with a slight hiccup. "My aunt and Kristen went to a party and left me here alone. I snuck a bottle of moscato here with me so that I could still drink on New Year's. But I've had this like, persistent cold, and I forgot that you can't drink on antibiotics, so…" She helplessly gestures at Mrs. Gregory's rose bushes. Covered in a slimy mess, they shine ivory in the moonlight.
"How much longer until they get back?" I ask.
She checks her phone. "An hour."
"I'll find the hose. You go inside and set out two eggs and three cups of water."
"What's your name again?" she asks.
"I'm Cam," I say.
"I'm Dylan."
-dm-
Cam moves quickly through my aunt's kitchen, scrambling eggs and washing out wine glasses. With thirty minutes left until my aunt is supposed to come home, he stops and watches me eat.
"You've only drank one glass of water," he says as I scoop up the last bite of my eggs. "You need to keep going if you don't want to be hungover in the morning."
I rest my face in my hands. "Why are you being so nice to me?" I ask.
"Because you need someone to be nice to you," he replies without hesitation.
I stare at him for a while, and my heart, as battered and bruised as it is, leaps in a way that I haven't felt for a long, long time.
-cf-
Dylan keeps her distance for a few days. I occasionally catch glimpses of her in the mornings, making Kristen's lunch and driving her to school.
"It's really weird," Kristen says at our usual Saturday brunch. "Mom didn't even ask her to do all of this for me. She's even been bringing me fresh sushi for lunch. And she does all of my pre-calc homework without me asking her to."
"She's probably just bored," I say. "She's going to be here until at least February, she may as well establish a routine."
"You can tell that she's in a ton of pain though, you know?" Kristen continues. "Like the other day I talked about how I have to read Gatsby for class, and her face just dropped. She turns off Summertime Sadness every time it comes on the radio. So many things remind her of that asshole and Mom says that Dylan feels like she can't escape it."
"Has your mom made any progress with her?" I ask.
"Dylan told her that she was going to stay sober this semester," Kristen says. "But I don't even think that that's really the problem."
…
I ambush her one morning as she comes back from dropping Kristen off at school.
"Kristen is a senior, I'm pretty sure she can drive herself to school," I call out. Dylan rolls her eyes at me.
"Kristen hates driving," Dylan explains.
"I know," I reply. "I normally drive her everywhere."
"What's up with you two anyway?" Dylan asks.
"Kristen and I had a torrid love affair when I was in the fifth grade and she was in the fourth," I say. "It's amazing that we were able to bounce back from it."
Dylan laughs a little and gestures for me to follow her into the house.
"This is normally the time of day when I watch Catching Fire on my laptop and eat chips," she says. "I don't even like the movie that much, but it kind of helps me forget why I'm here, you know? I've seen it like eight times and it still hasn't gotten old."
"Are you really going to stop drinking?" I ask. If she's surprised that I know this, she doesn't mention it.
"Kind of," she says. "The problem is him. He came into my life at a really weird time, and most of our relationship was through texting and snapchat because we went to different universities. I started drinking so that I would seem cool to him and be able to keep up with him. When we stopped talking, I kept drinking in hopes that he would hear about one of my crazy nights from a friend and think, 'Wow, she's so much more fun than whatever basic bitch I'm with now.'"
"Another hookup?" I ask.
"Another girlfriend," she says. "He went from one girlfriend to the next without leaving time for me."
"Wait, you mean he flirted with you and shit while he was dating someone else?"
"It was complicated," she explains. "He wanted to break up with his girlfriend. I helped him do it."
"Dylan, you realize he was just using you as a distraction, right?" I say. "I don't blame him for texting you while he was dating someone else—I've done it too—but if he didn't immediately start dating you after he broke up with the other girl, then he never really wanted you in the first place."
Dylan stares at me for a long time.
"I would like for you to leave, please," she says in a quiet voice.
The look on her face tells me that she is reliving the breakup all over again. I leave without saying another word.
…
I am only back at university for a week and a half before Kristen calls me.
"Whatever you told her, like, broke her," Kristen says. "She hasn't left her room since the day you came over."
"I figured as much," I sigh. "She needed to hear it."
"I know," Kristen says.
"So why are you calling?"
"Because today is the first day she's stopped crying."
…
The following weekend, I drive home on a whim.
Within an hour of pulling into my driveway, she knocks on my front door. She looks like a mess—her knee-high socks are falling down, and the bags under her eyes seem to consume half her face.
"I deleted his number from my phone," she says. "I took him off of my Snapchat contacts. I don't follow him on Instagram or Twitter any more. We're no longer Facebook friends. And the texts are gone. All gone. He is gone from my life, Cam."
"Why are you telling me?" I ask.
"Because you were the one who helped me do it," she says.
She leans in to kiss me.
-dm-
He kisses me back.
Maybe this kiss will be forgotten among a string of dance floor make-outs. Maybe in six months, the sight of Cam's name in my phone will make me want to rip my heart out. Maybe he is The One, and I can stop drinking and grinding with frat boys for good.
A thousand maybes dance across the dream inside my head. But this moment is real, and I'm going to enjoy it while I can.