He writes another story. It's about a girl who sees delusions and falls deeper and deeper until she can no longer discern the real from the fake. Miss Watson asks him where he got the idea. Norman shakes his head and says he doesn't know. It's easier that way.
Everything is slipping away. His little brother and his mother and their collective sanity. He can't breathe in the house, so he goes down to the motel and sits in one of the chairs out front. One cigarette becomes two becomes three becomes the whole pack and he still doesn't feel any better. Invisible walls still seem to be closing in and no amount of closing his eyes and wishing can change it.
Norman's at school and Dylan wonders if anybody in that place could keep his little brother's murderous imagination at bay. A teacher or a student, anybody. He sincerely hopes so, even if he doesn't necessarily wish that his brother gets better. If he snaps, they could send him away someplace and then…
He stops himself. He doesn't want that to happen.
He wants to help Norman, that's all. If sending him away could do that, then Dylan's all for it. What could he have to gain from his brother in an institution anyway?
Norma emerges from the motel office wearing that god awful maid's uniform. He can't imagine why she's wearing it; there's no one in the fucking motel.
She shoves her hands in her pockets. "Dylan." God, he hates when she says his name like that. He's not five anymore. "What have I told you about the smoking?"
Dylan shrugs and gives a smirk through the smoke that billows from his last cigarette. With absolutely no hesitation, she snatches it from his mouth and throws it to the ground. He watches the orange ember burn, mesmerized. His mother crushes it beneath her heel and burning orange becomes charred black.
"You need to quit." She says. Dylan knows she's serious, but he laughs anyway.
"No can do. I need it, all right? I'm losing my goddamn mind."
Her gaze takes on a sympathetic quality. "I know, honey, I know, but chain smoking isn't the answer. You'll be knocking on death's door by your twenty third birthday."
"What the hell do you care anyway?"
"What do you mean 'what do I care'?"
He stands up to his full height. From here, she looks insignificant. Damaged and breakable. Power sings in his veins.
"You only give a shit about me when I risk my life for you and Norman. You only spare me a glance when I say I want to help Norman. What about me? Don't I fucking matter?"
She takes a step back. "Of course you do." She says in the calmest voice she can manage.
"Do I, really?"
Norma's voice takes on a tone of conviction. "Yes! You matter. You've always mattered. You're my son, my flesh and blood, nothing in my life matters more."
Dylan wishes he could believe her, but words like these hold no water with her unless she's saying them to Norman. He covers the space between them and ends up in her face.
She's so damn beautiful. He hates it.
Her warm palm presses against his cheek. "You matter." It comes out as a whisper and Dylan knows she means it. It's soft and it's sincere and it gathers inside him and fills him up.
He wants to ask her if she loves him, but fear holds his tongue.
All he knows is that she matters. There's a corpse and a bullet wound that can attest to that. Nothing matters like she does and he hates that, too. Her hand falls from his cheek and lands on his shoulder, where it rubs into the fabric of his leather jacket, calming the tense muscle beneath.
His eyes fall closed of their own accord. "I'm sorry."
Norman arrives at Will's shop in the late afternoon. He walks in wearing a smile like he always does and runs his hands along some of the animals he passes on the way to the back room. A German shepherd, a parakeet, a stray cat, all beautiful in their stillness.
He hopes to find his mentor in the back, but he finds Emma instead, typing away on her laptop with her oxygen tank tucked firmly between her knees.
"Hey, Emma." He says. He isn't feeling particularly chatty today. In fact, he hasn't felt chatty going on a few days now.
Either way, he's been roped in. "Hi, Norman." She sounds cheery as usual. He supposes that when you're certain that you aren't long for this life, being happy becomes easier. Why waste a day when your life is guaranteed to be shorter than those of the people around you. Her own body is her prison, her defective genes doubling as her tolling bells.
"So, did you go to the dance?" He doesn't know why he's asking. He's her only friend and he didn't ask her. It made him feel a little bad, but he'd been too busy waiting to be murdered. It's a good thing his mother turned out to be handy with a pistol.
"No." Emma replies. Her big doe eyes stare right through him. He hates when she does that.
He nods awkwardly in response. What a stupid thing to ask.
"I heard that Miss Watson really loved your short story. What was it about?"
The world seems to pause all around him. Should he really go in the deep reaches of his own mind with Emma? He feared what she would find.
"It was about a man whose insides were on fire. He went through the ordinary world constantly choking on black smoke. He wasn't dying and he wasn't living. He was just…suffering in silence." He gives her a sad little smile.
Emma's expression becomes worried. Great.
"Is that…is that how you feel, Norman?"
He can't lie to her. "Sometimes."
That damn dog statue thing still sits on Norman's bed. It's fucking eerie and Dylan finds himself wanting to chuck it out the nearest window. Why would anyone want the damn thing? His little brother deserved a psychiatrist's visit just for that without the inclusion of the all the other shit. With a shake of his head, he passes Norman's room, his boots thumping on the carpet. He stops in Norma's doorway and sees her at her vanity, combing her hair dressed in nothing but a light blue robe and her bra and panties.
His breath hitches as he leans into the doorframe. The five glasses of whiskey he'd had before he came up here were starting to haze his brain, making everything about her that much harder to resist.
He chuckles and even that throws him off balance.
Norma smiles at him through the vanity mirror. "What?"
Dylan chuckles again and then, he says,
"Don't tell me you didn't notice."
Her eyebrows furrow. "Notice what?"
He moves away from the doorframe, swaying slightly on his feet, nowhere near as drunk as he had wanted to be for this conversation.
"That cop. That cop I shot, the one you were seeing. You didn't notice a slight…resemblance between him and me?" He points to himself and puts on his best 'you can't fool me' smirk.
She recoils, her amused smile fading quick as it came. "Shut up."
"Oh, so you did notice? That's cool. Was it hard to tell the difference when you were in bed with him?"
"Dylan, stop it." She's on her feet now, spinning on her heel to fix him with her steely eyed gaze. All he can focus is the bare expanse of her stomach and the waistband of her panties.
He holds up his hands in mock surrender. "It was just a question, Norma. Relax. I didn't mean anything by it."
The sound of the front door opening and closing climbs up the stairs and reaches them followed by Norman calling for Norma.
"In here, honey!" She calls back, eyes still on Dylan. The tension is a solid wall that covers what seems like the miles between them. Dylan can't stand it even in his drunken, half-asleep state.
Norman's footsteps inch closer and for Dylan, they sound like bombs dropping. His head has already begun to pound. Then, Norman's filling in the rest of the doorframe beside his big brother. He seems to notice his mother's state of undress first and something in his eyes shifts.
Dylan shoots a look at Norma, who can only keep her weary gaze on Norman.
"Hi, honey. How was Emma's?"
"Fine." He says. He glances between them with a somewhat curious expression. "Is everything all right?"
Dylan laughs in that unsteady wasted way he did before. "Everything's fine, Norman…everything's fine."
That night, he dreams of something different. He sees them huddled at the kitchen table, sharing whispers and secretive smiles. Their words are muffled and stringing together, but Norman doesn't really care what they're saying. It's the closeness that bothers him. Their hands joined, their knees touching. The sight sets his blood on fire.
But, the dream gets worse from there. He ends up in his mother's bedroom doorway again, except that this time, Dylan and Norma are on each other's mouths, kissing with a passionate fury that makes Norman clench his fists. Dylan's hands sneak under her open robe, his arms encircling her waist and pulling her closer. Their mother lets out a desperate little whimper and the robe falls to the floor, pooling light blue at her feet. Norman blacks out and snaps awake in the darkness of his room, panting and sweating, overwhelmed with the images.
They don't want you anymore. It's a dark voice that whispers in his ear and sends chills straight down his spine.