The inside of Dixon's home was somehow the opposite of what Beth had expected. On the one or two occasions that her daydreams had meandered towards imagining Dixon relaxing at home, she had seen a messy bachelor pad. But the reality, she found, was much cleaner and oddly empty.
From what Beth could tell it was all one-floor, and seemed to be divided into a handful of rooms. The room that Dixon brought her into appeared to be a mash up of the living-room, dining-room, and kitchen.
A small fridge was pushed into the corner, its white face empty of magnets or pictures. A small sink, a few cabinets, and a chipped wooden table completed the scene. A small black-and-white television perched on the table, where a little weatherman predicted how morbidly hot it was going to be this afternoon.
Dixon's brother appeared to have disappeared into the eves of the house. Based on their little interaction, Beth wouldn't put it past him to be lurking somewhere and listening. She stood uncertainly by the small table, watching Dixon scoop some ice from the freezer and drop it into a plastic sandwich bag.
"Here you go," he mumbled, holding the bag out to her. Tentatively she took the ice from his fingers, careful not to touch him. The ice was blisteringly cold even through the bag. She wanted to flinch when the ice touched her wrist but under the weight of Dixon's gaze, she forced herself not to.
With the ice having been administered, Dixon suddenly seemed to remember their situation. A heavy silence spanned out between them, broken only by the asinine jingle of a commercial from the TV behind them.
Scout started scratching desperately on the screen door in an attempt to garner pity. Dixon practically leapt at the diversion, seeming as grateful as Beth for something to break the awkwardness between them.
"I told you not to scratch at that door, I've already had to fix the screen twice because of you!" Dixon snapped at Scout as the dog happily bounded into the room. Though Dixon's voice was coarse, it was apparent that there was an extreme amount of fondness towards the dog. Scout didn't seem fooled either, licking cheerfully at Dixon's hands.
"What kind of dog is he?" Beth asked, groping for any kind of dialogue between her and Dixon. It was a shot in the dark but striking up a conversation about Scout was a start. And a start was infinitely better than standing in silence.
"Not sure," Dixon admitted, bending down to fulfill Scout's desire to have his stomach scratched. "He just showed up one morning and he's stuck around ever since. I like to think he's part wolf."
Beth glanced down at Dixon, surprised to catch the smallest of smiles on his face. She cautiously allowed her guard to drop a little bit, relieved to find that joking around was okay right now. "I'd say that's wishful thinking," she replied.
Dixon straightened up to his full height, dusting off the dog hair on his pant's leg. "So what did you want to talk about?"
As if on cue the floorboards in the other room creaked, giving away the other Dixon's location. She folded her arms and silently nodded towards the general direction the sound had come from. Without a word Dixon guided her through the stunted hallway and into the very last room, which was marked by a bright red door.
Beth reached for the handle but out of the corner of her eye she saw Dixon jerk towards the door, propping it open for her. Surprised by his unexpected politeness, Beth awkwardly thanked him and stepped into what she could only assume was Dixon's room.
Last night he'd been in her room, and this morning she was in his. These jarring sequences just seemed to keep happening. If Beth was being honest with herself, dream-like scenes had been popping up in reality ever since Dixon had walked into her life.
Dixon paused to let Scout join them before shutting the door with a quiet click. His room was tiny and smelled vaguely of Dixon. In lieu of a proper bed, there was a ratty mattress on the floor covered in a tangle of blankets.
There was a lone folding table sitting by the window covered with student papers. Books were strewn everywhere, spilling out of the miniature closet and stacked like little skyscrapers along the wall, creating a paper-and-ink city.
"Like my set-up?" Dixon asked pointedly, startling Beth out of her thoughts. She turned around, realizing that she'd just been staring silently around at his room. The obvious lack of belongings was a juxtaposition to Beth's farm, which was filled with furniture and other frivolous belongings.
Memories of her room were surely fresh in Dixon's mind, everything from her expensive lace blankets to the delicate breakable creatures that sat on her shelves. There was a cagey look to Dixon's eyes that hadn't been there before; he thought that Beth was judging the way he lived.
"I like it," she said, somewhat sheepishly. "You could use some bookshelves though," she added in a vain attempt to lighten the mood.
Her amiable tone seemed to bring down the bristles on Dixon's back. He looked around at the sea of books as though seeing them for the first time. "You've got a point," he admitted.
Beth took a deep breath. Even though Dixon was the real adult in this situation, it was becoming abundantly clear that he wasn't going to initiate a discussion between them. His unease could have been cut with a knife, which left Beth to her own devices.
In order to find the right words, she'd have to call upon some kind of inner strength that Beth wasn't even sure she had.
"Daryl," she heard herself saying, his name foreign in her mouth. His head snapped towards her, which was why she'd forced herself to use his first name. She hadn't called him Daryl since the night they had kissed.
"I thought that I could handle seeing you every day, but it hasn't been easy. I would have changed classes but you're the only senior AP Lit teacher this year, and I- well I need your class for college credit." Beth paused, trying to ignore the strong feeling that she was on a huge stage spitting out words to an empty amphitheater.
"It just eats me up inside, and the problem is that I can't talk to anyone about it. Nobody even knows about what happened. And the only person I can go to about it is- well, it's you."
Dixon wasn't looking at Beth while she was talking, which wasn't entirely unexpected. In a way his lack of eye contact made it easier to just say what Beth had been bottling up for too long.
It was a little surreal venting her feelings to Dixon, the physical embodiment of what she'd been struggling with since August. Not only that, but the words came so easily from her throat. With other people, Beth almost felt as though her tongue was swollen and her voice box was compromised. But with Dixon, it had always been the opposite. The ice cubes in her throat melted and gave way to the words that danced through her mind.
Talking to him now was as easy as it had been when they met in July, as though they were simply picking up where they left off.
Dixon caught her eye. "It hasn't been easy for me either, Beth."
Those few little words seemed to encapsulate a great deal of heartache. It wasn't even the loss of a physical relationship that they'd been struggling with the most; it had been the loss of a true connection.
In a haze where nobody that Beth knew seemed to truly be radiating with life, Dixon had shined so brightly. For a few weeks, he had been a kind of escape for her. It wasn't until now that Beth had even considered that she'd served the same purpose for him.
"So what do we do to fix it?" Beth asked, her voice shaking the slightest bit.
Dixon's blue eyes were guarded, hiding the brief betrayal of sadness she'd caught only moments before. Yet again Beth was struck by how different he was right now from the funny, put-together teacher he was at school. She wondered if last night had taken more of a toll on him than he'd like to admit.
"It's not fixable, Beth. We just have to forget about it and keep living our lives."
"Even if I wanted to forget about it, I don't think I could," Beth admitted.
"Yeah, well…" Dixon's voice trailed off, gazing distantly at something Beth couldn't comprehend.
For the first time in Beth's life she didn't know what to do. The situation between them was serious, with several stipulations hanging in the air; their relationship posed a threat to not only his job, but to Beth's college career as well as both of their reputations.
It was a small town and word of their kiss- as chaste as it had been- would surely snowball into one hell of a controversy if the wrong person caught wind of it.
Beth could feel herself beginning to crumple like the fine fabric of a cake. She'd been hoping to find the last puzzle piece to this problem by coming to talk to Dixon. Now, if she took a step back to look at this mess, she found that the puzzle had been ripped apart and pieces were strewn everywhere.
"I made a mistake in coming here, didn't I?" she said matter of factly.
Dixon didn't seem to have a response that, so instead he drew closer to Beth and plucked the bag of ice from her hand. It had melted into a watery slush that left moisture behind on her wrist.
Her skin there was numb, but on some level Beth was still able to register the sensation of Dixon's fingers running delicately across her wrist. He only had eyes for her bruises, which weren't as dark as Beth had thought they'd be. She could easily hide them under a handful of bracelets.
Dixon's hands were tan and calloused from the kind of sun and hard work that Beth had never known. Her hand was remarkably small and dainty captured within his, like a little songbird engulfed by the darkness of a crow.
The whole room seemed to shake when someone banged on the red door. Scout's ears pricked up fearfully. "Are you finished boning yet? We got places to be, baby brother."
Dixon's brother's words had the physical impact of a gunshot. Dixon dropped her hand, catapulting himself away from her. He kicked open the bedroom door, giving way to his brother's Cheshire cat smile. "What do you want, Merle?"
Misreading Dixon's shortness as being flustered, Merle only showed more teeth. "My apologies, I'll let you two get back to your sweet lovemaking." Merle seemed to enjoy every sickeningly sweet word that poured from his lips.
Beth, who still stood in the middle of Dixon's room, could feel her cheeks flushing a vehement shade of red. She wouldn't have been surprised if small tongues of fire began sparking from her cheeks.
Filled with resentment towards Merle and abashed humiliation at the hands of the situation, she said in a shaking voice, "I'd better go. Thanks for the ice pack."
"Beth!" came Dixon's voice, but other than that he didn't try to stop her, which only furthered the sickened feeling churning in Beth's stomach. As she fled towards her car, her ears rang with Scout's barking and a very different kind of howling, the howling of raucous laughter.
"Don't worry, he'll fuck you at school, sweetheart!" was the last thing she heard before the door slammed after her and she left the Dixon brothers behind for good.
A/N: So this is a real shot in the dark but a year later I've come back to this story. Hopefully there are some people out there who still remember it. A huge thank you to everyone who encouraged me to come back and all the people who kindly messaged me about the story!