Silver Heart (13 page)

“I’m not sixteen anymore,” I told my brother. “I can be with whoever I want.”

“Not if you’re with someone else,” Sawyer said curtly.

Shit.
There were three things in life Sawyer hated more than anything: his father, alcohol, and cheating. Both of the latter things were linked to the former. And now I looked like the world’s biggest cheater.

My head was spinning; the entire world was spiraling out of control. “Preston and I aren’t together in that way,” I tried to explain.

Goddammit, why wasn’t the ground staying still?

“Preston sure has a different idea about that because from what I’ve heard, he just asked you to marry him,” Adam said. “A man doesn’t usually perform such a grand gesture unless he’s in love.”

The irony of his words was unfathomable. Preston’s proposal had nothing to do with love, but the way Sawyer was gaping at me, my brother may have as well tarred and feathered me and made me hold a big sign that screamed “Liar!”

“You’re engaged?” Sawyer’s eyes drilled into mine. The disbelief reflected in them made me want to cry.

What have I done?

Sawyer’s father had constantly cheated on his mother while in his drunken stupors, and I was sure that in this very moment, I reminded him of the one person he hated the most in the world. Though I didn’t technically have a relationship with Preston, there was no way I could make Sawyer understand that. Not with Adam looming over us, not before I could share the entire story from the very beginning, not when my head pounded so much.

Shame. Guilt. Disappointment.

A slew of negative emotions washed over me, rolling into one heavy ball and settling in the pit of my stomach. I blinked back the tears clawing their way behind my lids and swallowed the acidic taste at the back of my throat.

My brother only added fuel to the fire by continuing his assault on Sawyer, “Dylan is going to marry a well-educated, hardworking CEO of
Stonewall Enterprises
. And you’re going to let her go because you know it’s the right thing to do. For Dylan. I mean, do you even have any guarantee in your career, Sawyer? What if you broke your neck tomorrow? Ever thought about that? Who’d take care of her?”

“Fuck off, Adam,” I growled as my cheeks flushed. “I’m not a child. I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”

Adam ignored me and continued to drill his gaze into Sawyer. “And all that travel…would you even be around? The girls? The parties? Don’t think I don’t know what goes on in your sport.” For a split second, I could swear there was a twinge of jealousy in my brother’s voice.

“Stop it, Adam!” I yelled. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Sure,” my brother said, raising his hands. He didn’t leave, though. Instead, he moved closer toward Sawyer, lowered his voice, and said, “Just tell me this…do you think you can do better than someone with a Harvard education and a stable career? Can you promise to be everything my sister needs and deserves?”

“I thought growing up was supposed to make you less of a prick,” Sawyer said to Adam. “I guess your parents really did a number on you, huh?”

Perhaps it was the fault of our upbringing, but my brother suddenly reminded me of a chauvinistic asshole. I half expected him to ask Sawyer how many sheep he could pony up as a trade for me. The thought may have been a funny one if my heart hadn’t felt like it was being clasped by a tight vice.

“How about what I want, Adam?” I shouted. I couldn’t recall a time when Adam and I had ever raised our voices to each other, but I was fuming. My hands fisted, desperately wanting to unleash my anger. “You’re just like Mom and Dad. Ever thought that maybe I’d like to have input in my own life? My own relationships?”

“He’s right about one thing, Dylan,” Sawyer said. My first name sounded so cold and foreign coming from him. “It’s obvious that nothing has changed. We’re still not right for each other and we’ll never be.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that you’re off to marry some rich asshole your parents probably picked out.” The winter air had nothing on the frostiness of his tone. “Clearly this was just a fling.”

With those words, he turned and stalked off into the darkness, leaving me to shatter into a million little pieces on the cold, snowy ground.

CHAPTER NINE

After Sawyer’s departure, I headed straight home. I couldn’t be around Adam and I needed to figure out how I was going to tell Preston that I had no intention of ever marrying him. Unable to sleep, I tossed and turned from dusk to dawn. Maddie had boasted about the high thread count of our Egyptian cotton sheets, but I felt like I was lying on jagged rocks.

The inside of my skull was partaking in a game of lobotomy with a concrete drill, and my stomach threatened to perform a show-and-tell of its contents—mostly just alcohol since I’d elected to skip dinner.

Every time I closed my eyes, the prior evening’s events played out behind my closed lids. Preston’s unexpected proposal; Sawyer’s kiss—or, rather,
non-kiss
; Adam’s sudden interest in my love life. Just before midnight, Maddie crawled into my bed, but upon realizing that my aerobics were keeping her up, I ended up convincing her to move to her own room for some shuteye.

Finally, after what felt like the longest night of my life, the sun’s rays crawled into the room, gliding over the plush white carpet and showering the bed in bright light. I forced myself to go through the motions of my usual morning routine of showering, brushing my teeth, and dressing, but my movements were slow and my mind functioned on a lethargic delay.

To put it plainly, I felt like an idiot. What was even worse, the mess I was currently in had been building up over the years. Every time I decided not to stand up to my parents or chose to put off an argument about my wishes and desires, I breathed a little more life into my guaranteed demise. If it hadn’t been for my unexpected reunion with Sawyer, I would’ve carried on the charade and kept living a lie for who knows how long. He opened my eyes to what I was missing out on and made me think that I could be different.

But now he thought I was a cheater. And rightfully so. I was an incredibly huge cheater. Perhaps not in a relationship sense, but I have been cheating myself out of a life that I deserved. A scary life that wasn’t perfectly controlled and didn’t have any guarantees. A life I wanted. I had to make amends and stand up for myself. I had to start living as a New Dylan Silver.

My first order of business was to speak to Preston and end our convenient arrangement once and for all. Screw what my parents thought. Unless I stopped playing childish, cowardly games, I’d never be a grown-up in their eyes and they’d never allow me to move forward with my life.

Outfitted in black tights, a long red tunic, and Maddie’s fluffy bunny slippers, I made my way to the guest room that Preston occupied. Halfway down the hall, Maddie jumped out of her room, startling me half to death.

“I need to talk to you!” she exclaimed breathlessly.

“How long have you been standing behind your door, waiting to scare the shit out of me?” I placed my hand on my chest and tried to soothe my wild heartbeat.

“No time for a chat. Come here.” She grabbed my arm and pulled me into her room. “Do you know what a dick pic is?” she asked before I was even able to settle down on the corner of her bed.

“Uhh…I can infer.” I sleepily rubbed the corner of my eye.

“A picture of a guy’s package,” she said.

“Yeah, so?” Perplexed, I stared blankly at her, trying to understand the meaning behind her urgent ambush. “Is this little piece of trivia a part of some million dollar sex game show at seven o’clock in the morning?”

“If that game show is about your life, then yes,” Maddie said. “Last night when I saw the way Preston was acting toward you, I had this inkling that he may have someone else in his life.”

“He probably does,” I told her. “We never talk about it, but it makes sense. Especially with his whole ‘you’re welcome to sleep with other people’ deal.”

“Call it a best friend instinct or whatever, but I was sure there had to be a really good reason he wasn’t into you.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m not into him either,” I said, shrugging. “And I honestly can’t even cite a good reason as to why I don’t like him.”

 “But Preston can. He has a very good reason for not liking you.”

“What did you do?” I groaned, rubbing my hands over my face. “Interrogated him until he revealed his lover’s name?”

“More like snooped through his phone.” She grinned. “Guess what I found?”

“A dick pic?” I deduced.

“More like a whole
army
of dick pics.”

“So he’s sexting with some girl?”

Maddie giggled. “No. The pictures I found were all from incoming texts. And judging by Preston’s super pale skin, they belong to someone else. A rather well-endowed, dark-skinned someone.”

My jaw unhinged. “A
guy
someone?”

“I know it’s early, but I did say it was a
dick
pic. Obviously a guy someone.”

It all suddenly started to click into place. The lack of chemistry between us, the fact that he never even tried to touch me when we were alone, his need for a fake relationship. His parents, especially his mother, wouldn’t understand and accept her son partaking in what she deemed to be “an unconventional lifestyle.” I’d heard her voice her conservative opinions many times—and very loudly—to know that she would never accept her son being attracted to the same sex. She would flip if he revealed that he was in love with a poor girl; I couldn’t even imagine how she’d react if he told her he had feelings for a man.

I wasn’t Preston’s type. I was wrong for him in every way imaginable.

I couldn’t help but feel relieved. He was wrong for me too, albeit for different reasons.

Stunned, but also slightly thankful, I left Maddie and continued to Preston’s room. I stopped in front of his door, took a deep breath, and knocked. Upon hearing his invite from the other side, I entered, hoping that Maddie would obey her promise to stay in her room and not eavesdrop.

Preston was sitting on his bed; a packed carry-on suitcase lying on the floor next to feet.

“Hey,” I said softly.

“Good morning.”

I was still thinking about how to begin when he said, “Maddie told you, didn’t she?”

“About your little photography collection?”

He nodded and looked up at me expectantly.

“Yes,” I replied. “She did.”

He sighed. “Dylan, I never meant to hurt you. I’m really sorry.”

“You didn’t hurt me,” I told him honestly. “But I think we would’ve both hurt each other if we’d allowed ourselves to go any further with this. Marriage, Preston?
Really?
”

“I’m so sorry.”

“The blame is on both of us,” I admitted. “I may have been your beard, but you were mine too.” Maybe not in the same sense, but I was using him to shield a large part of myself from my family and friends. For my own selfish reasons, I’d let the charade go on for much longer than I should have.

“What a mess,” he groaned.

“It’s not a mess yet, so let’s not allow it to become one. We could’ve gotten married and built ourselves a house of cards, but this is a chance for both of us to have a fresh, honest start,” I said.

His eyes met mine. “What are you suggesting?”

“I’m not going to tell you what to do and how to live, but I’m personally tired of lying and going through the motions of experiencing a half-fulfilled life. So I’m officially fake breaking up with my fake boyfriend,” I told him. “I need learn to take a chance on something that may not have a guaranteed outcome.”

He nodded. “I know, I know. So do I. My first step will be to tell my parents that you and I are no longer together. My second will be to tell them about Marcus.”

“Oh, so the dick has a name,” I joked. I couldn’t help but smile at the way Preston’s face lit up the moment he mentioned him.

Preston turned beet red as his gaze fell to his hands. “We’ve been seeing each other for the past year,” he said. “He’s a painter. Really, really good. I think you’d like him.”

“An artist? I already like him!” Hearing my phony ex-boyfriend talk about his real boyfriend made me realize that I probably wouldn’t have been as clueless about Marcus if Preston and I had spent more time together.

He looked up and met my gaze. “Dylan, I think he’s the one.” The expression in his eyes made my heart squeeze in my chest. “I think I’m in love.”

“Apparently, so is Maddie,” I said, trying to keep my thoughts from wandering to Sawyer. “She couldn’t stop gushing about some piercing she was rather intrigued by.”

Preston smirked. “He has this—”

“Oh, no!” I clasped my hands over my ears. “I know we fake dated for two years, but that doesn’t entitle you to sharing any explicit details regarding your boyfriend’s junk.” Then I sobered and added, “But if you ever want to talk—really, truly talk—please know that I’ll be here for you. Always.” I sank down on the bed next to him and took his hand. “If you need a friend, I’ll be here. I promise.” Despite everything we’ve put each other though, I meant those words from the bottom of my heart. I couldn’t even imagine the hardship of Preston’s internal struggle.