Sleeping in Eden (29 page)

“Bennett isn't that smart.”

Dylan laughed, but it was a dry, humorless sound. “We'd never work. Not seriously anyway. We could . . .” he shrugged. “Do this. But I didn't think that this was what you wanted.”

Meg wasn't entirely sure what
this
was, but she was absolutely certain that Dylan was trying to let her down easy. That he didn't feel for her the same way that she felt for him.
Something inside her fragmented, broke into a million tiny pieces and shivered the detritus of her shattered wishes all the way down to her toes. But she couldn't stand the thought of crying in front of him. Instead of breaking down, she got angry.

“So what exactly is this, Dylan?” Meg half shouted, thrusting her index finger back and forth in the space between them. “What are we? Have you been using me all this time?”

“Using you?” Now Dylan was mad, too. “How have I used you? How have I ever used you? I have done everything in my power to respect you—even when being honorable was the last thing on my mind.”

“How noble,” Meg muttered.

“We're friends, plain and simple. Always have been. That's all we could ever be—and you know it.”

Meg crossed her arms over her chest and glared out the slushy windshield. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“How many times have you come to my house?” Dylan asked, changing tactics so quickly Meg's head spun.

“What?”

“Just answer the question.”

Meg didn't have to think about it, but the answer was so surprising it took her a moment to spit it out. “Never,” she whispered, realizing for the very first time how strange that sounded. Why had she never been to his house? She knew where it was, of course, and she had stood on the doorstep many times, but she had never seen beyond the shag carpet of the wood-paneled entryway.

“Never,” Dylan repeated, as if that answered everything. He put both hands on the steering wheel, and out of the corner of her eye, Meg could see his knuckles slowly turn white. “Didn't you ever stop to wonder why I never invited you in? Why I never really talked about my own life?”

“Dylan, I—”

“My dad was a meth head,” he interrupted. “Do you even know what that means?”

“Of course,” Meg managed to squeak out.

“I told you my parents were divorced, but I didn't tell you why. Whenever you asked me about my family or my past or about living in Arizona, I told you Phoenix fairy tales and changed the subject.”

“That's not my fault.” Meg was reeling, but she managed to feel a flicker of exasperation, too. She had never asked him to shield her from the nasty bits of his past, his life. If she had known, would it have changed anything? “You could have told me the truth.”

“The truth? How do you think an ugly story like that would go over in sweet little Perfect Town, USA? There's a church on every corner and standards so high you all practically kill yourselves trying to reach them. Do you think your parents would let you hang out with me if they knew that my dad died of an overdose five years ago, and that they had to fish his body out of a gutter?”

Meg felt all the air in her chest leave in a rush. She was left panting on the front seat of the truck, wondering how she could love him and hardly know him at the same time.

“My life is nothing like yours,” Dylan said. “And my dad is just the tip of the iceberg. We came up here to try and get away from it all, but Sutton isn't home. We don't belong here. I don't belong here.”

Meg tried to reconcile the Dylan she knew with the bleak narrative he was painting. She could feel the angst rolling off him like waves of summer heat, shimmering and indistinct with the pain of all the secrets he still held. “But you're not your father. You're nothing like that,” she said.

“No. But that doesn't change anything, does it?” He turned and caught her chin loosely in his hand, rubbed her jaw with his thumb. “Do you think your parents would let you date me if they knew that my mom still drinks to forget? That my brother got kicked out of school in Arizona because they found weed in his locker?” He searched her eyes, leaned in a little closer. “The only reason I didn't get kicked out, too, is because they didn't find mine.”

“Dylan . . .”

He shook his head as if he could read her mind. “That's not me. At least, not anymore. But, still.” His gaze was earnest, almost pleading. “I did the best I could, but I more or less raised myself. Why do you think I always liked hanging out at your house so much?”

Meg turned her face into his hand and closed her eyes. She wanted to kiss his palm, to press a gift inside it so that he would know just how much he was worth. How much she loved him for who he was. But she didn't dare.

“I'm not going to college,” Dylan said, dropping his hand. “I have no idea what I want to do with my life. No clue where I'll go after graduation. Seriously, Meg. What can I offer you?”

“Does it have to be all or nothing?”

Dylan gave her a wry look. “You think we could have a few casual dates? Hang around a bit and then call it quits?”

“My parents would understand,” Meg started, but Dylan cut her off.

“It would never work,” he said again. “I don't fit in your world, and you don't fit in mine.”

“That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.”

“But it's true. You belong with someone like Jess. Not Jess, mind you. He's a moron. But you'll find yourself some handsome scholarship recipient, graduate college summa cum laude, rise to the top of your field, have a few adorable babies, and live happily ever after.”

“And you'll . . . ?”

Dylan arched one eyebrow, but his eyes were heavy. Sad. “I told you. I have absolutely no idea. And I can't take you with me. You'd wake up one day in some cheap trailer with a job as a gas station attendant and a hangover, and hate me for ruining your life.”

They were silent for a few long minutes, and in that small span of time, Meg realized that at least in some ways, Dylan was right. She had lived a sheltered life, and though she hated to admit it, there was a set of unwritten rules that she was expected
to follow. Her parents did have plans for her, and as much as they liked Dylan, she knew that they considered him a bit of an outsider. Broken family, a bit rough around the edges. A bit too good-looking. A bit too dangerous. Meg's life was supposed to be simple and clean. Dylan's baggage wasn't something they would want her to shoulder. And they didn't know the half of it.

But even as Meg's heart broke, she became aware of the fact that she also had plans for herself. She didn't know what her future held, but it sparkled bright and fresh and just out of sight, the merest whisper of all that was to come. A promise. She was surprised that Dylan could see it. And stunned that he couldn't imagine it for himself.

“Hey,” Dylan said before she could muster the courage to speak. “It's okay. You're still my girl. You're just my sometimes girl. Sometimes I have you, sometimes I don't. It's enough.” He didn't say “for now,” but the limitation was implied. “You know, Meg, I'm really sorry. I never meant for this to happen.”

“You regret kissing me?”

His bittersweet half smile slipped a little, and it was so perfectly lopsided, Meg had to repress the urge to kiss the downturned corner until it righted itself. But the mood in the truck had changed, and though every inch of her body still prickled with the desire to slide next to him and bury herself in all his angles and lines, she made herself sit very, very still.

“Some people just don't fit,” Dylan told her. “Whether we like it or not, I don't think we were meant to be.”

After a long moment, Meg nodded, sealing an agreement that tore her heart to make. She didn't know exactly what Dylan expected from her, from them, but she was willing to suspend all her doubts if it meant that maybe, sometimes, at least more than this one time, they could share the furtive refuge of a moment like this. “Okay,” she whispered, because it seemed the only thing to say.

“Okay.”

They breathed in harmony for a long minute, then Dylan stuck out his hand in an imitation of the hapless greeting he
had extended when he pulled her down behind the raspberries. It recast everything. Made light dark. “Friends?” he asked.

“Friends,” she agreed, but the word was harsh against her tongue, sour and thick with yearning that she swallowed whole.

Maybe it should have been easy to go back to the way things had been, but in the days and weeks after giving in to the irrepressible pull of each other, Meg had a very hard time reverting to same old, same old. Passing him in the hall at school, it was almost impossible for her to stop herself from touching him in some small, hidden way. She turned her palm out and brushed his arm, keeping her face blank and her eyes fixed straight ahead as she felt the cord of muscle beneath his warm skin. Or she would alter her path a bit and brush past him on her way to what she now considered some inconsequential class. Their hips would touch, their shoulders, elbows, legs, it didn't matter. But wherever she touched him, she would burn in the spot for many minutes after he was gone.

Her skin felt tight, constraining, as if the girl inside was not the same as the one who had existed before Dylan changed everything with a kiss. She hated herself for each display of weakness, loathing the way that he had somehow separated her from everything she believed herself to be. The worst of it was, she couldn't read him. She was no more aware of his desires and intentions than she was able to decipher her own. Everything was foggy and indistinct, muted by the overwhelming fact that she ached to be with him, no matter the personal cost.

It didn't help that Dylan kept coming to her football games. He sat beneath the oaks, tucked far away and out of sight unless you knew what, or whom, you were looking for. Meg looked. She inspected the hill for him with an increasing urgency that bordered on desperation. The inner turmoil contributed to the passion of her game, but the mental clarity that had kept her team on a winning streak was muddled and dark. The Riot Girls started to lose, and Meg found that she didn't care. After the
clock ran out, she tried to be cool, nonchalant, encouraging her team and quickly sending them on their way. “I have a ride,” she would admit when pressed. “An old friend.” She hoped her face didn't betray the agony that word inflicted.

And though she wanted to run when the rest of the girls turned toward the parking lot, Meg forced herself to cross the field slowly. Arms wrapped tight around her, chin tucked low, head down, so she didn't have to watch him watching her come.

Sometimes they didn't even make it to the truck. Sometimes he caught her chin and tipped it toward his own face, tasting her with little kisses as if she was something to be savored.

“I'm sweaty,” she complained, pulling away.

“I don't care.”

It was always the same. A dance of their own invention that had a certain careful choreography, even though everything felt haphazard, quick and wild in its bewildering intimacy. She demurred, he chased, and they gave in to each other for as long as they dared. Until they had to pretend that nothing had ever happened and go back to the status quo of their normal lives. But there was nothing remotely normal about their clandestine relationship or, in fact, any area of their lives, when the days seemed to center around the next possible time they might find to be alone.

As November wore on and the end of the Girls' Football League approached, Meg began to feel restless. The girls were starting to complain about the cold, and the football games were no longer well attended by either players or spectators. But Meg was afraid to pull the plug on the league because it meant her stolen moments with Dylan were numbered. In the end, the choice wasn't hers to make: the Pigskin Barbies announced the date of their last game against the Riot Girls and called it the championship.

Nobody contested the unorthodox conclusion to the GFL, and Meg actually smiled when she heard. She couldn't help thinking of the girls as her girls, and she was happy to imagine
that the league had been a bright point in their fall, maybe even in their entire high school experiences. It certainly seemed to have emboldened them.

A large crowd gathered for the final game, bundled in football blankets and waving extra team T-shirts over their heads as makeshift pennants. When the league champions had been decided once and for all, everyone was supposed to go home and shower, then meet at Giovanni's, the only pizza place in Sutton, for a victory dinner. It didn't really matter who won; the victory belonged to every one of the forty-two girls who participated in the full, unsanctioned season. Everyone was coming: players, fans, parents who thought the girls were plucky and admired their charming audacity. It was the perfect end to the season, but the plan filled Meg with both excitement and dread because, although she was looking forward to celebrating the success of the GFL, she was terrified to have her last postgame encounter with Dylan.