Only One Road – chapter 4

– IV –


After the punching incident Dylan became different around me. I guess he felt really guilty about the whole thing. Back then I didn’t know that Dylan feeling guilty was as incredible of a thing as, let’s say, a UFO landing on the roof of my house. But we started hanging out together more often, mostly due to the fact that I was never a very popular person and I was usually known as a loner. As for Dylan… Well, he wasn’t an unpopular one. On the contrary. Except his popularity was on the nasty side.

Sometimes in the beginning of October one of our own personal dictators named Billy Vaughn decided that Dylan is stealing too much of a spotlight from him. So he decided to fix that. Billy had three sidekicks (I called them pets) – Mickey, Wes, and Tanner. Those three idiots were ridiculously loyal to him. Sometimes I thought they would happily jump off the bridge if Billy told them to. Naturally, they were the ones who always did all kind of dirty work for Billy. But in Dylan’s case, I guess Billy decided that he wanted to take care of “that obnoxious blond” by himself.

I never really knew what happened between them. I guess Dylan told Vaughn to go fuck himself one of those days when Billy was trying his best to dominate Dylan. He also was quite descriptive about the whole thing. So, naturally, Billy decided to show him what happens to people when they get “smart” around someone as Billy Vaughn.

Of course, Billy would never do something like that in public. He wasn’t the brightest of them all but even he knew that for assaulting and heavily damaging someone (well, that was his original plan) he will end up with crapload of charges filed against him. So one of those days he jumped Dylan all by himself behind some grocery store. Again, I have no idea what actually happened because Dylan never told me. But Billy hasn’t come to school for almost a week after that. When he finally did come back, he looked like he was hit by a truck. His face was one ripe bruise, he was missing at least two teeth, and he limped for almost a month. Dylan, on the other hand, only had a hefty scratch on his cheekbone. Apparently Billy cut him with his ring.

The outcome of the fight didn’t surprise me at all. I remembered how well Dylan could hit. I also remembered how quick he could react. But I was the only one who wasn’t dumbfounded. See, when you look at Dylan, the only thing you notice is beauty. He was also on the skinny side even though he was as tall as me. You just don’t see someone who looks like that kicking anyone’s ass, let alone Billy Vaughn’s.

After the whole thing Billy and his pets left Dylan alone for a little while. I guess Billy decided to give himself enough time to heal and also to come up with a plan. And life just kept on going on. And then, a couple of weeks before Halloween I realized to my own horror that I was falling for Dylan Mort harder than I fell for anyone in my entire life. At first I just shrugged the very idea off. I mean, it sounded ridiculous. He was a guy for crying out loud! I have never had a thing for guys. Ever.

Well, after the last week of October the idea wasn’t as ridiculous anymore. Jesus Christ, he was in every single dream and fantasy of mine, it was driving me insane. Every time he’d look at me with those bottomless eyes of his, I’d become completely and utterly helpless. I had no idea about his preferences. I had no clue if he was straight, gay, bi, or whatever. I never asked him that question. He never dated anyone and he was really weird when it came to touching. He would stiffen up every time someone would tap him on the shoulder and if someone would grab his hand for some strange reason, he would look like he was about to kill that person.

He never freaked out on me though. I don’t know what is was or why, but he acted completely normal if I bumped into him or if my hand ended up on his shoulder. Finally I gave up on trying to stop the insanity. I gave up and decided to go with the flow and, most likely, to suffer.