Finding Dell (10 page)

“Promise you won’t hate me for the next thing I say?” Natalie said, nudging me with her elbow. “We don’t know anything about Cam’s situation back home, except for what Bernie said. After all, they’ve been dating for years. If you give Cam time to sort it out, I think he has more promise than a hundred Wills put together right now.”

I took a step away from Natalie, out into the grass.

“I’m not ready to give up on him yet. If we could just talk, we’d sort everything out.”

Natalie responded with a toss of her long brown hair over her shoulder. “Dell, if he wanted to talk to you, he would have called you back by now. Not to mention, he wouldn’t have paraded that girl right in front of you at Dean’s party.” The icy coolness had returned to her voice.

“I don’t know why you think you’re such an expert. You can’t even get Jesse to spend time with you when he’s sober. Maybe you should focus on your own problems instead of picking apart my relationships.”

Natalie scoffed, and I bristled at the sound.

“I hope you have somewhere else to stay because I don’t want to see you in my room tonight,” I said.

The sound of Natalie’s smug scoff echoed in my ears and I clenched my fists as I picked up speed at the edge of Wild Mare Woods. I heard Natalie calling after me, repeating herself over and over.

“Your room, Dell? Your room?”

● ● ●

A strand of Christmas lights dipped from the eaves of the pistachio-colored house, and the sagging porch creaked lightly when I mounted the steps and knocked. I wiped away tears of frustration and humility with a knuckle while I bit my lip until I tasted the tangy surprise of blood.

The door eased open and Dean peered out.

“What are you doing here? Ruby said the Midnight Games are tonight.”

“I left. I had a fight with Natalie.” My voice came out in a hoarse whisper.

The hinges of the fraying screen door screamed as it opened wider and Dean leaned his temple against the doorframe.

“Hurricane Dell hits again.”

The faraway sound of the clock tower chiming the hour drifted through the night. I thought about how I used to associate the sound as a countdown to an adventure, but now it chimed a reminder of the growing time I spent making poor decisions.

“I came to tell you that I didn’t mean to fight with you.”

“What about Will Easton?”

“We haven’t talked since your party.” It felt terrible to say the words aloud.

“That doesn’t answer my question. He might be done with you, but are you done with him?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

Tears pierced the corners of my eyes while Dean stared at me, stared with pleading eyes that begged for a response that I couldn’t give.

“Just because I’m confused about someone who broke my heart doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”

After a shaky breath, my voice traveled up a few octaves.

“Don’t punish me for wanting things to have worked out with Will.”

“Don’t you get it? Until you’re completely over Easton, you shouldn’t be leading on anyone else. What Easton did to you was shitty, so I took your side. But Alex is one of my best friends, and if you lead him on when you’re not into him, eventually I’ll be forced to choose sides there, too. And I won’t choose you.”

I mentally flicked through a catalog of interactions with Alex. A memory of swaying to music in his living room on his birthday flooded into my mind and I saw it all differently, for what it really was. A single tear escaped as I realized how self-absorbed I had been.

“I just want the old Dell back.”

At that moment, with the glow from the streetlights on Massey Avenue creating a golden halo on the groaning porch, I felt a veil dissolve. I realized that I might intellectually understand that I needed to change, but until I could understand emotionally, I’d be running away and starting arguments forever.

“My heart was broken. Even if it heals, I won’t be the person I was before.”

Dean stepped forward and gave me a hollow hug, insignificant in the moment. “I’m sorry,” he said with averted eyes.

The shadow of his stocky frame played on the light on the porch when he pulled away.

“You can stay here tonight. I’ll sleep on the couch if you want to avoid Natalie tonight.”

“I want to avoid everything, at least for a couple hours.”

I took a few steps to the sinking stairs that led to the porch and sat down. Dean followed. When he sat down next to me, I could feel the taut firmness of his ropy leg muscles brush against my bare shin.

In the eerie glow of the porch light, Dean’s face was illuminated and I could see long-healed acne pock marks on his chin and a faint indentation near his eyebrow that announced a former piercing.

“Did you used to have an eyebrow ring?” I asked as I squinted at the outline.

Dean groaned and rubbed at his brow vigorously, as if he could scrub away the tiny scar. “Is it noticeable? Whenever the light’s just right and I see it, I’m always reminded of my bad decisions. As if I need a reminder.”

“Why’d you get it?”

He bowed his head. “I wanted to seem tougher.”

My laugh came out as a snorting exhale and I tossed my head back. “You? Seem tougher? I feel like you crush me with brute force alone in a matter of seconds.” I elbowed his generous bicep.

Dean crossed and uncrossed his arms. “I wasn’t always like this. I got picked on a lot in high school. So I decided to do something about it. But everything got . . . excessive. I got carried away.”

“Yeah, an eyebrow ring is pretty extreme,” I joked.

I glanced at him, but he didn’t smile. He pinched the bridge of his nose so I looked out at the vacant street instead as I realized he was trying to tell me something that could only be shared without eye contact.

“After so many years of being bullied, it turned out I was hot-tempered and my aggression got the best of me. I . . . I’ve never told anyone about this, at least not anyone at Seneca. This guy started in on me again, and I snapped. As he ran his mouth at me, all I could see were his big, livery lips, and they looked purple against his pale skin. I punched him as hard as I could right in his lips. Broke his jaw.”

I gasped. “Why. . . ?”

“Because I couldn’t stand to listen to the insults—”

“No,” I interrupted. “Why was he bullying you?”

Dean buried his face in his hands and his reply was muffled but simple enough that I heard it without repetition.

“My dad’s gay.”

I tugged on my ear and tilted my head. “Is that all?”

He snapped his head toward me. “It’s everything. My shit town had a thousand people and when my dad left my mom for a guy, it was all anyone could talk about.”

In his coiled fists and flashing eyes, I could see his repressed hurt and it made sense of his misguided aggression.

“Well, I’m not offended or even all that interested if your dad is gay. I get that it has a big effect on your life, but it doesn’t affect how I see you.”

Dean stared at me for a long moment until the side of his mouth turned up in a tentative smile.

“I share this big secret with you, and you act like it’s no big deal. I’ve seen you get more worked up about forgetting an umbrella in the rain.”

I shrugged and smiled back.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

The steps creaked as I leaned on my elbow and rubbed my eyes.

“Let’s talk about important stuff. No more of this pointless chatter,” I said. “Now that Ruby and Nicholas broke up, when are you going to make your move?”

Dean laughed. “Don’t make me share even more feelings with you at 2 a.m., Dell.”

“Is it that late?”

He flipped open his phone and glanced at the time. “Even later.” It was past 3 o’clock. “You can stay in my room.”

“Paso Fino is where I belong. I’m fine to walk home alone,” I said, reading the protest in his eyes.

He hesitated but finally went inside, leaving the screen door to howl in the quiet night as it swung shut after him. He waited until I stepped off the porch to turn off the light.

I walked a few steps down the crumbling sidewalk until I remembered what I’d forgotten so long ago. I crept across the dewy yard, hoping Dean wasn’t watching out his foyer window, until I reached the bramble on the side of the house. I groped in the darkness and felt the smooth, damp paper brush my fingertips.

In the silver moonlight glow of Massey Avenue, with the clock tower guiding my way, I hurried back to Paso Fino with my rescued poster from Alex. I clutched it gingerly, as if I didn’t want to wrinkle the poster that had spent weeks outside in the bushes. It felt like longer; then, even the Midnight Games and fight with Natalie felt like ages ago. I slowed down with the dismal acceptance that I’d be sleeping on the couch in the hallway that evening, and even if Dean wasn’t mad at me anymore, my hurricane still caused plenty of other damage.

Colorful strands of ribbons were twisted into the honey-wheat braid of Bernie’s hair. It was the first thing I saw when she leaned over me on the couch.

“Helen and I have a futon in our room,” she whispered.

“I’m okay out here,” I murmured.

“Let’s work on our project for Professor Morrow tonight,” she said.

“Bernie, it’ll be light soon,” I groaned. “I don’t want to think about our graphic design project right now.”

“I saw what happened with Cameron outside Palomino.” The moonlight struck her glasses and made her eyes owlish.
“When you’re broken, that’s the best time to rebuild. You’ll be in the right frame of mind to think creatively about reinvention today. We’ll go to the computer lab after dinner and stay long enough to create a new persona.”

“Are you talking about the product we’re advertising or me?”

“Both, stormy.” She winked affectionately. “That’s another thing I overheard. Don’t be upset by your nickname. To have thunder inside you is a beautiful thing. After all, isn’t rain just confetti from the sky? Now come sleep on our futon.”

CHAPTER 11

THE AIR STOPPED
circulating in the communications building hours ago, and when the white noise ceased, I could hear every small sound rattling through the halls.

Now the long brown feathers dangling from Bernie’s hair rustled as she tugged on them. I wondered if they were from a craft shop or plucked from the grass around Magnolia Banks Lake. She leaned forward to examine the computer screen, which contoured her face in a shadowy glow.

“It looks like we lost resolution when we changed the dimensions of this image,” she said.

I sighed. “It’s past midnight. Can we go back to Paso Fino and look at this in the morning?”

“I’m printing a mock-up,” she said, ignoring me.

The legs of the plastic chair scraped against the linoleum and I shuffled over to the printer. Bernie and I had been in the basement computer lab since eating a quick dinner in Georgian Grande hours ago, and she didn’t show any interest in returning to the dorm soon.

When I turned around, I was surprised to see Bernie chewing on one of the feathers in her hair, her shoulders arched to her ears as she leaned forward. Her tense posture betrayed her personality. She usually looked like she was on the verge of mediation.

I slid the paper onto the table and Bernie snatched it up, holding it before her bold eyeglasses to examine it.

“The resolution is all wrong. More than that, though, I don’t think we’re getting to the heart of this project.”

I stretched my arms behind my head and arched my back.

“The graphics need to evoke more emotion,” I said. “The concept of this project—reinvention—has more impact if it hits our audience emotionally.”

She nodded. Her eyes had dark circles beneath them as she stared at the paper and back to the computer screen.

“Think about it. The desire for change is a powerful emotion that everyone can sympathize with. I wish I could reinvent myself,” I continued. I eyed Bernie carefully. “I wish I could be more like you,” I said softly.

Bernie set the paper down and faced me. “Why do you say that?”

I lowered my eyes. “You’re confident. I get insecure, so I try to control things, but I end up making them worse. I self-destruct until I become Hurricane Dell, I guess. But you trust that there’s a bigger plan and I admire that.”

When I looked up, Bernie’s eyes were pooled with tears.

“But I’m losing my confidence in that bigger plan,” she said. “I know that life is a journey, and I respect the universe’s plan, but sometimes I wish I knew where we were going, just for a moment.” Bernie massaged the bridge of her nose with a trembling hand.

I placed my hand on her wrist.

“Tell me,” I whispered.

“My grandfather is sick. He’s dying. And I’m not going to get home to see him before he passes.”

She sighed and pulled her glasses off, setting them on the keyboard.

“But not saying a final goodbye isn’t what bothers me the most,” she continued. “It’s that the last time I saw him, I had just broken up with my ex-girlfriend, Vanessa, and I was in a bad place emotionally. I wish I knew where my path of destiny would take me because I hate the thought that whoever I end up with, they will have never met my grandfather. And he’s going to leave this world knowing I never found love in his lifetime.”

I reached a hand up to stroke her hair, smoothing down tawny feathers.

“I think you have to have faith in the idea that your grandpa will be watching over you in spirit, and that if you keep following your dreams you’ll be on the right path to your destiny. When he passes, whether it’s soon or far in the future, he’ll probably be able to see your destiny long before you do and know you’ll be all right.” I dropped my hand to Bernie’s shoulder.

“Do you ever think you’re chasing the wrong dream? Like you’re headed to the wrong destination?” she asked.

I pursed my lips and picked up the printed mock-up of the advertisement and started flexing the paper to have something to do with my hands. I folded it in half carefully, easing down on the crease. I once felt sure that Will Easton was on my path to destiny. Now that I’d lost him, I couldn’t figure out if I’d stepped off the path or had been on the wrong one all along.