alright ↠ dylan o'brien

twenty six.

 

All my nightmares escape my head

Bar the door, please don't let them in

You were never supposed to leave

Now my head's splitting at the seams

~Welcome Home, Son by Radical Face

Dylan

    She walked down her driveway. I could tell something was wrong by the look on her face when we had pulled up. I offered to walk her to the door but she refused.

    Her dad's car was there.

    I knew that could be nothing good. She had come on the trip because he was on a business trip in God knows where. Right before Stephen drove away, Lola opened the door and I saw her dad there. He had a look of rage on his face, and I could feel my heart speed up. He slammed the door and I couldn't see her anymore.

    "Stephen, we have to go back," I announced through the back window.

    "Why," he grunted.

    "We just have to," I exclaimed. "Please."

    "We're not going back," he mumbled, his tone holding warning. I didn't know exactly what I expected to do if we did really go back, but I just needed to help Lola. I knew things were bad with her father, but I couldn't be sure if they were really bad.

    I sat back.

Lola

I was met with Ray' furious face the moment I opened the door. He was wearing his suit and tie, the suit wrinkled and the tie loose. His beard was still shaven, though stubble was clearly growing back. He was holding a bottle in his hand again.

    "Where were you?" He shouted, reaching over me to slam the door behind me.

    "At a friend's," I reply quickly.

    "What friend?" He spat. "You don't have any friends. You left them all for the dead kid."

I clenched my teeth. "Rhiannah," I said. "You don't know her."

    "I know you're lying," he stated warningly. "I got home early last night to see that you were gone. I went all around Manhattan and Brooklyn, hell, I went to the Upper East Side looking for you! You never came home!" He barked.

    "I was just at her house. In Manhattan," I told him quietly.

    "And that boy you were just in the truck with?" Ray snarled. "It's the same one from before. Stop lying to me!" He yelled, hitting the bottle with much force against the floor, making it shatter completely. "You can't see him. I won't have you whoring around town! That guy'll get a slut like you pregnant in days."

    "That guy's name is Dylan," I stated angrily.

    "What happened to my money?" Ray demanded.

    I had taken the two-hundred dollars he gave me. It was stashed in my room under my pillow. But I didn't have an answer for him. I needed that money if anything were to ever happen, and one beating was worth it. This wouldn't end well.

    Ray bent over to pick up the broken glass, and his raging face was the warning of what was to happen. I knew what was to happen. My heart rate sped up, knowing the familiar feeling of the glass against my skin. The scar on my palm from months ago had still not faded.

    "You need to stop disobeying me," Ray said. Ray pushed me up against the door and pressed his arm across my collar bone forcefully and held the glass to my arm. His eyes were wide and fiery red. "I promise this is for you," he said. "This is for your own good. Maybe now you'll be better." There was no point in fighting back because it would get me nowhere. We were both the only ones here, and he had the upperhand.

    He told me to take my sweatshirt off, and I did. I was left standing in a blue tanktop self-consciously. I shivered as I felt the cold glass meet the skin of my left arm. Ray still looked furious, and I was scared of the force he would use. Slowly, he dug the glss deep into my arm and began to drag it down. I screamed at the pain that seared from my arm. I quickly stuffed my right fist inside of my mouth so none of the neighbors could hear me. Thousands of daggers seemed to be piercing me all at once, red blood gushing out with every movement of his hand. I could feel the stinging and the burn of the leftover alcohol seeping into the fresh-cut flesh of my arm. A cry was stuck inside the back of my throat, but I let it sit there. I didn't want to look down. I kept my eyes shut and my head averted in the other direction. I could feel blood trickling across the side of my arms as Ray made his way down, all the way to the end of my wrist.

    When he was done, he said, "Maybe next time you'll think before disobeying me."

*~*~*

December 30th, 2000

    Little Sammy was born today at 8:32 this morning. Lola hasn't seen him yet because she's still at home. I went into labor late last night and Ray had to rush me to the hospital. Lola was asleep so we left her, even though it worried me too much. Sammy is Ray's baby, so he's treating him differently. But I don't want Lola to grow up in this life of resentment from her own father.

    I know I haven't really written for about three years. Every since then, we've been living in a small apartment in Manhattan. We'll be moving soon because of Sammy into a bigger house. Ray and I have been saving up, and Ray has a good job with a big company.

    I miss Kameron every single day. I called every day after I left, but the calls became less frequent. Kameron got quieter and didn't say much, until one day he decided he didn't want to keep talking to me. He was quite old enough to make that decision.  Emeric had to cut me off. Me, Kameron's mother. I'm torn to pieces. I have my two kids in my life now, but I had another responsibility too, one that left me feeling guilty beyond imagination. I left this now-13 year-old boy, motherless and hateful towards me. He had seen me leave and he had seen how little of a fight I put up. I could have tried harder, but I knew that the life Emeric could offer him was far more promising than the life I would give him with Ray.

    I skimmed through the paragraph once more before realizing that the date this passage had been written was also today's date. It was Sammy's birthday today. How could I have forgotten?

And once more, something caught my eye. In the first paragraph, Mom had written, "Sammy is Ray's baby, so he's treating him differently." What did that mean for me? Why had Ray treated me differently? Because I wasn't his baby?

I dropped the journal suddenly and covered my mouth with my hands.

Emeric.

Author's Note:

I know this chapter is short, but what'd you think? Let me know in the comments!
I've sorted out the rest of this whole book and I've decided that to get everything in, it will be about 40-43 chapters long, including the epilogue. I'm so excited! The drama starts in just a few chapters, my loves;)
~Eva