EXposed, page 28
She breaks the hug and playfully pushes my arm, giving me the opportunity to place the tray in my hands on the table. “As if any record label would sign a whack job like me. Nah, I gave that dream up when I was nineteen. I found my real calling now.”
I haven’t seen her since we broke up. We went our separate ways on good terms, but I haven’t really thought of her much since then. That was almost six years ago. And yet, she’s still the same. Of course, she looks older now that she’s in her mid-twenties, and she’s different in small things, like how her hair is much shorter and darker than I remember.
But as a person, she hasn’t changed. She still greets people in the same manner, and she still gets the same side-twist in her smile when she recognizes someone she knows. Her personality is still as quirky and friendly as ever.
“So what do you do?” I ask, interested.
She puts her hands up proudly. “I’m a college teacher! Introduction to Songwriting.”
My eyebrows fly up. “No way.”
“Yes way!”
I narrow my eyes in mock-suspicion. “Aren’t you a little young for that?”
She shakes her head vigorously. “I finished my studies last year. Top of my class. And I took on so many credits that I even finished earlier than the rest of my class, so my school immediately offered me a teaching position.”
I am truly impressed. “Wow, that’s amazing, Pat. Congrats! So which school are you in?”
“Berklee.”
It takes me just a moment to make the connection. If she works at Berklee, she must be one of Dylan’s teachers.
“You’re kidding,” I gasp. “Wait, do you know my partner, Dylan Connolly?”
The two of us turn towards Dylan at the same time. That’s when reality dawns on me, and I see Dylan’s stricken face, like I just told her someone in her family died. Immediately, I join her in the booth and take her hand from under the table. I may have loved four women in my life, but I have only ever truly been in love with one of them, and I hate causing her pain.
Dylan quickly masks her expression and puts on a smile for Pat. However, hidden from sight, she snatches her hand away from mine.
Don’t mind me, I hear her say. You two lovebirds just continue catching up.
Though Dylan tries to hide it, Pat senses Dylan’s mood and sees the look on her face before she forces it into a smile. Pat then tries to make light of the situation and help Dylan feel more comfortable, which shows because of what she says next.
“You mean my star student, one of the best I’ve ever taught in my entire teaching career?”
Dylan grimaces, although I think she meant it to be a forced smile. “It’s okay, Miss P. You don’t have to overdo it just because I’m dating your ex.”
There’s too much anguish in her tone. I don’t like it at all. I try to reach for her hand again, but she slaps me away this time. This interaction does not go unnoticed, and Pat now looks very uncomfortable.
“I just crashed your date, didn’t I?” she guesses. “You know what, I think I better go. This is a bit of a shock, and I believe Dylan needs a moment.”
Right before she leaves, Pat gives me a look that clearly says, ‘Your partner’s upset. Damage control, man.’ I want to reply that I’m trying but she’s not letting me.
With Pat out, I face Dylan. I’ve seen her jealous before, but it was never like this. Her jealousy used to make me secretly happy, because it shows that she cares. But what she’s feeling right now is different. It’s deeper and directed more inwardly. It’s powerful enough that I am getting residues of it through the mind link. I don’t understand where it’s coming from, and I feel no joy over it.
“Dylan,” I say in a calming tone. “What’s wrong?”
The glare she looks at me with throws me off guard. “Are you seriously asking me that? After I just found out that my favorite teacher is not only your ex-girlfriend, but also your first love? Is it so hard to figure it out on your own?”
I wince. “That’s… not what I meant. Look, I know it’s shocking. I still can’t believe it myself. I mean what are the –?” I cut myself off when her glare hardens, and I put my hands up in surrender. “Not important. My point is, what do you have to be so jealous of? Pat is history.”
Dylan rolls her eyes and scoffs. “Oh I don’t know,” she replies sarcastically. “She’s gorgeous, she’s crazy smart, she’s talented –”
I interrupt her. “You are all of those things.”
She acts like I never even spoke. “– and you have a history with her, to name a few.”
My eyes widen with surprise. This is about me sleeping with another girl before I even met Dylan? “A history?” I repeat. “That’s what’s making you so angry?” Dylan’s answer is silence, and playing with her fingers. “But you already knew I’ve been with other girls, and you never said anything.”
Her eyes remain downcast, and her voice lowers. “Doesn’t mean I liked it.”
All I can do is blink. I have no idea how to react. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”
A shrug. “You never seemed to want to talk about it. You shut me down every time I bring up Reena. After a while, I just taught myself to ignore it.”
Dylan is not one to open up often about things that truly bother her. When it’s me or anyone else going through something, she has no problem being there for us. She’s good at it, too, despite her thoughts to the contrary. But when it’s the other way around, when she’s the one who has to lean on another person, she has a hard time admitting she needs help, especially to me.
This characteristic in Dylan is a matter of pride, and an unwillingness to show weakness, though she would never acknowledge it out loud. It caused me a lot of trouble at the beginning of our relationship, because she kept pushing me away instead of admitting that I had hurt her feelings.
What she just said is a very heavy admission for her to make, and I know it. I can’t treat this lightly. I have to handle it with care if I don’t want her to retreat back into the safety of keeping quiet.
Besides, this is partly my fault. Because she’s right; I do put an end to the discussion whenever she brings it up. But that’s only because I want to avoid moments like these, when she’s plagued with so much jealousy and insecurity that it makes her doubt her own worth in my life.
Drawing her into my arms, I caress her face and kiss her cheek, then lean my forehead against the side of her head. She lets me, and her body relaxes a bit against mine, but she doesn’t reciprocate the PDA.
“I’m sorry, baby,” I whisper. “It’s out of my hands. I can’t change my past. But that’s where it all is, in the past. None of it matters anymore; you are all I care about, the only one I see. I didn’t expect to ever see Pat again, so I understand that it’s a shock. I guess it’s just going to take time. I mean, you got over the fact that I was with Reena when she was out of the picture, right?”
Dylan huffs, like she’s a little annoyed. “It took more than Reena being out of your life to make me stop being jealous of her, Logan.”
Frowning, I pull my head back and stare at her. “What do you mean? When did you stop being jealous of Reena?”
From the look on her face, I can tell that my question makes her anxious. She also avoids eye contact, which means we’re back to her not being willing to open up.
“Dylan.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t say it. You’ll hate me.”
“That can’t happen,” I assure her.
“Then you’ll be mad, and I don’t want that.”
“If it’s that big a deal, you’re just going to have to risk it. This isn’t something we can avoid talking about. It’s this kind of stuff that makes or breaks relationships.”
Dylan hesitates. She opens her mouth as if to start speaking, then she changes her mind, and shakes her head again with a pained grimace. “I still can’t say it.”
Now I’m starting to get irritated. This always bugged me about my exes; there would be times when they are angry with me, and they expect me to know why and apologize without them explaining it. But suddenly, I realize this situation is different, because I am kind of a mind reader when it comes to Dylan. “Well… If you can’t say it, try thinking it.”
It takes her a moment to understand what I’m saying. When she does, she looks me straight in the eye, without blinking, and I hear her voice speaking clearly in my mind. I stopped being jealous of Reena when I was sure you love me for me.
Completely taken aback, I straighten up, not breaking eye contact. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
The fear in her eyes is unmistakable. Did she not expect me to hear it or something, or is she just regretting how quickly she revealed it without thinking of a different way to phrase it? However, it’s too late for her to take it back now, and she knows it, which is why the rest of this conversation happens entirely out loud.
“Look, Reena was gorgeous, I’ll admit that,” she says. “And she did try to help me, so I know she’s not all bad. Everything else about her, on the other hand, I never liked. What her brother put her through makes it impossible for me to continue hating her, but that doesn’t mean I like her.”
Now I’m confused, since this doesn’t explain her previous declaration. I think she’s doing it on purpose to avoid getting to her real point. She can’t run from the conversation anymore, but she can still stall long enough to confuse me and get me off track.
“What does that have to do with anything?” I question.
A sheepish expression crosses her face. “Everything. Because that’s what makes Reena and Miss P. different. Ultimately, you didn’t really care about Reena that way, and that helped me get over it. But seeing you with Pat right now... it felt different. You had more with her, which makes it harder to get over than what you had with Reena.”
Had she told me only this from the beginning, I might have taken it as the only explanation for her hurt jealousy and let the matter drop. However, what she said in her thoughts, as well as the fact that she still hasn’t elaborated on them and simply switched to a different angle, makes me certain that she really is avoiding having to open up. Something more important is at the source of this, and she’s hiding it.
My irritation starts to boil. At any moment, it will turn to anger, I can feel it. But I’m not going to let this go. If I do, whatever this issue is will just keep building up inside the both of us, until one of us explodes and it leads to a fight. The kind of fight couples have where they end up saying hurtful things that stem from their real frustrations but are not meant as hurtful. I do not want it to get that far, and I am not going to allow it to.
“Dylan,” I speak in a warning tone. “What did you mean when you said you became sure that I love you for you?”
Dylan closes her eyes, as if in pain. Then she sighs with resignation and opens her eyes, keeping them cast away. “When you came to rescue me from Colton, it was the first time I really felt that you loved me. You’ve never done so much for Reena, and that’s when I knew that whatever it is you had with her is not important anymore. You loved me now, really and truly loved me, and it didn’t matter to me anymore that… that it didn’t start out this way.”
Now I understand everything. Dylan was right to be afraid to tell me this; I am mad. We have already been over this, and I thought it was a closed issue. But I guess when you’re Dylan Connolly, master of secrecy and evasion, you learn to lie about important things.
Dylan looks at my face. “When I saw you with Miss Peters just now, I didn’t have such a certainty,” she rushes to continue, once again wanting to brush off the cusp of the problem.
“Forget about Pat,” I snarl, trying to keep my voice low. We have surpassed that topic when we reached the root of the problem. “For God’s sake Dylan, stop trying to avoid the subject.”
She looks away, ashamed. “Okay,” she mumbles.
Unlike her, I waste no time getting to the point. “You still think my feelings for you come from the mate bond,” I state.
“I think that’s how they started,” she confirms my suspicions, “but I’m sure that you really do –”
I curl my fist furiously. “This again? Are you kidding me? We went over this. I thought we were past the stage of doubting our feelings for each other?”
Wincing, Dylan smoothly leans away from me. “Logan, remember what we just talked about outside? About, uh, dark Logan? You’re sort of there right now.”
She’s afraid of me, I realize with a start. This makes me feel a little bit guilty. I may be angry, but not enough to want to scare her. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, uncurling my fist along the way. Then I force my voice to a lower pitch before I speak again.
“You honestly think the mate bond is what started my feelings for you?” I ask again.
She finally raises her eyes to mine. She’s biting her lip in hesitation. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” she tries to convince me.
“It matters, Dylan,” I insist. “You can’t continue to doubt the foundation of our relationship.” She doesn’t reply, just stares. “I loved you before I knew you’re my true mate. Why can’t you take my word for it?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to believe you,” she answers, finally breaking her inner walls and saying what she really feels. “I just can’t ignore the signs. Who’s to say that this isn’t actually how the mate bond works? Before the pandemic, when true mates were common, most of them didn’t know each other when they found their mates, yet we don’t hear any stories about our kind choosing to be with someone else, even though they had met their true mate. They always end up together.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean the bond forced them to have feelings for each other,” I argue.
“But it opens up the possibility. For all we know, the mate bond works by pointing out one single werewolf to someone and telling them, this is who you should be with, and then the seed of a romantic connection is planted in them. What comes out of it may or may not lead to real love, but how can we tell if the seed was only there because of the bond, and not because of a moment that they had together? It hasn’t happened in so long; we can’t be sure.”
My instinct is to reject everything she said and reassert that I have loved her before I knew her secret. However, a tiny voice nags at the back of my mind that I can’t really fault her logic no matter how much I want to.
“If we can’t be sure, then why are so convinced of that scenario?” I challenge.
She shrugs. “It makes the most sense. I’ve never been in a relationship before you, but I saw what you were like. You just shifted too suddenly.”
For a long moment, I don’t answer her. I’m not sure how to. Somehow, this hits home more than her opinion about the source of my feelings, without any sort of previous doubt. It brings to light another deep-rooted issue that I have been avoiding without even knowing it. I made a big deal out of Dylan needing to be honest about her feelings, when all this time, I’ve been running away from my own in the same manner. Only I’m worse, because I didn’t even realize I was doing it. Before I get to that, however, there’s a more pressing matter to be addressed first.
“This goes both ways you know,” I point out. “If you doubt that my feelings for you actually came from me, how do you know yours started out as genuine?”
She opens her mouth, about to argue. But then she seems to think twice about it, as a look of surprise and recognition overcomes her expression. Another moment of silence passes. Neither of us breaks eye contact this time.
“I guess I don’t,” she finally concedes, sounding apprehensive.
We stare at each other, separately contemplating what this means. At this point, all I can think about is that I need some room to breathe. This is the most serious talk we’ve ever had, and I need time to think about it all. I’m sure Dylan does, too, especially taking into account how she’s looking at me right now.
“This is a lot to take in,” she says.
“Yeah,” I sigh in agreement.
There is a tense pause, and then she speaks again, her voice sounding frightened. “We’re not breaking up, are we?”
“No,” I reply, hesitating only a tiny second. “We just… have some stuff we need to figure out. Why don’t we take some time to think about it, get our heads straight and then we’ll talk? I’m sure you want to focus on practicing for the talent show anyway. We’ll see each other after that.”
It’s killing me that I have to tap into my professional alpha side to say this. I’m talking to my girlfriend about our future, not closing a business deal! But it’s the only way I can minimize the damage this might do to the both of us.
“Yeah, uh, sure,” Dylan consents reluctantly.
I nod and look away, finally noticing the untouched food on the table. “Let’s take this to go,” I suggest.
Wordlessly, Dylan nods.
“Come on, I’ll walk you to your apartment.”
CHAPTER 27
Dylan
You would think that after spending most of my life avoiding the truth of who I am and never bringing it up, I would be good at avoiding any sensitive subject. The thing is, I can pretend all I want that Logan and I did not have a fight, but there’s nothing stopping me from thinking about it. So my thoughts rage on into uncharted territories: what if he leaves me?
I don’t sleep that night. I stay up thinking of every possible worst-case-scenario, and I worry. I freak myself out so much that I become afraid of falling asleep and seeing my fears realized in my nightmares.
By morning, I come to the decision that if this keeps up, I’m not going to make it to next weekend, the day when Logan and I said we would meet up and talk. The only solution is to keep myself busy until then and not think about it.
Luckily, there is something outside of my relationship with my boyfriend that needs my attention, and that is the talent show I’m supposed to perform in with John. Well, that and my semester finals, but it’s mostly rehearsal for the talent show that keeps me occupied.
