The Clichés

Chapter Five- Dylan

Dylan is happy. He's just spoken to Vanessa, and as always, her thin voice lingers in his head like a piece of beautiful music from some vintage record. He's dancing all the way home. He would've driven his car home, but it was in the shop at the moment. He kicks the empty tin cans and stones from the asphalt. A song is on his tongue, but he can't really remember it. He can recall, though, that it has words like sweetener and reliever in its bridge; so he makes up an impromptu melody with sweetener and reliever.

But once he gets home and bolts the door behind him, the numb feelings return. They wiggle through his body and render his knees weak. He drops to the floor just inside. A feral emptiness he's grown used to envelops him.

Great. Dylan Moore, the playboy, is gone, and only Dylan remains, and Dylan, just Dylan, feels everything. 

He's home, but home is full of echoes and shadows of inanimate objects and his dog, Sauna. He's returned to an empty home that was once so full of light and laughter that he can remember but never get back. 

Missy is staying with Aunt Paula. She's been there since Mom got back to the hospital. Her lungs are burning, and her breath is coming out in loud wheezes. She passes out frequently as though it were a casual thing to do. Aunt Paula took her back to the hospital because of this. Sure, Dylan goes to visit her every day, but it's different from having her here, sitting on this rug with him, eating with him, laughing at his silly jokes.

Mom was diagnosed three years ago. At that time, the doctors said she had a year left. She didn't tell him immediately. She carried the pain for six months alone. She carried it to work and managed to smile at customers at the bank. She carried it carefully on her back as she tended to Missy and her outbursts. She carried it as she talked to neighbors, dramatizing happiness. Then, one evening, she returned from work, wheezing. Instead of taking her drugs, she chose to stay in Dylan's room, swaddled in his sheets. Dylan was arranging his Converse shoes on the rack when she said it:

"I have cancer."

Dylan froze. A shoe dropped from his hands. He couldn't turn around, couldn't utter a word. It was like his entire world had shifted on its axis. He felt his hands trembling, his breath shaking. If his mother was talking at all, he couldn't hear a word. The only thing he could hear was the loud, quickening thumps of his heart and a shrill ringing in his ears. His throat felt dry like he had just swallowed a fistful of sand. He felt the tears welling up, but he forced them down.

"It's alright," she said. "I, too, grappled with it for a while."

"For a while?" Dylan swung around, beads of sweat dotting his forehead. "How long have you known?"

"Just a few months."

"A few months? Mom-"

"Darling, I'm a bit parched. Could you make me tea?" she interrupted. He sighed and then reluctantly nodded, trudging to the kitchen. Dylan made her tea, and as he waited for the kettle to boil, he sobbed. He could only hope that the sounds of boiling water would cover up his crying. When he got back upstairs, they sat together and looked at the pictures of the scan of her lungs perforated by two large holes. Dylan broke down and cried again. With his mother, he could be vulnerable. It was after cancer snatched her away, snatched everything away from him that he learned the hard way: to survive this world, one had to be hard, or at least pretend to be hard.

Dylan knows he's pretending to be hard, to be a regular guy, to be a grinning, leering player. He knows. But most people around him don't. And as long as it remains his personal secret, he's willing to perform forever.

Stepping inside the house, Sauna gallops to him and nuzzles his toes. He bends down and collects her in his arms. There are stiff strands of hair around her neck, which is unusual. If he were in the mood, he'd have taken her for a shower, combing the hair until it fell in alignment with her body. But no, not today.