Billboards and Benches

Chapter 4

"My god Dylan where have you been!" Her mom sighs when she walks into her home. Her mother sets something on the table and rubs her temple looking at her daughter. Dylan can't admit to her mother that she's been visiting a homeless man. Her mother would be so angry. She has a boyfriend she has a wedding in four and a half months. She can't back out, but she wants to. She doesn't want to get married to a man that doesn't have any interest in her or her life. All she wants is someone who will love her as much as she loves them.

"I needed a break mom. You're smothering me and G won't come home and I lost my baby. The only thing that I had was my baby and I don't have him anymore. I went out I didn't die! I didn't do drugs and I came home!" She growls walking towards her kitchen. She wants to go back outside and sit in the rain again. No matter how cold she was no matter how awful it was she was warm next to the only person in the world who seems to listen to her. She wishes her parents would accept him so that he could be the one she's supposed to marry.

"Gerald says he's coming home soon. He wants to be here for you I promise." Her mom hugs her gently and she scoffs. She knows that he isn't on his way. He promised her mom he would be back soon because it's December twelfth and he's coming back on the thirtieth. He's trying to make her mom like him more than she does now. He never had a good relationship with her family he never made a relationship with her family. He never cared if her parents liked him or not until her dad refused to let him marry his daughter because they both though he was an asshole. He now needs to get her parents on his side.

"He's not coming home mom! He doesn't plan to come home now that we lost our baby. He's not coming home for Christmas. He doesn't even want to come home for the new year but he will because if he doesn't then I won't be waiting anymore." She huffs. She's eighteen and he's almost twenty seven. He can have anyone but she chose him and she's never regretted it more. She wishes she hadn't agreed to give her life to him without knowing anyone else. She didn't even know what it was like dating anyone at all. She'd only had one boyfriend and he's nine years older than her. He never taught her anything except for what relationships aren't supposed to look like. She only knows that dating someone who ignores your problems and doesn't talk to you is the hardest thing that anyone could do. "I don't want to get married anymore mom. I'm eighteen I've barely lived and now I'm marrying a man who can't be bothered to see me when I need him the most! If he can't be here with me by Christmas without you or dad meddling then I'm not getting married." She growls.

"Dylan I haven't called him. Or tried to call him. Now come sit I made you dinner." Her mom nods and she sighs. She already ate but she won't tell her mother that. She's too worried to tell her mother that currently there is a homeless man sitting somewhere in downtown Toronto and she can't stop wondering where. It's December twelfth it's cold it's raining and snowing and it's cold. She wants to bring him home. It's time for him to gain a home and someone who will feed him and care for him. She needed a friend and he sat there and listened no matter how much he hated the fact that she approached him. He sat there and he took it because she needed him to. He wanted to be there for someone who so effortlessly promised to buy him a meal or give him new clothes whenever she saw him. She barely knows his name, she doesn't even know where he's from or how he ended up in downtown Toronto. She knows he left his foster home but that's it. He appreciates everything there is about her. He feels bad for the way he stared at her. He thinks about it still. She was just so, so different from anyone he's ever seen. He looked at her and saw her hips or her sports bra. The tight sports bra that she could barely fit into. He can't even look at the billboards or magazines without thinking of how different she is. He pretends he doesn't know who she is or where she came from but for months he's stared at her pictures wondering why she wasn't the one sitting on the curb. He feels bad that he thought like that. She's trying to convince him to stay with her. He ran away from her but she almost had him. She gave him her phone number and an old phone with her number as the sole contact so when he got bored or lonely he could call her. She needed him to know that she was there whenever he needed it.

"I'm not hungry." She spits pushing herself out of her seat. She marches to her bedroom and her mother sighs walking to the room Dylan's letting her stay in. Her mother doesn't want to push. She wants to be here for everything but the more she pushes the farther her daughter becomes. She can't lose her again so she'll give her the space she's requested. "Hello?"

"Destiny?" Is mumbled into the phone. She hopes with everything it's her sweet homeless man calling because he was lonely or he's ready to have a home. She wants to give him a home. She feels like her baby boy left because she wasn't meant to have a child with Gerald. She thinks her baby boy was simply trying to tell her that he doesn't have the right daddy yet. She'll have a baby one day but with a man who's going to love that child and her as much as they deserve to be loved. "Your mon called me." She gives a soft huff knowing that dispute her wishes she isn't getting a call from the only person she wants to hear from. Even if it's only been two hours since she's last seen him she wants to hear his voice again. She will never find comfort with Gerald never. "She says you don't know if you still want to get married. Destiny you know that I'll be home soon. I just have tour and some family stuff going on that I have to deal with. You know I love you right?" She sighs looking at the ring on her finger.

"I know. I love you too." She sighs ending the call and pulling the ring off of her finger.

"Dylan please don't be mad at me." Her mother begs from outside of her room.

"I don't want you in my house anymore. And he has one week to come home on his own before I dump him and call off the wedding. I'm not marrying a man that can't give me the time of day! This is the first time he's called me since he left! If he doesn't have the basic decency to call me then why am I marrying him. I don't care if it's good for my brand and I don't give a shit if it's what you want because
I just want to be done with it. I want to be happy mom. Let me be happy!" She screams through her bedroom door. Though it's hard to admit it's true. She isn't happy with him she's bored in her relationship not even the sex is good anymore. She's tired of it so she's going to leave him.

"At least let me and your dad ask him to come home. Maybe he'll listen?" She begs but Dylan scoffs. She doesn't understand why her parents are pushing her so hard to marry a man that she doesn't want to be with anymore. Her parents are trying to force her to marry a man that doesn't even know her real name because she was so afraid of him when they met. She doesn't want to tell him on their wedding day that her names been a lie and that she was terrified of him. He doesn't need to know that she was so worried that he might assault her that she cloudless barely spend the night in the same room as him. The sex made her anxious and having his friends over made her more than uncomfortable but she did it for him. She handled it for him and now she's done. For every hundred things she did for him he's done one thing for her and she can't live this way anymore.

"No! He isn't allowed a warning. I'm not giving him that chance. He doesn't deserve it anymore."