Billboards and Benches

Chapter 49

"Dylan you can't keep ignoring me. I leave next week." He whispers and her eyes fall. She can barely look at him. The most she's spoken to him was when Katie and Ryan showed up with a group of other people anxious for the departure of the platoon. "We should talk babe." He wraps his arms around her waist while she cooks. Their kitchen is usually full with laughter or music or conversation and for the last three weeks it's been silent. She won't even play the music she loves oh so much in the background. She's just been sitting in silence cooking dinner and then eating it without a single word. He hasn't heard her speak in weeks. Her therapist is nervous about it, her parents are mad at him, and he doesn't know what to do. He can't sit in the house without hearing her. He can't sit next to her without touching her. "Baby girl I leave in one week and you haven't said anything to me. My last memory of you is going to be silence." He huffs sitting himself at the table. She set it already. A beer for him and a glass of scotch for her. She doesn't normally drink such a strong liquor but it's all she's been drinking lately. "I talked to a lawyer today about my will." He whispers and she chokes on her scotch. She looks at the food in front of them and walks off. He know he should've eased her into it but it seemed so hard. She would've never listened.

"You're an ass you know that? A terrible selfish arrogant ass!" She yells. She downs the rest of her drink pouring out the last few drops in the bottle she opened this morning.

"How much have you had to drink?" He looks at her droopy expression and the uneasy way she carries herself. "I got my will updated babe." She isn't as drunk as he would've hoped. As horrible as it sounds he could've held her if she was drunk. Maybe even gotten a few words out of her but she isn't as drunk as he wanted her to be so he's hearing nothing. "I wanted to take some of the pressure off of you. You know that you're the only stable person in my life so everything I have goes to you. It isn't much but it all goes to you. I filled out my medical directive so that you don't have to worry about me." He pulls her in and though it only lasts a moment he manages to catch a whiff of her familiar scent. He managed to catch a moment of her attention. He manages to catch her eye just for a second. He manages to catch her pain for just a minute before she shut him away from it all.

"You think that you're gonna die?" She looks over at him. "You are throwing yourself out and into a situation that you think is going to kill you!" She screams and his eyes go wide. She has kept her mouth shut. She's been quiet and on edge for the last week and a half. She's listened to him talking to her when he thought she was asleep. She's listened to him talking to himself when she's in the shower. She's listened to him over and over again explain plans and give her the most heartfelt apologies only to tell her that he's going to matter what.

"I don't think it will. I think I'm trained well enough to live in those conditions. But I want to take as much pressure off of you as I possibly can. So yeah updating my will and filling out my medical directive seemed like the right thing to do. If you'd spoken to me at all in the last week maybe you would know that." He huffs sitting himself down on the couch. He's angry with her and annoyed at the fact that she thinks she can just write him off. She'll ignore him until it's convenient for her and maybe that way she can force him to stay with her.

"I haven't talked to you because," she pauses for a moment and sits down next to him. "I figured if I don't talk to you now then we'll have something to talk about when you get home." She worms her way underneath his arm. "If I talk too much now then when you get home I might not be here. I might not have anything left to say." She whispers moving closer and closer to him as best she can. "If I don't say anything then I have a lot to say when you get back."

"We will have lots to talk about when I get back! We always find things to talk about." He pulls her in close. He knows she's worried and she has been since she found out. He knows that every second he spends away gives her more problems than he could ever understand. He knows that she isn't prepared to let him go yet but he also knows that his baby girl loves him and she'll let him go to be happy.