Fall of Rome

It didn’t seem fair that Dylan and I had to pack up and leave, especially since I was just growing accustomed to waking up on this crazy almost-vacation. After everything we had been through on the insane trip, I had woken up with the two of lying comfortably in the bed together, side by side, which is something that would have been impossible not that long ago.

He was still sleeping when I woke up, but I thought it might be best for me to get a head start on packing my things since I had so much more to pack.

Unlike the times before when we packed up to go on a brand new adventure, this time we were packing up to go home. We would take one flight together that would land us back in the states before we’d take two separate flights – me back home and him back to California. We’d be apart once again, and I still wasn’t confident that our now shaky relationship would be able to survive the distance the way we’d been able to before.

I was just sitting up to pull the blanket off of me when Dylan stirred beside me, his heavy arm landing on top of my stomach. He used it to pull me over to him with his face shoved into the pillow, and I assumed he was still asleep until he spoke.

“Where do you think you’re going?” He muffled into the pillow, not looking up to me until he was done speaking. He had a groggy smile on his face and his eyes were still heavy.

“I was going to start packing,” I said softly as I pulled back the blanket again. Dylan just pulled it back up though and held onto me more tightly.

“Let’s just stay in bed all day.”

I chuckled, shaking my head at him. “We have to pack. Our flight leaves in…” I paused and looked to the clock before looking back at Dylan. “2 hours.”

“So we’ll just miss it,” Dylan said, matter-of-factly, and like that was all the answer I needed, he buried his head back into the pillow.

“We can’t just miss it.” I laughed again, rolling my eyes at him while I shifted in the bed. “We have to go back home.”

“I don’t want to go back home.”

I paused as I pressed my lips together, my gaze moving up to the ceiling. The last thing I wanted to do was go back home, which was strange because the first time we’d boarded the plane home was the only place I wanted to be.

There was nothing about home that I didn’t love, except the fact that Dylan wasn’t there. I still wasn’t in a place that I completely forgave him, but I wanted to so badly. I wanted to keep working on our relationship, but it would be so hard to do when we were miles apart.

“Dylan?” I said after a long pause, which caused him to look back at me from beneath his pillow. He was biting his lip and his eyebrows popped up as he spoke.

“Yes?”

“What - um – what’s going to happen when we get back home?”

This caused Dylan to sit straight up, and he was staring at me intently. “What do you mean?”

“You and me,” I said softly, looking down at the ruffled blankets before looking back at him. “What will happen with us?”

Dylan crossed his legs in front of him and scooted as close to me as he could. His hands reached out for mine, and he held my fingers gently in his while he spoke. “Whatever you want, El. Whatever you want.”

“It’s just – you have your filming and –”

“I’ll postpone it,” he quickly interrupted, shaking his head. “They did it once; they’ll do it again.”

“You can’t just –”

“I can, El. There’s other scenes they can film and they’re not going to just fire their biggest star.” Dylan paused, biting his lip as he looked at me. “Please, El, just let me do this one thing for you. Let’s go back to New Jersey together. I won’t be able to stay for long, but I can stay for a bit. Long enough, I hope.”

There were a few long moments while my thoughts turned over and over, and when I finally spoke, Dylan was hanging on my every word. “How long could you stay?”

“A week? Would a week be okay?”

I nodded my head softly, my lips pressed into a line. “A week sounds good.”

A smile fell to Dylan’s face and he immediately leaned forward, wrapping his arms around me as he pulled my in for a tight hug. My head fell comfortably on his shoulder and with every second that passed he was squeezing me tighter and tighter.

All I could do was lean into Dylan, because he just felt so warm and so like home. In that moment, he was the only thing that I wanted – the only person I wanted to be with – and that made me happier than anything else.

Dylan’s fingers were running through my hair, and there was a small chuckle in his voice while he spoke. “Can I tell you a secret?”

I was nervous, but still responded. “Sure.”

“I never bought a ticket back to Cali,” he said softly as he chuckled nervously in my ear. “Just two tickets to Jersey.”

I pulled away from Dylan quickly, laughing at him with my mouth wide open. “And what if I would have said no?”

Dylan just chuckled as he shrugged his shoulders. “What can I say? You’re stuck with me, El.”

I laughed again, and this time, I was the one who pulled him in for a hug, wanting so badly to feel his arms on me again, and the kiss me placed on my forehead was just the cherry on top.

It was strange, really. He had hurt me more than I ever thought he would, and it still killed me to think about what he had done, but behind all that there was still Dylan. There was still the Dylan that had driven 48 hours in the snow to see me on Christmas. There was still the Dylan that taught me how to ice skate, stayed up with me all night when I couldn’t sleep, and wrote me songs that he couldn’t sing. There was still the Dylan who had made life exponentially better than I ever thought it could be.

There was still the Dylan that I loved.