Down The Highway

Chapter Seventeen

Dylan was reading my essay too seriously but because of his frowns, I noticed that he has been struggling to understand my handwriting. It was not that bad. Or was it? His handwriting was honestly better than mine but I wasn't also able to read it. And underneath his not-so-neat handwriting was a message that I have been trying to figure out.

Sometimes, because of your personality, people end up not believing you. I am Dylan Matthews. A 22-year-old student from New York. A lot of people in school call me a bad boy and I like it. Girls have been chasing me and I like the attention they give to me even if my grades are the lowest. I don't care about that as long as people love me.

But, one person doesn't. The one I love the most. Let's hide her name under 'Jane' or 'Jace' she has been my classmate since high school and the first time I saw her, I knew how much I loved her. I have been showing a lot of flirty stuff to her but seems like I am not her type.

It seems like she liked no one but her best friend who doesn't even also pay attention to me when I ask for her help to get Jane. And if there is a lesson I learned from this memorable experience is that some people will like you and some will don't no matter how hard you try.

After reading his short essay, I already knew that I was the one who he have hidden under the name of 'Jane' and 'Jace' and so I glanced at him but he seemed too serious in reading the text I've written. Because he has always been flirty and rude to me, I was unsure if he was kidding with his story or he was being serious. Once he noticed me looking at him, he looked up at me and smiled. There he went again. The demon possessed him again. "What? Am I too handsome for your eyes?"

He said confidently. I tried to play his game, so I leaned at the back of the revolving chair and smiled devilishly as if I was a darn psychopath. "Do you like me, Dylan?" I asked and he started to touch my legs but I immediately removed them then he said, "isn't it obvious darling?" I smiled again.

By that time, I have been dying in confusion. I was wondering if I were to obey Xanny or not. I looked at Dylan as my only hope to figure out who Xanny is and what does she want from me. "So, if you like me, then come to my house tomorrow. I'll call you when and where" then smiled again while rocking the chair. He nodded with an evil smile then asked, "will we do something exciting?"

I rolled my eyes playfully then flipped my hair. "More than just exciting, so be ready" I was planning to do something with him and use him to figure out who is Xanny. "But for now, let's focus on our project" I smiled normally after acting that I was out of myself. "I'm hungry, can you order a pizza or something else?" I asked. Then he stood and made his way to the door, "everything for my future wife" he winked, but it was so stinky and disgusting like a portion of food for pigs.

I stood too and took advantage of that moment to search around his room. I went to his bed and grabbed the picture frame I'd seen before which he threw there. I looked at it carefully and once I was convinced that the guy with him was our professor who passed away, I decided to search for some more. I went to open his closet but all I saw were shirts, pants, socks, and some underwear.

So I quickly made my way back to his desk and kept on searching. Then beside his desk was a bookshelf. I browsed through some books then found something odd. I lend it out and noticed that it was a photo album. I opened it. And it was filled with pictures of him and our old professor. One of those was a picture of him carrying Dylan when he was a baby. I just realized that he was Dylan's father. But I never heard of that thing from him nor his father.

They don't show their relationship as a father-son in school. They're like strangers and most of the time, he gets mad at Dylan for doing a lot of nonsense things. I kept on turning the pages of the thick photo album and looked for more pictures of Dylan with his dad but before I even finished browsing in the whole album, I felt someone's footsteps as he entered.

Then he yelled at me, "what the heck are you doing? I said don't touch anything!!!" He immediately ran to me and grabbed the photo album from my hands as he placed it back on the shelf. He seemed very disappointed as he looked down and took a deep sigh. "Sorry," he said and stood up. His arrogance diminished when he looked weak just because of a photo album. "I should be the one to say that," I said but he ignored my words as if he didn't hear them.

"Here's your pizza. Enjoy" he said reluctantly while sitting next to me and put away the papers scattered on his desk and turned off his laptop. I kept wondering why he tried to hide his relationship with our former professor who could be called his dad. "Just know that you can always talk to me about it, it's just for us," I said with a sense of being unsure while thinking of what he would say next.

"Doesn't mean I like you, you should take advantage of me already" out of being stunned, the only thing I did was just to gulp not knowing that underneath his flirty personality that I hated so much were lots of walls of trust issues and walls of pain.