Written in the Stars (W.I.P.)

Chapter 7 (Dean)

I woke up and got out of bed, ignoring the constant memories of that night at the boat that took residence rent-free within my mind.
He kissed me... and I kissed him back...
I grabbed my phone from my nightstand and shoved it into the pocket of the jeans I ended up sleeping in.
I was too busy thinking about Rhys that night to do anything else, like get into anything other than normal-day clothes.
I quickly made my way down the stairs and into the living room.
My hand clutched the front door handle as I got ready to walk outside.
A hand grabbed my shoulder and I tried hard not to flinch.
The grab wasn't particularly aggressive, but you never know.
"Hey Dean, where you headed?"
As the voice flooded into my ears, I realized that I no longer needed to be afraid.
I whipped around and looked her in the eyes.
"Hello Skye."
"Off with the Dawn boy again?" She asked, keeping her voice low so nobody else heard.
I rolled my eyes and nodded my head, shrugging her hand off of my shoulder.
"Could I come with? I'd love to see him again after all of these years."
I hesitated for a moment before giving a nod of agreement and letting her walk out before me.
After she was already outside, I took one more look into the living room.
Julien sat on the couch with his phone in his hand, paying us no mind.
No one else was in the room, so I quickly made my way outside and shut the door behind us.

When we reached the park, Rhys's dad's car already sat in the parking lot and I parked my shiny black motorcycle beside his car.
Skye hopped off in one swift motion, throwing her helmet off and waiting for me to do the same.

We walked along the stone pathway and made our way toward the swing set.
"Isn't this you and Gage's spot?" Skye asked with precise observation skills as we came closer to the structure.
"Well, yeah, but I'm sure he wouldn't mind."
Skye didn't look so sure about that.

As we approached the swings, Rhys sat peacefully with a cone of vanilla ice cream in his hand from the ice cream cart by the front of the park with the other concession carts.
For some reason that was cute to me, and I smiled.
I sat down beside him, Skye sitting down on the swing on my other side, and looked over at him.
"Hello."
"Greetings. It's very nice to see you- both of you." He said, leaning over, with a firm grip on the ice cream cone, to look at my naturally light blue-haired little sister.
She gave a single wave and went back to staring forward, swinging lightly back and forth.
"It feels like so long since I've sat down with the one and only young Silvers girl." Rhys said with a straight-face, no emotion readable in his expression.
Skye nodded, and I could tell she didn't care much.
"Yep, nice to see you too. I'm gonna go grab a drink." She said, hopping up from her swing beside me.
"You're fourteen." I said, standing and taking one step toward her.
"And?" She continued to walk away in the direction of the concession stands, and I sighed and sat back down.
Shaking my head, I closed my eyes and thought about what my father would've had to say about this.
"She's a lot more... rebellious... since the last time I saw her..." Rhys said, his gaze still fixed in the direction she walked away.
"I know. She was diagnosed with leukemia cancer recently and now all she wants to do is live her best life while she still can," I said distantly, following his gaze and staring the same way he was, "her words, not mine."
Rhys's hand tightened around the chain of the swing. "I'm so sorry-" He started, but I cut him off, looking down at my hands in my lap.
"It's okay. I've seen worse reactions, I mean it. From myself... from my brothers..." I paused, fixing my gaze
to him, "...from my father. Trust me, there's always a worse. And for the record, I don't even want to talk about Skye right now."
Rhys collected himself and nodded once.
"Ok."
There was a moment of silence between us before he spoke up, "So, you don't drink."
"What makes you think I don't?" I smirked.
"You warned Skye that she's underaged. You're sixteen, therefore so are you."
"Well played. And yes actually, I have drank, I'm just protective of her. Have you?"
Rhys looked at me, rolling his eyes.
"What kind of man do you think I am, Silvers?"
For some reason, when he called me my last name, my heart fluttered. Kind of like how it did when Gage kissed me, but... it felt even better somehow with Rhys.
"A very good one." I said, looking him in the eyes and basking in the small smile blooming on his face.
There was silence between us, and I knew that I was only using that conversation as a distraction from everything.
From my father, the scars on my arms and legs and back and chest from all the times he had abused me, my mother and how she only knew how to run from her problems and was never around, my brothers, aside from Ian, and their terrible mental states, my boyfriend, and my sister and her cancer.
And Rhys knew it.
The attractive, dark-skinned man beside me sighed and shook his head, his gaze fixing on me.
"How have you been? Father business aside."
"I feel the same all the time. Numb, sick, depressed. So basically, I feel like shit, to say the least." That's what I always said to everyone, anyway.
"I get it. Believe me."
I wondered in that moment what Rhys Dawn goes through when nobody's watching, when nobody's around.
"Hey Dean...?" Rhys leaned over the chain holding up the wooden swing.
I looked over, meeting his eyes.
"Yeah?"
There was a pause, the silence loud, and I could tell Rhys was contemplating continuing the sentence.
"Are you okay?"
Something in me shifted, and I felt hot tears running down the sides of my face.
Shit! I thought, trying to maintain control of the situation.
Rhys stood, dropping his ice cream cone purposefully, and moved in front of me, blocking me from anyone else around us in the park.
He leaned over and kissed me, his lips hot against mine, and I leaned into him, embracing it.
For some reason, even though it was so wrong, it felt so right.
The thought of Gage dissolved from my mind as Rhys slipped his hand into my hair and let his other hand under my shirt, laying it on the small of my back, making me flinch.
I pulled away, enjoying the feel of his warm hands on my body for a moment longer, before grabbing both of his hands and gently placing them back to his sides.
When I looked back up at him, his eyes were wide and his dark face was bright red.
"I- I'm so sorry! That was not right whatsoever and I should never have done that!"
I wanted to tell him that it was okay and bring my lips back to his, but I had a boyfriend, and that wouldn't have been right in the slightest.
"Yeah." I said coldly, getting up and pushing past him, walking in the direction of the concession stands to get Skye.
When I arrived at the snack carts, I spotted her at a bench across the park with a bottle of bourbon in her hand.
I made my way across the clearing and grabbed her arm, standing her up.
The bottle dropped from her hand and shattered to the ground at her feet.
"Great. You made me drop my bourbon, Dean!" She cried sluggishly, slurring her words as I dragged her toward the motorcycle.
Skye stumbled in her steps and I sat her down on the vehicle and strapped her helmet onto her head, holding her in place with my left hand and steering with the other as I started driving, thinking of Rhys and Rhys alone.

I parked the motorcycle on the side of the road and took Skye's helmet off of her.
"What're you doing...?" She asked skeptically as I grabbed her by the waist and lifted her off of the motorcycle, putting her down on the soft green grass.
"I need you to throw up." I said, grabbing her arm and softening my grip on it.
"You need me to what?!"
Every young Silverlight is terrified of vomiting, that was just a normal fact in our house, so I knew I was asking a lot of her.
"I need you to throw up the alcohol in your system so father doesn't see you like that. He'll beat me until I pass out. Please Skye." I didn't mean to sound as defeated as I did, but Skye didn't care, and neither did I.
Skye looked at me, then down at the grass.
"Ok." She said sluggishly, but confidently. "Ok! I can do this, I can do this, I can do this!"
She knelt down in the grass and looked back at me.
"You... you might wanna go wait by the motorcycle... unless you wanna see this... and hear this..." She gave me a knowing look, and I nodded.
I stepped back quickly and sat down on my motorcycle, covering my ears like a wimp and waiting for her to tap me on the shoulder, like we always did when one of us was sick.
After a while, I felt a light tap on my shoulder and I uncovered my ears, opening my eyes.
"Are you... okay?" I asked, she managed not to get anything on her shirt, but her mouth was lined with puke.
I swiftly wiped her mouth with my sleeve and placed my hand back on the handle bar.
"I'm fine, like always. Skye Silverlight isn't afraid of anything." She sounded exhausted, and I felt terrible, but I drove home quickly.