Lighthouse Lullaby | ✓

Part 9 | Thursday, 24th September

There is this nagging feeling inside my chest. An itch I can't scratch, a pain I can't ignore.

I know that things started to change ever since I found Dylan Frost at my lighthouse. But this fact really sunk in at lunch today.

I had just spent forty minutes listening to my Literature teacher give a pep talk that wasn't part of the curriculum. I don't even know what spurred it on, but the woman just stopped her lesson mid-way and started talking about how we all need to be 'glass-half-full' kind of people. (Honestly, I'm more of a I-don't-give-a-shit-how-much-water-is-in-the-glass kind of person.) When the bell rang for lunch, my class and I bolted out of the room like our lives depended on it.

I was sitting at my regular table at the cafeteria with a plate of pasta (which had some green stuff in it that was either mold or broccoli. I hoped it was the former) and a questionable carton of OJ.

The dynamics of my cafeteria table is so complex that only a thesis would do it justice. Basically, Evy Thomas and I are permanent members, but the rest (Patrick O'Donnell and some other loose acquaintances) come and go in rotation. It took painstaking effort and a lot of patience to build this system.

So, you can imagine my shock when I discovered Evy sitting next to Parker Lee instead. She still looked like she had been in the path of a steamroller with her all-over-the-place hair, shabby clothes and puffy eyes.

At which point I first thought, Well, shit.

Then, I thought, Great. First, I'm seeing Dylan Frost at my lighthouse every night, and now, Evy Thomas won't sit at my table. What's next? Greasy Bitch dying her hair black and declaring herself emo?

The nagging itch got so bad that I couldn't stomach the rest of my lunch. I dumped my tray and stormed out of the cafeteria, hating the feeling of my world crumbling again.

***

My discomfort from earlier today has spiraled into a raging headache that the lighthouse fails to soothe. And I can't tell if Dylan Frost (looking a little better than yesterday) is helping or hurting.

What the fuck is happening to me?

Dylan's presence scares and delights me, all at once. This contradiction is tearing me in two from the inside out. Being in the lighthouse with him feels like insomnia; I'm in a perpetual state of being neither asleep nor awake. I'm stuck in between feeling fantastic and miserable.

At the eye of this shit storm is the music that Dylan offers to share with me. Earphones plugged in, eyes on the sky, lungfuls of sea breeze. But this composure lasts for all of two seconds before I recognize the song.

I haven't heard it in months, but every chord, every note, every word has been seared into my brain. Because this is one of 'The Top Five'. It's one of those songs that you commit to memory unwittingly. When you hear it again after a long time, you feel nostalgic, comforted and a little sad for all the days that have passed.

"No, I can't do this," I shake my head, my eyes lowered to Dylan's white t-shirt fluttering in the wind.

I reach up to pull the earphones out, but he anticipates my move. A jolt shoots down my spine when his hands press against the sides of my head, trapping the earphones in my ears. His fingers slip between the strands of my (naturally straight and naturally boring) hair. I can sense his pulse where his wrists rest against my cheeks.

Paralyzed, I have no choice but to obey when Dylan's lips form the word, "Listen."

I can't pay any attention to the song. It slips to the back of my mind as I watch Dylan from the corner of my eyes. (How can his hands be so warm on such a cold night?)

When he's sure that I won't unplug the earphones, Dylan withdraws his hands. I keep waiting for the relief to come in the absence of his touch, but I'm met only with an icy breeze that stings my skin.

It takes me too long to recover and focus on the music. When the song plays for the fourth time, I'm finally able to absorb it. It's painful to listen to something that is so close to everything I'm trying to forget. But as the song fades to an end, Dylan gives me the kind of smile I haven't seen in a really long time.

Crinkly eyes, dimples and wide lips. It's a smile that — if you're lucky enough to see it — makes you feel special.

I find myself starting to dwell on my eagerness to see that smile again. I shake my head before pressing a button on his phone to increase the volume.

"Again."

Another smile.

The music consumes me once more. I have to look away from Dylan because the salt in the air is making my eyes water.

No, no, no.

No tears, no weakness. I've held it in this long.

It's impossible to silence the pain that the song brings. It's too close to the past, to Dylan Frost and to the part of my heart I lost.

But I listen anyway.