Dismissing Dakota | ✓

»32. Dilemma«

A/N: I double updated, so make sure you've already read chapter 31.

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Dakota's P.O.V.

I was still waiting for the day to come when I didn't have to bang on my brother's room, shouting for him to keep the noise down, to save me from my headaches. The girl inside now, screaming like a demented cat, wasn't Carmen and wasn't his last ex-girlfriend. She was a redhead, dressed in cosplay. I didn't know, and frankly didn't want to know, if it was his new fetish to fuck girls in costumes or if he had scooped her up from a nearby nerd convention. I was, though, happy that Ophelia never came to his apartment, spending a lot of her time with her grandmother.

"I'm trying to sleep!" I yelled.

I almost fell in when he unlocked the door, shirtless and sweating. "It's four in the afternoon. Go for a fucking drive. It's my apartment."

"I don't have gas money."

He growled, slamming the door shut, and then returning with his brown leather wallet. "How much money do you want?"

"A cool forty seems fitting."

"You don't drive a damn hummer."

"I wanted to get something to eat, too."

"Ugh, fine," he snickered, flinging two twenties at me.

...

I thought, for the most part, that I understood Silvia well enough, but that notion was thrown into the air when she messaged me out of the blue. She asked me to meet up with her at the mural I made of her for her birthday. I wiped the salt from my French fries off my fingers and quickly typed a reply. In no time, I backed out of the parking lot of the burger joint I was in, and speed into the main streets. I was in no real need to rush, but that didn't stop me from slowing down.

Tucked in the corner, Silvia stood with her back to the brick wall. I cruised to where she was, going for the keys to turn it off, but she had other plans. Silvia approached the car, opening the door and sliding into the passenger's seat. She was in black skinny jeans and a crop top, covered in a denim jacket that looked too familiar. I knew it was mine. Ineluctably, it sparked a smile in me that didn't want to disappear no matter how hard I fought against it.

"Hi." I said.

"Hi." She meekly echoed. "I'm not...I'm not sure what I'm meant to say."

"You don't have to say anything."

"I'm not good at this sort of stuff."

"What stuff?"

"Forgiving people," she revealed. "I don't know anyone in my life who's ever deserved forgiveness. When you've been walked all over by as many people as I have, including my own mother, it's hard to learn to trust. And it's even harder to trust when you messed up previously."

"I'm not asking you to trust me right away," I said in a hush voice, turning the car off swiftly, and cupping her hands in to mine. She flinched at first but didn't pull away or push me off. "I know it takes time to fully forgive someone."

"I don't know if I can get there."

"Eventually, I hope that we can, but you don't need to hurry the healing process."

Her eyes shut. "I want to hurry it. I want it to go back to normal, Dakota. You don't know how bad I want that. But I don't know if I can."

"Anything is possible, especially if I put in the effort to improve. And I want to. I need to..."