The Dating Game

It's been 2 years since Hailey was left with a broken heart when Dylan comes back to "fix" everything.

8 years ago

“Stop!” I cried, taking several steps back as I watched Dylan move closer to me, holding the ugly cockroach in his hand, dangling it from a wing. How the thing didn’t break apart and fall to the ground remained a mystery to my ten-year old self.

“Don’t be a girl, Hailey!” Dylan laughed, moving his hand as if he were going to throw the insect my way. I let out a loud shriek and jumped back. Dylan only laughed harder.

“You’re such a jerk!” I told him, frowning and crossing my arms over my chest. I had to act at least a little tough, didn’t I? I wasn’t a little girl anymore. I shouldn’t be scared of insects.

But they don’t scare me! They’re just… gross. Very, very gross. That’s the problem. Not fear. Just… pure disgust.

“And you’re such a baby,” he retorted, bringing the cockroach closer to his face as if to examine it closely. He turned it around several times as he watched it, fascinated by it. How could he be so mesmerized by an insect?! I mean, that can’t be normal.

“Let the thing go,” I ordered, still frowning as I looked at Dylan. He looked up at me as I spoke, then back at the insect in his hand, shrugged his shoulders, and just opened his hand, letting the thing fall to the floor.

It quickly scurried away, running in my direction for a second, which made me jump back. But the thing changed direction before getting too close. I relaxed as soon as it was gone.

“You know what? Now I have cockroach germs all over my hand…” Dylan said, looking down at his hand with a grin that worried me a little. He slowly raised his eyes to look at me, and just then did I catch up on what he wanted to do.

My ten year old self, of course, found the idea disgusting and started to run away, with Dylan chasing closely behind. I screamed for help, running as fast as I could, until I came to collide with someone. I didn’t even bother looking up and just wrapped my arms around whoever it was and hid behind the person.

“What are you two doing?” asked Dylan’s mom, who only then I realized was the person I was shielding myself with.

“He touched a cockroach!” I let out as Dylan stopped running, looking at his mom with a worried look.

“Dylan!” she exclaimed, looking disapprovingly at his son. “That is so unhygienic and disgusting! Go wash your hands immediately!”

“But mom"”

“Now!”

Dylan shot me a look full of hatred, which made a shiver run down my spine, then turned around and left.

We always fought. Always. It was our way of getting along, I guess. It wasn’t that we hated each other, really. It was that we simply enjoyed teasing each other. We could spend time without fighting and actually enjoy ourselves, but it wasn’t very common. After all, at ten, boys were still ‘gross’ to girls, right?

 

~*~

 

4 years later

“Do whatever you want,” I said, rolling my eyes as I turned back to look at my phone, trying to act like I didn’t care in the least about what he was saying. Because I really didn’t. I just had to convince myself that I didn’t. Did that even make sense? It didn’t sound like it.

Ugh.

“Everything’s stupid for you,” said Dylan. I heard him shift on the couch, and by the next second, my phone wasn’t in my hands anymore, which made me frown and look back at him. "Either that, or you simply don't care."

“Hey, give it back,” I said, trying not to raise my voice because I know that would just reel him up and we would probably end up in a fight. Like always.

“I’m trying to ask for advice and you keep texting,” he told me with a frown. “That’s kind of rude.”

“You sound so much like a girl right now.” I said with a frown. “Can I have my phone back?”

He glared at me and shoved my phone into his jeans, frowning. Not even the pocket of his jeans, just… his jeans. “No.”

“That is so disgusting and immature, oh my god. Give it back!”

“My love-life depends on your advice and you keep texting while I’m basically begging you for help? That’s not being a very good friend, you know?”

I frowned as I looked at him. He really did look helpless. He had been rambling about this one girl for the last two months, asking me if he should actually make a move, and I always kept avoiding the subject because it was somewhat uncomfortable to talk about something like that with my best friend.

For some reason, whenever he brought her up, I felt really uneasy and I just felt an irrational need to make him shut up about her. But he just never did shut up about her. Somehow, he always managed to bring her up again, and it was the most frustrating thing ever.

I let out a sigh and let my shoulders slump. “What?”

“I asked you if you think I should tell her or just forget about her,” he said, frowning now.

“Tell her,” I said simply, shrugging. “Can I have my phone back now so I can burn it or something?”

“No!” Dylan said quickly. “That doesn’t help me at all! You’re supposed to encourage me, not sound like you’re doing this just for your phone.”

“But I am doing this just for my poor, poor phone that is currently in contact with your dick, probably,” I admitted, raising my eyebrows. Dylan’s frown became more notorious and he narrowed his eyes at me and reached his hand into his jeans. He threw my phone in my lap, quite angrily if I may add.

“And now you’re pissed." I pointed out with a roll of eyes. It’s not that I didn’t care. I just hated that he got pissed over things like this. Didn’t he get the idea? Didn’t he realize I hated talking about this girl he liked so darn much? It just wasn’t fair.

“You clearly don’t care about me or my problems, so I’ll just leave you and your phone alone,” he said, sounding like a girl he sometimes was, making a move to stand up from the couch.

But what?! I didn’t want him to leave! I just wanted him to stop talking about her… Hey!

“No, wait!” I said, holding onto his arm before he could actually walk away. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I just… I really don’t like talking about that. But don’t leave.”

He looked back at me. He seemed to actually be debating on weather staying or just walking away. So I did what I knew I could always use against him. I put on my best puppy dog face.

“Hailey, that’s not going to work, you know?” he asked, quickly catching up on my plan.

I hated how he knew me so well.

“What isn’t going to work?” I asked, trying to act oblivious.

He rolled his eyes, but popped back down on the couch. I immediately switched the puppy dog face to a huge grin. But it didn’t last long, because a smirk appeared on his lips. I smirk I knew all-too well. Uh-oh…

“Why don’t you like talking about that?” he asked me. My face dropped. I couldn’t hold his gaze anymore, so looked at the spot next to his blue eyes, trying to act like the question didn’t affect me, even though it stirred something in my stomach and I felt my cheeks warm up.

“Because I simply don’t,” I said, shrugging my shoulders and turning back around, towards the Tv that had been on the whole while, even though neither of us was watching. They were showing a rerun of some crappy show that had been airing far too long already.

“I thought girls liked talking about those things." Dylan pressed, nudging my shoulder softly with his. I turned to glare at him. What on earth is the guy implying?!

“Well, I don’t,” I said sternly, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Something bothering you, Hay?” he asked me. I wasn’t looking at him, but I could actually hear the smirk in his voice. I hate him.

“Shut up,” I said with a frown, still not turning around to look at him.

But my plan of not looking at him failed when he placed a hand on my chin, turning me around to look at him. I had to meet his eyes. I had to meet the piercing blue of his eyes. Is it me or do they look like they’re shining? Is that what you say when the color suddenly looks much more striking?

“Are you jealous or something, Hay?” he was smirking. His smirk was so darn big that it looked a bit deranged.

Jealous? Jealous of this mystery girl whose name I didn’t even know? Jealous why? I simply didn’t like it when he brought her up. But it’s not like this girl had ever done anything to me. It didn’t make sense that I hated the topic so much. But jealous? Of this girl? That was simply ridiculous.

“I’m not jealous, come on,” I said, frowning as I stared at him. But I couldn’t look away, not only because he was still holding my face to keep me looking at him, but because the blue of his eyes had me sort of caught up there. Had they always been this blue?

“Explain why you’re blushing, then,” he said smugly, the smirk never leaving his face.

That was it. I pushed his hand away, frowning and turning around, finally snapping out of whatever sort of trance I had been in before. I’m not blushing. He’s just trying to make this whole situation awkward for me.

I heard him chuckle, which made me frown even more. The idiot.

“Hailey?” he asked me, still chuckling annoyingly.

I turned to look at him, glaring as much as I could, showing him how angry I was at him right now. It didn’t make sense to be mad at him, I know it didn’t, but I still couldn’t help it.

But I don’t even think he caught my glare. I don’t think he caught anything from my pissed off expression, whatsoever. Because as soon as I had turned to face him, he pressed his lips against mine, catching me completely off guard.

 

~*~

 

2 years later

“I’m gonna miss you,” I told him, my back pressed against the frame of the door, watching sadly as the man from the moving company grabbed yet another big brown box to place in the truck.

“I’m gonna miss you too,” Dylan told me, not bothering to hide the sadness in his face.

I hated this. I hated that he was going away to the other side of the country. And that for all I knew, he was not coming back. And believe me, I didn’t want that.

“You’ll visit, right?” I asked him, staring right into his perfect blue eyes. I didn’t like the idea of not seeing those every day… I just couldn’t take it.

I’d basically spent my whole life with him, and now he’s just leaving out of nowhere for this contract he was offered in LA.

Not that I wasn’t happy for him. I’m thrilled, actually. Dylan has always loved singing and playing guitar, and he’s exceptionally good at it, and when a couple of years ago he decided he wanted to give it a shot, we had all encouraged him and helped him with anything we could. And now finally his dream was coming true. Only his dream required moving across the country.

But hey, sometimes you just have to sacrifice some things, right?

“Every chance I get,” he told me, smiling a small side smile. I smiled a little too, even though on the inside, I wanted to cry.

“And you’ll call?”  I added, raising a hand and passing it through his hair absentmindedly. It was a weird habit I had. But you couldn’t blame me! He had the best hair someone could have. It was so soft and so silky and so… perfect.

“Every single day,” he assured me, pecking me on the lips.

“I hope so,” I said sternly. “Unless you want me to randomly turn up in LA to kick your a*s.”

He chuckled, his arm snaking around my waist as he came closer to me. It didn’t matter our parents were just standing on the garden while we were standing in the doorway on full view. These were our last moments together in god-knows-how-long, and I was sure our parents wouldn’t mind. And if they did… well, that’s just too bad.

“I’d love it if you randomly turned up on LA to kick my a*s, though,” he said, smiling as our foreheads made contact. I rolled my eyes at him, and by the next second, his lips were against mine. But this didn’t feel like the usual kisses we shared"this was a goodbye kiss. That much was obvious.

Long distance relationships never worked, no matter how hard the people involved tried. This was the end. That was obvious. And this was going to hurt like hell.

That, too, was obvious.Chapter 1 " Last Kiss

 

8 years ago

“Stop!” I cried, taking several steps back as I watched Dylan move closer to me, holding the ugly cockroach in his hand, dangling it from a wing. How the thing didn’t break apart and fall to the ground remained a mystery to my ten-year old self.

“Don’t be a girl, Hailey!” Dylan laughed, moving his hand as if he were going to throw the insect my way. I let out a loud shriek and jumped back. Dylan only laughed harder.

“You’re such a jerk!” I told him, frowning and crossing my arms over my chest. I had to act at least a little tough, didn’t I? I wasn’t a little girl anymore. I shouldn’t be scared of insects.

But they don’t scare me! They’re just… gross. Very, very gross. That’s the problem. Not fear. Just… pure disgust.

“And you’re such a baby,” he retorted, bringing the cockroach closer to his face as if to examine it closely. He turned it around several times as he watched it, fascinated by it. How could he be so mesmerized by an insect?! I mean, that can’t be normal.

“Let the thing go,” I ordered, still frowning as I looked at Dylan. He looked up at me as I spoke, then back at the insect in his hand, shrugged his shoulders, and just opened his hand, letting the thing fall to the floor.

It quickly scurried away, running in my direction for a second, which made me jump back. But the thing changed direction before getting too close. I relaxed as soon as it was gone.

“You know what? Now I have cockroach germs all over my hand…” Dylan said, looking down at his hand with a grin that worried me a little. He slowly raised his eyes to look at me, and just then did I catch up on what he wanted to do.

My ten year old self, of course, found the idea disgusting and started to run away, with Dylan chasing closely behind. I screamed for help, running as fast as I could, until I came to collide with someone. I didn’t even bother looking up and just wrapped my arms around whoever it was and hid behind the person.

“What are you two doing?” asked Dylan’s mom, who only then I realized was the person I was shielding myself with.

“He touched a cockroach!” I let out as Dylan stopped running, looking at his mom with a worried look.

“Dylan!” she exclaimed, looking disapprovingly at his son. “That is so unhygienic and disgusting! Go wash your hands immediately!”

“But mom"”

“Now!”

Dylan shot me a look full of hatred, which made a shiver run down my spine, then turned around and left.

We always fought. Always. It was our way of getting along, I guess. It wasn’t that we hated each other, really. It was that we simply enjoyed teasing each other. We could spend time without fighting and actually enjoy ourselves, but it wasn’t very common. After all, at ten, boys were still ‘gross’ to girls, right?

 

~*~

 

4 years later

“Do whatever you want,” I said, rolling my eyes as I turned back to look at my phone, trying to act like I didn’t care in the least about what he was saying. Because I really didn’t. I just had to convince myself that I didn’t. Did that even make sense? It didn’t sound like it.

Ugh.

“Everything’s stupid for you,” said Dylan. I heard him shift on the couch, and by the next second, my phone wasn’t in my hands anymore, which made me frown and look back at him. "Either that, or you simply don't care."

“Hey, give it back,” I said, trying not to raise my voice because I know that would just reel him up and we would probably end up in a fight. Like always.

“I’m trying to ask for advice and you keep texting,” he told me with a frown. “That’s kind of rude.”

“You sound so much like a girl right now.” I said with a frown. “Can I have my phone back?”

He glared at me and shoved my phone into his jeans, frowning. Not even the pocket of his jeans, just… his jeans. “No.”

“That is so disgusting and immature, oh my god. Give it back!”

“My love-life depends on your advice and you keep texting while I’m basically begging you for help? That’s not being a very good friend, you know?”

I frowned as I looked at him. He really did look helpless. He had been rambling about this one girl for the last two months, asking me if he should actually make a move, and I always kept avoiding the subject because it was somewhat uncomfortable to talk about something like that with my best friend.

For some reason, whenever he brought her up, I felt really uneasy and I just felt an irrational need to make him shut up about her. But he just never did shut up about her. Somehow, he always managed to bring her up again, and it was the most frustrating thing ever.

I let out a sigh and let my shoulders slump. “What?”

“I asked you if you think I should tell her or just forget about her,” he said, frowning now.

“Tell her,” I said simply, shrugging. “Can I have my phone back now so I can burn it or something?”

“No!” Dylan said quickly. “That doesn’t help me at all! You’re supposed to encourage me, not sound like you’re doing this just for your phone.”

“But I am doing this just for my poor, poor phone that is currently in contact with your dick, probably,” I admitted, raising my eyebrows. Dylan’s frown became more notorious and he narrowed his eyes at me and reached his hand into his jeans. He threw my phone in my lap, quite angrily if I may add.

“And now you’re pissed." I pointed out with a roll of eyes. It’s not that I didn’t care. I just hated that he got pissed over things like this. Didn’t he get the idea? Didn’t he realize I hated talking about this girl he liked so darn much? It just wasn’t fair.

“You clearly don’t care about me or my problems, so I’ll just leave you and your phone alone,” he said, sounding like a girl he sometimes was, making a move to stand up from the couch.

But what?! I didn’t want him to leave! I just wanted him to stop talking about her… Hey!

“No, wait!” I said, holding onto his arm before he could actually walk away. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I just… I really don’t like talking about that. But don’t leave.”

He looked back at me. He seemed to actually be debating on weather staying or just walking away. So I did what I knew I could always use against him. I put on my best puppy dog face.

“Hailey, that’s not going to work, you know?” he asked, quickly catching up on my plan.

I hated how he knew me so well.

“What isn’t going to work?” I asked, trying to act oblivious.

He rolled his eyes, but popped back down on the couch. I immediately switched the puppy dog face to a huge grin. But it didn’t last long, because a smirk appeared on his lips. I smirk I knew all-too well. Uh-oh…

“Why don’t you like talking about that?” he asked me. My face dropped. I couldn’t hold his gaze anymore, so looked at the spot next to his blue eyes, trying to act like the question didn’t affect me, even though it stirred something in my stomach and I felt my cheeks warm up.

“Because I simply don’t,” I said, shrugging my shoulders and turning back around, towards the Tv that had been on the whole while, even though neither of us was watching. They were showing a rerun of some crappy show that had been airing far too long already.

“I thought girls liked talking about those things." Dylan pressed, nudging my shoulder softly with his. I turned to glare at him. What on earth is the guy implying?!

“Well, I don’t,” I said sternly, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Something bothering you, Hay?” he asked me. I wasn’t looking at him, but I could actually hear the smirk in his voice. I hate him.

“Shut up,” I said with a frown, still not turning around to look at him.

But my plan of not looking at him failed when he placed a hand on my chin, turning me around to look at him. I had to meet his eyes. I had to meet the piercing blue of his eyes. Is it me or do they look like they’re shining? Is that what you say when the color suddenly looks much more striking?

“Are you jealous or something, Hay?” he was smirking. His smirk was so darn big that it looked a bit deranged.

Jealous? Jealous of this mystery girl whose name I didn’t even know? Jealous why? I simply didn’t like it when he brought her up. But it’s not like this girl had ever done anything to me. It didn’t make sense that I hated the topic so much. But jealous? Of this girl? That was simply ridiculous.

“I’m not jealous, come on,” I said, frowning as I stared at him. But I couldn’t look away, not only because he was still holding my face to keep me looking at him, but because the blue of his eyes had me sort of caught up there. Had they always been this blue?

“Explain why you’re blushing, then,” he said smugly, the smirk never leaving his face.

That was it. I pushed his hand away, frowning and turning around, finally snapping out of whatever sort of trance I had been in before. I’m not blushing. He’s just trying to make this whole situation awkward for me.

I heard him chuckle, which made me frown even more. The idiot.

“Hailey?” he asked me, still chuckling annoyingly.

I turned to look at him, glaring as much as I could, showing him how angry I was at him right now. It didn’t make sense to be mad at him, I know it didn’t, but I still couldn’t help it.

But I don’t even think he caught my glare. I don’t think he caught anything from my pissed off expression, whatsoever. Because as soon as I had turned to face him, he pressed his lips against mine, catching me completely off guard.

 

~*~

 

2 years later

“I’m gonna miss you,” I told him, my back pressed against the frame of the door, watching sadly as the man from the moving company grabbed yet another big brown box to place in the truck.

“I’m gonna miss you too,” Dylan told me, not bothering to hide the sadness in his face.

I hated this. I hated that he was going away to the other side of the country. And that for all I knew, he was not coming back. And believe me, I didn’t want that.

“You’ll visit, right?” I asked him, staring right into his perfect blue eyes. I didn’t like the idea of not seeing those every day… I just couldn’t take it.

I’d basically spent my whole life with him, and now he’s just leaving out of nowhere for this contract he was offered in LA.

Not that I wasn’t happy for him. I’m thrilled, actually. Dylan has always loved singing and playing guitar, and he’s exceptionally good at it, and when a couple of years ago he decided he wanted to give it a shot, we had all encouraged him and helped him with anything we could. And now finally his dream was coming true. Only his dream required moving across the country.

But hey, sometimes you just have to sacrifice some things, right?

“Every chance I get,” he told me, smiling a small side smile. I smiled a little too, even though on the inside, I wanted to cry.

“And you’ll call?”  I added, raising a hand and passing it through his hair absentmindedly. It was a weird habit I had. But you couldn’t blame me! He had the best hair someone could have. It was so soft and so silky and so… perfect.

“Every single day,” he assured me, pecking me on the lips.

“I hope so,” I said sternly. “Unless you want me to randomly turn up in LA to kick your a*s.”

He chuckled, his arm snaking around my waist as he came closer to me. It didn’t matter our parents were just standing on the garden while we were standing in the doorway on full view. These were our last moments together in god-knows-how-long, and I was sure our parents wouldn’t mind. And if they did… well, that’s just too bad.

“I’d love it if you randomly turned up on LA to kick my a*s, though,” he said, smiling as our foreheads made contact. I rolled my eyes at him, and by the next second, his lips were against mine. But this didn’t feel like the usual kisses we shared"this was a goodbye kiss. That much was obvious.

Long distance relationships never worked, no matter how hard the people involved tried. This was the end. That was obvious. And this was going to hurt like hell.

That, too, was obvious.