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After dancing their hearts out, Del grabs Wayne and pulls him outside into the school's parking lot for a breather. They walk in a comfortable silence until Del stops because of the way her mind is racing. Wayne came back for her. He came to the dance for her.
She wrings her hands together as she blurts out, “Who even are we now?”
Wayne gives her a quizzical look.
“I mean, what are we going to do after we find the car? We haven’t really talked about that… are we going back to school? Are we dropouts now?” She is rambling. “I just really want to go to this dance because I didn’t know if we’d ever have the chance to do something like this. So, thank you for coming.”
She gives Wayne a small smile, but he only looks dejected. It’s a strange emotion to see etched on his face.
“I got scared,” Wayne says, and she notices how he swallows thickly. “Seeing you at that nice school and with friends who have fancy houses… you looked happy.”
“It was one house,” Del tries to joke.
“I just don’t want to take you away from a life that you might like, or maybe want.”
“It’s not like I want to stay.”
Wayne continues talking, seeming determined to get his thoughts out. “I just don’t know if being with me… I don’t know if I can give you the life you deserve.”
“And what do you think I deserve?”
“Better than me.”
Del began this conversation because she couldn’t see a future without Wayne, and he thinks it’s the opposite? Before Wayne crashed into her life, she felt like a ghost. Going through the daily motions of a life that wasn’t hers anymore. It has been that way ever since her mom died. Her mom had been the glue that held her family together, and with her gone, everything fell apart.
Even before that, though, her life didn’t feel complete.
But with Wayne? She feels hope again. She dreams. She wants to live.
She is no longer a ghost, but a real and tangible person with ideas and wants.
“I don’t care what the future holds, as long as we are together,” Del says, hoping to convey how much she believes in her own words. She feels like her heart may beat out of her chest as her face heats. She had told Wayne she wasn’t into all that romance stuff because she hated the way it makes her feel… good. Love in general. In the end, it doesn’t save you from losing anyone. But Wayne means something to her. She feels connected to him, and she wants him to know that. “We will figure it out together, like we always do.”
His mouth is slightly open in what seems to be awe as he stares down at her. Not liking the silence, she continues speaking. “And I don’t care about deserving! Life isn't fair, and me and you are two people who know that well. It’s what you make of it. It’s about what you want. And I want…”
I want you.
Del clears her throat and redirects her sentence, not ready for an admission like that. “No matter what we do, I want to do it with you.” She bites her lip, but Wayne is now looking down at his feet, his face unreadable. So, she does what she does best. She elbows his arm lightly and jokes. “You fuckin’ idiot.”
She may not be the best at articulating her feelings, but her attempt at lighting the mood is successful. She knows Wayne understands with the small smile he gives her. It’s even the kind of smile where he is showing a bit of his teeth, it’s a special thing to see and she soaks it in, feeling ready to conquer anything.
"I want to do it with you, too."
His admission makes her feel all warm and fuzzy.
Maybe that’s what gives her the gall to reach out and grab his face. She turns him so he is fully looking at her. She lets her thumb rub lightly along his jawline, realizing how smooth his skin is.
Right as he steps so close they are almost chest-to-chest and she stands on her tippy-toes to lean in, someone hollers from behind him.
Wayne topples over from being hit in the back by a bat.
“No!” Del shouts when she sees it’s her dad and brothers. How did they find them?
“Back the fuck up, Delilah!” Her dad yells as her brother Teddy comes forward and grabs her just as she is bending down to help Wayne up so they can run.
Her brother Carl immediately kicks Wayne in the side.
“Get off of him!” She yells as she tries to wrangle free from her brother’s grasp, but her attempts are futile. “Let me go!”
They continue to wail on Wayne. Her dad gets him flat on his back, grabbing him by the collar of his suit jacket. She cries out at seeing the blood all over Wayne’s face and down the front of his button-up shirt.
“You’re fucking nuts!” Her dad yells in his face. “You come into my house, you bust up my television… you kidnap my fucking daughter!”
“Stop!” Del screams. “I fucking chose to leave!”
“Shut your fucking mouth, Delilah.”
All she can yell in response is, “Fuck you!”
Anguish flows through her as they continue slamming the bat into Wayne and kicking him. He gets a free moment to struggle to his feet, but then Carl is holding his arms behind his back as her dad punches him square in the face.
Horror tears through her at how defenseless Wayne is.
They could kill him.
Could she live in a world without him?
“Stop, daddy!” Delilah cries out, feeling like a little girl again, begging her parents to just stop.
Stop yelling, stop fighting, stop caring about useless things over their own fucking daughter!
“Grab those goddamn bolt cutters!” Her dad yells at Carl as they throw Wayne to the ground.
As Wayne rolls over with a groan, her dad grabs him by his hair and holds up the cutters. Just as she fears her dad will actually cut off Wayne’s nose, the doors to the school slam open and everyone from the dance runs outside. All the high schoolers start fighting her family in Wayne’s honor. Trish and Jenny are among them.
As Teddy lets go of Del to defend himself against various attackers, she falls to her knees at Wayne’s side. “We have to go!” she says, grabbing him and helping him up. She throws his arm over her shoulder and they limp over to this bike. Wayne gets it started and she climbs onto the back, gently wrapping her arms around him.
Her dad is calling out to her by her full name, but she ignores him and simply watches the last of her family get beat up as Wayne speeds out of the parking lot.
***
When they arrive at Trish and Jenny's, the two girls aren’t too far behind. All four of them stumble into the house and down the stairs to the basement. Del pulls off the jacket to Wayne's suit and he lets out a groan as she eases him onto the couch.
“Let me see,” Del says as she pulls up his shirt. “Jesus shit! You’ve got more gross color skin than regular skin.” She hates what her dad and brothers have done to him. “We have to go to the hospital.”
“I don't go to hospitals.”
Del anxiously bites her lip as he adjusts himself on the couch, his face twisting in pain. She lets out a huff of acceptance. “But if you pass out on me, we are taking you straight there I don’t care if you’d get locked up. You’re no good to me dead!” She turns to Jenny and Trish. “Hey, do you have an ice pack?”
“We’ve got something better!” Jenny drunkenly yells. “Drugs!” She pulls some out of a drawer and stumbles over to Wayne with Trish on her heels.
“I don't do drugs,” Wayne chokes out, trying to get away but his attempts are feeble as they climb onto the couch, beginning to pry his mouth open.
Del intervenes. “Alright, alright, you heard him,” she says, gently pushing Jenny and Trish away from him. They oblige, laughing and falling to the ground together. They end up popping the drugs into their own mouths.
Del can’t help but chuckle at their antics. She turns back to Wayne. “Come on, dummy,” she says softly, grabbing his hands to pull him to his feet. He leans onto her for support as she guides him into the bathroom and makes him sit on the toilet.
She runs upstairs to Jenny’s kitchen and comes back with an ice pack wrapped in a towel, a glass of water, and she grabs some ibuprofen from a cabinet in the bathroom.
It still amazes her how nice Jenny’s house is. The entire basement is hers alone—it’s like having her own house! Del can’t fathom having that much to yourself.
She gives Wayne the ice pack, which he holds over his stomach, where he received some of the worst of the punches and kicks. Then, she gets him to drink some water and take the ibuprofen. She grabs a face towel and gets it wet before moving to stand right in front of Wayne.
“I’m going to clean the blood off your face, is that okay?”
Wayne nods in approval.
Del starts by wiping down his forehead, moving from top to bottom. She admires his thick eyebrows as she runs the cloth over them, and then his eyes. They are a light hazel, with a base of green and hints of brown wrapped around his pupil, she has always liked looking at them. She is extra tender with his nose, but it doesn’t seem broken. His lips part slightly as she runs over them and she feels transfixed by them.
“All done,” she says, pulling herself from her daze. She tosses the bloodied cloth into the sink. They can deal with that later.
“Thanks,” Wayne says, “you’d make a good nurse.”
“Nah.” She shakes her head. “The moment I’d have to help a person with a bone sticking out of their body or something, I don’t know if I could handle it.”
“I know you said you wanted to be mayor, is that a job you’ve always wanted to do when you grew up?” He asks softly.
Del thinks back to before her mom died. The house they lived in was nicer than her current one, but it still wasn’t great. It meant she went to their same useless school, but she had dreams and aspirations. She didn’t run a campaign to become school president as a freshman for no reason. Despite how shitty life has become, she still holds out hope for doing something meaningful with her life.
“I like the idea of helping people. By getting into politics, I can fight for changes that make the world a better place, as juvenile as that sounds. I’ll think more about it once we get your dad’s car.”
Wayne smiles slightly.
“You’ve never told me if you had a dream job,” she points out.
Wayne shrugs. “I never really thought about it, but I’ll help you become mayor, if that’s what you chose to do. I’ll help you with anything.”
And then Del is stunned into silence by the way Wayne is looking up at her, like she hung the stars in the sky.
She steps forward until she is standing in-between his legs, as close to him as possible.
Wayne lets go of his ice pack and tentatively moves his hands forward to lightly brush against the fabric of her dress that rests over the side of her thighs. Her hands move to grip his shoulders, she needs to stabilize herself.
“Wayne …” Del whispers, not sure what she is going to say next, but the bathroom door flies open. “Shit!” she yells in surprise and jumps away from Wayne, out of his grasp.
Will she ever get to kiss him without being interrupted?
“Sorry.” Jenny giggles while Trish has her wrapped in her arms. “Just wanted to let you know that you can have the guest bedroom and use any clothes in the closet if you want to change.
“And,” Trish says, “if you want to hook up or anything it’s totally fine ‘cause I won’t hear a thing. I’ll have earmuffs over my ears, known as Jenny's thighs.”
Both girls fall into another fit of laughter as they leave the bathroom and head to Jenny’s room.
Del can’t help but roll her eyes good naturedly before turning back to Wayne. “Let’s get you to bed.”
Being so close to Wayne and still not having kissed him makes her head feel like it's spinning. When they get into the room, she closes the door behind them. They keep the lights off, there is enough of it coming through the window from the streetlights to see. To distract herself, Del begins tearing through the closet to find them clothes to wear to bed. She picks out some gray pajama shorts and a plain black t-shirt for herself.
“What do you want to wear to bed?” Del asks as she turns around to face him with a couple of options. As she holds out the t-shirts, she realizes that they may be too small. “These might not fit.”
“I’ll just wear this.” He gestures to his button-up.
Del grimaces. “It’s covered in blood.”
Wayne looks down at his shirt and back up at her. He definitely hadn’t noticed.
Del hangs the clothes back up and walks over to him. She turns her back toward him and looks at him over her shoulder. “Could you unzip me? And then turn around so I can change.”
Wayne nods quickly and she faces forward again. She feels the heat of his fingers against her skin as he grabs the zipper and begins to slowly slide it down all the way until her underwear is peaking out. She glances back at him and he is staring at the small of her back as if in a trance.
“Turn around, dummy.”
He quickly averts his eyes and spins around to face the opposite way.
She can’t help but laugh as she steps out of the dress and changes into the clothes she chose for herself, making sure to reposition her necklace so it sat over the shirt. She likes it always visible.
“Okay, you can turn back around.” Now, she sits in front of Jenny’s vanity and takes down her up-do, letting her hair freely fall over her shoulders and positions her bangs back into place, not swiped to the side like she had for the dance.
She gives him a small smile. “I’ll be out on the couch if you need me.” She begins walking toward the door of the room to leave, but Wayne grabs her by her wrist.
“Del, don’t go.”
His voice is low and gravely, his words all the confirmation she needed. She steps back toward him and he pulls her right up to his chest. His other hand comes forward, lightly holding her necklace in between his thumb and pointer finger. Then, he runs his fingers through the tips of her hair, seeming to marvel at it.
The soft lighting illuminates him in a beautiful way, it makes her feel like her skin is buzzing.
Then it hits her, what she wanted to say earlier before they were interrupted again.
“Wayne, are we boyfriend and girlfriend again?”
“Only if you want to be.”
“Yes,” she says immediately.
“Then yes, we are boyfriend and girlfriend.”
They both crack a smile.
As he is still playing with the ends of her hair, Del lays her hands gently on his chest.
This time, it’s Wayne who fully closes the distance between them. Her eyes flutter shut in anticipation.
They are kissing and it is everything Del hoped it would be. It’s glorious, feeling his lips move against hers. To feel his hands brush the sides of her face and hold her gently as they press their bodies together.
She pours her emotions in their kisses, hoping he can feel every bit of her thoughts.
I want you.
I want you more than anything.
His tongue sweeps between her lips and she opens up. They taste each other. It’s a fun kind of exploring, something Del can definitely get used to. She experiments by nibbling on his lower lip and he seems to like it with how his actions become more desperate, moving faster and harder.
Del relishes in his need for her. She can feel her need for him overtaking her. As she tugs on his shirt Wayne hisses into her mouth and Del pulls back confused.
He gives her a sheepish look. “I’m fine, ignore me.”
They were in their own little world of kissing that she forgot her dad and brothers had jumped him at the dance not even an hour ago! She shakes her head at herself and puts her hands up, stopping him from initiating more kissing even if it's all she wants to keep doing, too.
“No, you need rest, we should stop.”
Wayne actually pouts. “But I don’t want to stop.”
Del holds back a laugh as she raises her eyebrows. “If you get into bed, we can kiss some more.” Wayne moves so fast to plant himself on the bed she bursts out laughing as she follows him. “Wait,” she says, and begins unbuttoning his shirt. “You’ll be more comfortable without this on you.”
Once she undoes the last button, he shrugs it off. A mix of emotions hit her as he looks at her closely. He is so beat up, his skin marred with bruises. But also, before her is the naked upper-body of a boy she is very attracted to. She admires the lean muscle of his figure, which she guesses he gained from always swinging his hammer at people.
Del crawls onto the bed and Wayne follows until they are laying side-by-side, facing each other. It’s the nicest bed she has ever laid on, it’s as if the mattress perfectly molded to her body. Both of their heads rest on a perfectly plump pillow and she can’t help but run her legs back and forth over the comforter; they are the silkiest sheets she has ever felt.
Satisfied that Wayne is resting his body, Del leans in and kisses him again.
It’s even better than the first time, now that they are more comfortable with each other and have an idea of what they are doing. It feels like endless hours of bliss.
They fall asleep like that, with their limbs tangled up together and their lips breaths apart.
***
Del wakes up to golden sunlight streaming through the window of the bedroom and the best night of sleep she has had in a long time—probably ever.
Wayne is snuggled into her chest. He is holding onto her so tightly, it’s almost as if he fears she may leave. She understands, she doesn’t want to be separated from him again. Gently, she kisses his forehead and runs her fingers through his hair, enjoying the softness of it. She will let him sleep for as long as he needs, he deserves a peaceful morning, and so does she.
As she holds him, Del whispers her truth to Wayne and the world.
“I want you.”
I love you.