But I couldn’t not come. I couldn’t do that to Dylan, and I couldn’t do that to her. I sat on the couch all night in the dark looking out my window at the moon in the sky, thinking about what she was doing and wondering if he stayed the night. Wondering if she let him hold her hand or kiss her lips.

I repeatedly told myself that I have to just be her friend, that I was there helping her, but when I saw Dylan, and his eyes were puffy and red and he was clearly crying and upset, all thoughts and reasoning went out the window. Trying to keep my cool, I tried not to rush toward them and tried to stop my heart from beating so hard I thought it would come out of my chest. I wanted to hold him and protect him and make him feel safe.

He rushed into my arms, and I felt his tears on my neck as he silently and quietly told me that his father took his stuff. “Shh,” I said, soothing him and then hugging him with both arms. “It’s okay,” I tried to tell him.

I have always been the chill one in the family, always been the voice of reason. I mean, Matthew is more than enough of a hothead for any family, but at that moment, if you were to put me in a ring with Dylan’s dad, I wouldn’t stop until he was bloody. I avoided looking at her, avoided the fact that I wanted to take them both in my arms and take them away from here and never have them come back, but she told me to go.

“It’s going to be okay, buddy. Why don’t we just put your stuff in the trunk? I promise it’s going to be okay. It’s not your fault,” I whispered into his ear, and I knew that I was no one to him. So I did what I thought was the right thing. I took care of Dylan and hopefully made him see that what his father did were his actions and had no reflection on him. “You did nothing wrong.” That was for his father to carry. “Now bring your bag to the SUV for me, yeah?” I was on my knees and trying to not lose it in front of him when I sent him to the vehicle and counted to ten.

I used to watch my father walk away and go into another room when he was upset with something that Matthew and Allison’s biological father did. He would walk into an empty room and count to ten. We would literally hear him count out loud. I hear her voice, and I finally look up at her, and my breath hitches. She is so beautiful it hurts to look at her. Especially knowing that I can’t do anything to her.