Wrong in All the Right Ways by Tiffany Brownlee

Author:Tiffany Brownlee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company (BYR)
Published: 2018-07-17T17:58:22.301405+00:00

chapter 15

I’M NOT SURE what to say to Dylan when we leave the dingy gray mental institute; he looks like Death. The guy sitting in the passenger seat of my car doesn’t resemble the guy he was when we walked out of the building hand in hand. Everything, from his dark and glazed-over eyes to his trembling lips, screams Boy, Interrupted. It breaks my heart to see him like this, and what’s even more painful is the fact that I can’t do anything to help him. Not as his sister. Not as his girlfriend. Nothing.

“You okay?” I finally work up the courage to ask after riding in silence for a few miles. I know he said that he was grateful to have me by his side today, but that feels like forever ago. Now it’s like someone flipped a switch and he turned into this sleepwalking being; he’s not saying much, not breathing much, and his eyes have got to be drying out because he’s barely blinking either. It’s like he’s crossed over into full-on zombie mode. When he doesn’t answer my question, I focus my attention back onto the dashboard. The red needle on my fuel gauge is hovering over the E. If I don’t stop now, we’ll run out of gas in the middle of nowhere, and I’m not trying to star in the next based-on-a-true-story made-for-TV thriller. We’re not that far away from the asylum—or the prison. There are weirdos out there.

“I’m stopping for gas,” I say as I pull up to pump number one at the nearest Circle K.

That’s his cue to volunteer to pump, but instead of getting out, he squirms around in his seat before settling even deeper into it, ignoring me completely. I have to contain my annoyance because I know his fit has nothing to do with me, but it’s getting harder to tolerate his mood swings as he brushes off my efforts to make him feel better.

A thousand thoughts overload my mind as I wait in line to pay, none of them helping at all. Why isn’t he hungry? I mean, I’m starving! Oh, God … what if he’s depressed? But don’t depressed people eat a lot … to make up for them feeling so crappy? Maybe I should cook him something when we get back. Depressed people eat casseroles, right? But I don’t know how to cook a casserole. Oh my God … he’s going to break up with me after I poison him with bad casserole.

“Sweetheart!” the man behind the counter half screams at me to get my attention. “You buying something, or what?”

“Twenty on pump one, and this candy bar, please.” As I hand him a fifty-dollar bill, I glance out the glass doors to see Dylan walking around the car and opening up the driver’s side door. I don’t take my eyes off of him as I hold my hand out for what feels like forever, waiting for my change. I hear the man mutter the number

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