side, he hated English, which I excelled at. We quickly figured out that we could scratch each other’s backs and began helping each other, which usually meant doing each other’s homework. It was a match made in heaven. Or something like that.
The homework part was mostly a ruse to see each other. We began hanging out together all the time. He was the first boy I kissed. We began kissing a lot until his foster parents caught us and wouldn’t allow me in his room anymore. We still kissed, just not at his house.
When my mother died, Dylan was the first one I told. I remember him holding me as I sobbed uncontrollably. Everything in my life changed after that. Some changes, like grief and anger, were immediate. Others were more gradual and less obvious. At least at first.
Although we remained friends into high school, it became evident that we were going in opposite directions. His foster parents, whom he had grown to like, asked to adopt him. That had a major impact on him. Where his biological parents had willingly given him up, here were two people fighting to keep him. He had finally found a home, and his days of rebellion were waning.
While Dylan was cleaning up his life, I was doing the opposite, wandering farther down a spiraling path of rebellion and self-destruction.
Despite Dylan’s warnings, I started hanging out with some of the kids he used to hang out with. That’s when I started pushing the limits, drinking and ditching classes. By my sophomore year, my grades fell from straight As to Ds and Fs.
My father was beside himself. Things came to a head one school day morning when he came home from the bookstore and caught me and my “friends” drinking in my room. He went ballistic.
That’s the second time my world was uprooted. Three weeks later my father sent me away to a boarding school in Tucson, Arizona. To say I was unhappy was like saying the Titanic had had a rough crossing. I didn’t talk to him from the moment I found out to the time I left, except for our final fight when I screamed at him that my mother’s death was his fault. I remember that there were tears in his eyes.
The day before I left, Dylan came to say goodbye. It was the last time I saw him. He wrote me a few times in Arizona, but I never wrote back. I was cutting ties to everyone and everything that connected me to my old life, and Dylan was part of that. I vowed I would never go back to Utah.
CHAPTER sixteen
A word after a word after a word is power.
—Margaret Atwood
Dylan picked me up for dinner at six thirty sharp. The restaurant he took me to was called Antica Sicilia. It was located in a small strip mall on Thirty-Ninth South next to a franchised hair salon.
It wasn’t the kind of location you’d expect to find fine dining, but the owners and most of the staff were Sicilian immigrants, and the online reviews were remarkable. So was the wait. The small sitting area was full of people, and when a couple came in without a reservation requesting the next available table, the maître d’ laughed. “Porca miseria. Maybe you try again next Wednesday.”
Dylan had made reservations the night he came by my house, and we were quickly seated at a table near the open kitchen. One of the managers was also one of Dylan’s clients, which didn’t hurt. In fact, he came by our table to say hello. He was short, barely five feet tall, and wore an immaculate black suit with a sky-blue shirt open at the collar. Dylan introduced him to me as Salvatore.
“Amico,” he said to Dylan. “You have found a new beauty.” He kissed Dylan on the cheeks, and then did the same to me. Dylan said, “This is my friend, Noel. She’s from New York.”
“Oh, New York. I love the city. It’s been too long since I have been to the city. Thank you for joining us tonight.”
“Piacere mia,” I said, reaching the limit of my Italian.
His expression became animated. “Mama mia, she speaks la bella lingua. Mr. Dylan is a buon amico. I have sent you a bottle of Etna Rosso. Please, enjoy.”
“Thank you,” I said. After he left, I turned to Dylan. “That was nice.”
“Salvatore’s a good guy. I’m the only place in town he can get suits his size that weren’t made