Dylan's Day

Dylan scrolled on his phone, numbing somewhat his restlessness by scrolling past Instagram reels, or watching YouTube videos, but while his eyes gazed lazily at the screen his mind's eye played over the day.
He saw a message from Grace on his WhatsApp but couldn't bring himself to open it.


Grace, his neighbour and long time friend, was planning on moving to Canada in the summer. He was excited for her, even a little jealous of her, he had pretty much stuck to a standard path and worked like his mum in a café as a barista, sometimes taking on shifts at the local pub afterwards when he wanted extra cash. He had a decent enough living he supposed compared to most people in the country and always took care to be appreciative of what he had.
Grace was more clever, single-minded and ambitious and had long vowed to emigrate, even if just for a few years, originally it was Germany, then New Zealand, but she finally found a good job in Vancouver.

Dylan had found Grace's bright eyed talks about her new life abroad as slightly inspiring, so when he told her he was taking the summer off to go interrailing he expected the same attitude, 'oh' she said. He was hoping for a little more curiosity and excitement about his announcement, yet beyond a few cursory questions there was nothing. His beaming smile slowly faded from his face to a slight scowl of disappointment and hurt feelings.


Later that day they were going out with some of their friends as Casey who had moved to London was back for a few nights for a family wedding. None of them had seen each other in a while. The conversation went around a bunch of topics wildly as each sub-group mingled in the beer garden reacquainting themselves. Grace talked quite a bit about her move to Canada yet he couldn't seem to talk to many for long about his interrailing before the swing of conversation moved on.


He was feeling a little wounded by the whole event so that as he went home he felt agitated. In bed he as usually couldn't sleep for ages which meant his mind inevitably raced so he kept himself a little grounded by looking through his feeds.
He didn't want to feel so sour on Grace before her move in a couple of weeks but still felt hurt.


In the morning he reassessed his feeling and the day's events. When he announced to Grace he was interrailing they were both getting ready to go out, and Casey was Grace's friend mainly not his, they were practically sisters in Sixth Form. Last night was the first time they met face to face in three month and would be the last time the whole group was together before Grace headed of. Whereas he was going to Europe for a couple of weeks she was going to a completely different continent probably for a year at least, but who knows?

He started to feel guilty of how he had reacted, besides he might never have taken the step away if not for Grace taking the leap to Canada first.
He looked at his messages and responded to Grace. He'd left them a little early than usual and she'd messaged to see if they wanted to met up for coffee with Casey and Derek.

At the coffeeshop as they chatted about Casey's job and new life in London and Grace's move to Canada they also talked about Dylan's summer plans and Derek's new boyfriend.

After a while he offered to drive Grace back, she'd come from staying over at Derek's on the other side of town. "Sure" she smiled and they drive off back to their street.
In the car he wanted to be completely honest with her about his emotions and how stupid he had secretly been yesterday but never knew if it was the best think to do. Instead they chatted about Spotify playlists, how they'd keep in contact when they were both away, sights they were going to see. As she got out of the car and laughed as her dog came out to greet he completely forgot about yesterday's crisis.