Breaking Even (34 page)

I can’t help it when my sob escapes. I try to stop it, but it just comes out again. All I can see is a terrified child version of Rye huddled in a corner with no one coming to rescue him. His hand tightens on mine, and I quieten down quickly, trying not to make him feel that urge to console me. I want to be here for him right now; I just wish I knew how.

“How did you deal with that?” I ask quietly when the silence begins to weigh too heavily in the air. “Why didn’t your dad do something?”

“He didn’t know how bad things were, and I didn’t deal with it. Not in a healthy way. I didn’t speak for six months after she died. He took me to the best psychologist he could find. He gave up traveling and started working from home, and he hired nannies that almost forced food down my throat when I wouldn’t eat. For six months I was numb. On the seventh month... I grew angry. And I stayed angry.

“When I finally broke and told the shrink what all had happened to me, my dad turned pale for three straight days. I didn’t cry when I relived the memories. I didn’t break when I told them the horror stories they didn’t know existed. I was just angry.”

He looks down to our joined hands for a moment, and then his eyes stroll back across the grave.

“That closet is no longer in his house. He tried to make up for it, but he blamed himself as much as I blamed him.” He says it so quietly that I almost think that part wasn’t meant to be heard.

“I started getting into fights—all the time. Twice I was sent to detention centers for more than two months at a time. By the time I was sixteen, I was out of control. Alcohol was my best friend, and I toyed with drugs. I just wanted to escape the anger that had consumed me. And nothing was working.

“Dad almost sent me to military school just because he didn’t know what else to do. But Ethan’s parents convinced my dad to let me stay with them for a while, and things changed. I was still angry, but I wasn’t in that house. I wasn’t trapped with those memories staring me in the face. And I didn’t have to see my father every day. It made a difference.”

I wish I could just hold him right now. I want to be somewhere safe and warm and holding him.

“I eventually learned to live with the anger and even channel it. I actually have better control of my temper than anyone I know because of how long I’ve dealt with all that rage. It’s damn near impossible to set me off. Or it was.”

I’m not sure what he means by that, and I don’t want to interrupt him to ask.

“It’s always kept me detached,” he says softly, squeezing my hand again. “From everyone. Everything. I keep everyone just close enough to push them away. But you...”

He pulls me to him, wrapping his arms around my waist and resting his chin on my head, forcing our fronts to push together. I don’t waste any time in reciprocating the embrace.

“For a really long time, I’ve blamed everyone. I blamed my father—hated him for it. I blamed the doctors who came to the house and cared for her after she’d hurt herself, because they never saw it. I blamed her for not going to get help. Hell, I even blamed the school system for not looking into my many unexplained absences. But mostly... I blamed myself. I guess I still do.”

I lean back so I can see into his eyes, but I can’t see. The flashlights aren’t giving enough light up here.

“Why do you blame yourself?”

He doesn’t move or make a sound for too long, and I curse myself for pushing him for answers.

“Because,” he says on a painful breath, “I could have told someone what she was doing to me, and they would have seen that she needed help. They could have stopped it after the first time she locked me up. They could have saved her life. She would have gotten the medicine she needed, and we might have had the chance to be happy. But instead of getting her help, I prayed for her to die. And she did. I hated my mother so much that I prayed for her to die. Now all I can do is come here, decorate her grave, and try to atone for my sins by giving her coffee, flowers, and pictures.”

This time I pull him down to meet my lips because I don’t know what else to do to take away this pain. “It wasn’t your fault,” I whisper against his lips. “You were a scared kid who was terrified, and you had no one there for you. It wasn’t your fault.” When he doesn’t say anything back, I repeat the words for a third time, annunciating each one to punctuate the meaning as best as possible. “It. Wasn’t. Your. Fault.”

He stifles another sob as he picks me up and presses his face against my neck. I feel his tears against my skin, and I start stroking his hair with my hands. It makes sense now. I can’t say I fully understand his mind and what he’s suffered, but I can see why he’d be reluctant to get close to anyone, and I’ve been pushing him, and pushing him, and not giving him the time he needed.

His life was beyond fucked up, and that’s the only family he’s ever really known. How does someone move on from that?

“I’m sorry,” I murmur softly, kissing his cheek as his hold on me tightens.

My feet are dangling several inches from the ground as he clutches me to him, but I don’t care. He can hold me like this for as long as he wants to.

“I shouldn’t have pushed you for more. If I had known... Rye, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

His lips press against my neck, and he kisses it, moving slowly around in small, patterned circles. “If you hadn’t pushed me for more, I’d still be angry,” he almost whispers.

I try to dissect that and analyze what it can possibly mean as he continues trailing small kisses all over my neck.

“I wouldn’t have wanted more,” he says, squeezing me almost too tightly. He puts me down gently, and he turns toward the grave once more.

He sits down on the ground, and I join him without regard for my shivering body. His arm comes around my shoulders, and I lean into him. For at least thirty minutes, we sit silently, just listening to the sounds of the graveyard.

It’s actually not as creepy as it sounds.

It’s a sea of tombstones that tell brief stories with a few simple endearments—some are truths, some are lies. All are insufficient if you’re looking for true insight into a person’s life.

Most say
loving mother
, just as his mother’s tombstone. But it doesn’t stain the present with pain from the past by telling that she lost her control in her life. It doesn’t show the scars she embedded deep inside of her son’s mind when the sickness ruled her. And it doesn’t tell the story of how their home was broken because of a disease they couldn’t see without physical manifestation.

Some stories are buried with the bodies those tombstones represent. Secrets hide amongst the layers of memories that still rest on the surface. Each soul has a different story that may or may not be told. And we’re here, listening to the resting souls that have left behind both good and bad stories to be shared.

I never thought I could sit silently in a graveyard without being terrified, but I feel an odd sense of serenity seeping from Rye as it runs over me. It’s as though his whole demeanor has shifted in a matter of weeks. And it’s as though this was some sort of closure that he needed.

He’s blamed himself. For years he’s blamed himself. He’s still blaming himself, and that breaks my heart. But I’ll make sure to remind him as much as necessary that it wasn’t his fault.

No matter what happens between us, I’ll never stop being his friend. Especially not now. He trusted me with this, and now I’ll make it my mission that he never carries this burden alone again.

“Let’s get out of here,” he whispers, breaking the silence at last as he stands and helps me to my feet.

He stares at the picture of a small boy being held by a loving mother—the memories from a good day. Then he threads our fingers back together, and he tugs me toward the car. Our footsteps are slower, heavier, and much wearier as we make it to the vehicle.

“Can I ask why you decided to share this with me?” I ask when we reach the gate.

He smiles tightly as he opens the door, and ushers me in on the passenger side. Just as I make it into the seat, he answers me.

“You brought me the peace I haven’t ever had. I just thought you might want to know what you saved me from.”

He shuts the door while my lips part and a confused breath of air slips free. Even now he’s the most confusing person I’ve ever met.

He climbs in and cranks the car, and with the streetlights, now I can see his face. His eyes are glossy, but his tears are gone.

“What peace?” I ask as he pulls out onto the road.

His grin grows, and he reaches over for my hand once we’re on the straightaway.

“No anger, tiger. None. You broke it down little by little, and now it’s just... gone. I never thought it was possible. Even when you were pissing me off with your vicious, unprovoked attacks, you were drawing out the real anger that I never thought would leave.”

My attacks were completely provoked, but this hardly seems like the time to joke. Especially since I’m crying harder now and exerting a tremendous amount of effort not to start bawling like a baby.

He grins over at me, and I reach over and take his hand, wishing I could just climb onto his lap. He pulls his hand back as he turns onto the road that takes us home, but I hope he doesn’t plan on taking me to my house.

“So you’re not angry anymore.” It’s not a question. It’s just me recapping his words and slowly processing it all.

His smile only grows as he pulls up to his side of the curb, parks, and turns the car off. My eyes lift to find his house as he answers.

“No. It started off subtle. I thought maybe you were just a fun distraction, but the more time I spent around you... I kept changing, and I didn’t even know it. I’ve never laughed as hard as I do with you. I’ve never been laughing and pissed at the same time. I’ve never smiled so much as I do when I see you, and I’ve never felt so damn good about being me. You make me enjoy being me.”

My tears drip for a new reason, and I finally give up and cross over the center console to be in his lap, leaving my towel and his jacket behind. He grins as he pushes his lips against mine, and I cling to him for a minute before pulling back just enough to speak.

“I guess that makes us even,” I murmur softly, watching him tilt his head questioningly. “You make me enjoy being me, too.”

His responding grin could slay me if I wasn’t already completely and utterly his.

***

RYE

Perfect. No one could have ever been more perfect for me, and fate dropped her off right across from me. Maybe this is my reward for the shitty cards I was dealt. All I know is that I don’t want to lose her ever again.

I honestly can’t believe I was able to tell her about everything, but more importantly, I can’t believe how free I feel right now. I can breathe so easily, and for the first time since I can remember, there’s nothing holding me back. From anything.

“Will you come inside?” I ask her as she hugs me a little tighter.

“Yes,” she says in a near whisper.

I swear I could never get tired of holding her like this.

“Will you stay the night?”

She grins as she kisses my neck, and I pull her closer, letting her do that divine thing with her tongue against my skin, imagining her doing that somewhere else, especially since I know how heavenly that mouth is.

“Yes,” she whispers again.

“And tomorrow morning, afternoon, and night, too?” I ask in quick succession, smiling as she giggles against me.

“Yes, yes, yes.”

I open the door, but I don’t let her go. Instead, I keep her held to me, and she clamps those small but strong legs around my waist as I carry her toward the house.

“Have you been with anyone since me?” she asks, surprising the hell out of me with her seemingly random and offensive question.

“No. Of course not. Why would you ask that?”

She just grins again, but I’m confused.

“I want to feel your piercing,” she says with that sultry voice that makes my knees wobble.

If she doesn’t want me to drop both of us to the ground, she can’t say things like that when I’m trying to walk. She laughs when she sees what she’s doing to me, and the sound reverberates and carries through my bones.

I never would have been able to do this with anyone else. But she’s done so much to me—for me.

Getting the door open while holding her is a pain in the ass, but I refuse to put her down. The more I struggle, the more she smiles.

“I missed you,” I murmur against her grinning lips, feeling my stupid smile grow as well.

“Good,” she says simply when I finally get the door open.

“Good?”

She kisses me harder, making talking an impossibility. When she moans into my mouth, I drop to the first thing that won’t collapse—the sofa. I sit with her still wrapped around me, keeping her straddling me.

“Yes,” she says while pulling her lips away from mine. “Because I’ve missed you, too. It wouldn’t be fair if I had been the only one missing you. I’d have to do something to get even.”

She just keeps proving to be more perfect for me.

“I want to do this.” The words come through easily, surprising me. I really expected that to be so much harder to say.

She tilts her head as an amused smile plays on her lips, and she leans back to pull at the strings of her bikini top. Swallowing becomes incredibly difficult when the strings fall, and gravity pulls the small garment down. Though I have no idea where it falls to.

“I would hope so. You’ve already got me here.”

My eyes stubbornly stay on her chest for another second. Or ten. But I finally find her eyes again, and ignore her devilish smile.

“I mean I want to do
this
—us. For real this time. No holding back.”

Her smile falls, and for a very long five seconds, I worry that I’ve messed up and waited too long. But then her smile that is only reserved for me breaks across her face, and she undoes the side of her see-through wrap thing.

Now breathing is becoming as hard as swallowing.

“Why?” she asks, bending down and pressing her chest against me.

I really regret the decision to put my shirt back on. I want to feel her against my skin.