Through Fire (Portland, ME #3) (25 page)

Clarity hits me as I recall my mother’s teasing remarks last night at dinner. She’d mentioned family. Flooded with sudden relief, I throw my head back and laugh. I feel her stiffen underneath me before squirming to get loose. Fuck no. “Not letting go, Ruby,” I warn her.

“You don’t understand,” she pleads.

“Then make me,” I counter, holding her firmly in place.

“I can’t give you a family. I can’t have children!” she shouts, suddenly throwing me off enough that she manages to scramble out from under me. As I watch her disappear up the stairs, I realize that laughing may not have been such a good idea.

Fuck me
. I can lie and say that I don’t feel a pang of regret at the news she can’t have children, but I do. Despite the fact I hadn’t exactly been looking to settle down any time soon, I’d always figured I’d have kids one day. Of course, our years would perhaps have been a deterrent, but not to have any choice at all is harsh. Still, there isn’t anyone but Ruby I’d want them with.

Shoving up from the couch, I follow her up the stairs, where she seems to have locked herself in the bathroom. No amount of pounding on the door or pleading for her to open up seems to work. I run down to the basement, where I have some tools floating around somewhere. Finally locating a screwdriver and hammer, I head back upstairs, only to be stopped by my phone ringing on the counter.

“Yes?” I answer, a little out of breath.

“Am interrupting something?” My brother’s voice sounds amused. I’m not.

“Yes,” I abruptly confirm.

“Who peed in your Cheerios this morning? I was just checking up on Ruby. Mom mentioned she’d given her the impression last night that she might be ready to meet with Mike.”

“Look,” I point out to him as I make my way up the stairs. “Got a bit of a situation here, can we call you back?”

“She okay?” Mark suddenly sounds serious. “Anything happen?”

“Just a little misunderstanding. Nothing that can’t be fixed.” With the phone wedged between my shoulder and my ear, I manage to brace the screwdriver against the top hinge and work it loose with just one good tap of the hammer.

“What the hell is that sound?”

The bottom hinge takes two whacks to loosen. “Taking out the bathroom door,” I inform him, just as I drop the tools and lift the door from the frame.

That’s when I see her. “Jesus—NO!”

R
uby

I spent the entire night awake.

I’m such a fool. I actually started to believe there’d be a normal future for me. A future with Tim. Something I’d not even dared consider until a short time ago. Seduced once again, but this time by the lure of a normal life. Except...I’m not normal. I don’t know why I thought I could be. It seemed easy enough, right up until the moment Jane’s words shook me awake. I’d allowed myself the illusion, just for a moment, that I was part of a loving family. But I’m not, am I? I’m a lost soul, just clinging on to any stability that comes my way. First, it was Pam and the shelter. Then, it was The Skipper and the kindness of friends. And finally, it’s Tim.

Oh my God.

Already I’ve pulled down so many people in my life. Now I risk dragging down Tim and his family as well.

I feel like a cancer, infecting everything I touch with my disease.

You two will make a beautiful family
.

No. We won’t. And not just because of a botched abortion at sixteen that required a hysterectomy to stop the bleeding from a perforated uterus. It’s because wherever I go, I drag this dark cloud behind me. My sordid history. I can’t leave what I did and what I was behind. It’s part of me. A part that I don’t want to drag people I care about into.

But that’s exactly what I’ve done. I’ve allowed people to care. Hell, I’ve allowed myself to care, against better judgment. Better to hurt a little now, than to hurt more later.

Morning came with a firm resolve to remove myself from the lives of good people, decent people, before they get lost in my garbage. I would’ve just disappeared, but I couldn’t leave them to clean up my mess. That’s something I would have to do myself. So I planned to talk to the FBI and do what I can to help clean up the sick business I’d been part of most my life, but first I have to get back to my place.

One look at Tim still sleeping soundly next to me, and I can’t go through with it. I can’t sneak out and leave him to wake up to an empty house. Worried about me. Instead, I’ll wait until I can meet with the FBI and ask to be moved immediately to a safe house. That way I can disappear without anyone worrying.

I just didn’t count on Tim calling me out.

When he gets off the phone, and I see him stalking toward me, I know he’s done letting me get away with the vague answers I’ve been giving him all morning. Sure enough, he doesn’t waste time getting to the point as he puts me on the spot. My play at ignorance doesn’t fly and neither do my empty reassurances. I try to tell him I need to leave, but he makes it hard.

“Do you love me, Ruby?”

Oh God. Forgive me, but I do. Still, I attempt to deflect. When he tells me how he feels I look him in the eyes and am shocked to see the depth of his feelings reflected. It doesn’t matter that I deny my own, he pushes and pushes until I feel something crack inside. That’s when panic hits and I run.

Not many places to go, but the bathroom has locks. It doesn’t take long for the pounding on the door, or the pleas for me to open up to start. I ignore it all. I saw his eyes when I told him I couldn’t have children. I saw the shock on his face. It only confirms that leaving is the right thing to do. I just don’t know if he’ll let me go.

The pounding stops just as my eyes spot his razor sitting in a glass on the counter. A cold calm settles over me as I reach out for it. It seems like such a simple solution. Taking back control. The hurt would go eventually, along with all the problems. There’s beauty in the finality. A sharp burn like the ripping off of a Band-Aid, but after that peace would follow. A clearing of the decks.

It doesn’t even hurt. My body is already so cold it feels numb. The fingers of my right hand are barely functional enough with the cast hampering their movement, but I manage to squeeze the blade between my thumb and index finger. Slicing through the skin is deceptively easy. I know enough to run the cuts along the length of my forearm instead of across.

The warm blood slowly starting to drip along my skin feels almost soothing and for a moment I close my eyes, letting myself float on the peaceful feeling. But when I hear footsteps coming up the stairs, I snap them open, the sight of the thick red streams bubbling up making me light-headed. The renewed noises outside the door startle me into dropping the blade from my slippery fingers. When I bend down to pick them up of the floor, it’s like falling into a dark hole with nothing to stop me. I vaguely hear a man’s voice yelling, but can’t quite make out what it says before darkness takes me away.

-

“H
ey.”

A familiar voice sounds beside me as I blink my eyes open. Pam’s beautiful face leans over me as she brushes hair out of my face. I’m a little confused, but as she sits back and I have a chance to look around the sterile room, it all comes rushing back to me. I don’t answer, but instead just turn my head away.

“I’m sorry, Ruby.”

I’m shocked to hear emotion in Pam’s voice. The woman is a pillar of strength that rarely shows emotion of any kind. Still, I resist turning around.

“I know you don’t want to hear me now and believe me, I don’t blame you. But I want you to know how sorry I am for failing you.”

I don’t understand what she means and before I have a chance to swallow it down, one question escapes me in a croak. “Why?”

I can hear a deep sigh and then a hand starts stroking my hair. “Because I wanted so hard to believe you’d already found your path to healing. Even if I should’ve known the damage done to you could never be so easily swiped away. It was too much, too soon, my lovely Ruby. You were reaching for the sky and I cheered you on. Instead, I should’ve made sure you were ready for each step you were taking.”

Her hand stops suddenly, and I instantly miss the soothing motion, when a deeper, familiar voice sounds. “If there’s any blame to go around, it’s mine,” Tim says, his voice ragged and broken. “I pushed too hard.”

It’s difficult not to turn around, but I persist in keeping my back turned. So many thoughts racing around, I can’t handle seeing the pain I can feel in the room. Tim’s large frame fills my vision as he crouches down beside the bed, his face only inches from mine. My heart breaks when I see tears pooling in his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Boop.” His voice breaks on his nickname for me, and my throat closes up as my eyes close. “I love you so much,” he whispers with his lips on my forehead, before I hear him walk away. The soft click of the door sounds so final.

“I’m going to let you rest, honey.” Pam’s soft voice is accompanied by a final stroke of my hair. The silence that follows the second click of the door is deafening.

I did this.

It doesn’t matter that I didn’t mean to—that I’d hope to spare them––not make them hurt. The blame is mine alone. Hot tears spill, rolling from the corner of my eyes to pool on the pillow. I wish I hadn’t woken up.

T
im

It’s been six weeks, and still the events of that Monday morning are all too fresh in my mind.

The blood, her pale face, Mark’s voice shouting from the phone I’d dropped on the floor. The absolute terror that almost choked me as I frantically felt for a pulse. Pressing towels against her arm to stop the constant flow of blood, and my panicked plea to my brother to call an ambulance.

He’d been there in time to let them in. Probably only minutes, but it had felt like an eternity as my thoughts went over every little detail of the past weeks to find where I may have gone wrong. After that everything went into fast forward. The ambulance ride, the hospital wait as they wheeled her away, and the arrival of all our friends, apparently called by Mark as he followed the ambulance to the hospital. When Pam showed up, her skin had looked almost grey. Her hands were shaking. I’d never seen her so undone before. Mom and Dad, obviously also alerted by my brother, came in shortly after and sat down beside me, holding on to my hands for dear life.

She’d be okay, we were assured by the young doctor who gave us an update. Her vitals were stable and although she’d lost some blood, she’d completely recover. He made sure to clarify that he was talking about her physical condition. Psychologically, he indicated, it was the beginning of a long road ahead. She would be transferred to the psychiatric ward as soon as her physical injuries would allow, to properly assess her mental condition.

The only time I’ve seen her since then is when she was still in the ICU under observation. She didn’t want to talk to me or see me.

I have talked with Pam. A lot. Seems both of us have some regrets. The same with my mother, who was initially convinced that she’d been the trigger for Ruby’s suicide attempt. It had taken Pam’s involvement there too, to convince Mom it hadn’t been any one thing, but rather a ticking time bomb all of us had missed until it finally went off.

It had helped, discussing things with Pam. She pointed out that it’s human nature to want to move away from traumatic events in our life as quickly as possible, without giving ourselves a chance to hurt, grieve, or to process our emotions. Ruby had been conditioned for thirty years to suppress all of those things, and when her life started moving in a positive direction, she was so eager—as were the rest of us—to step over them in a rush to get to the good stuff.

Sometimes you have to struggle through the bad before you can truly enjoy the good stuff. Or it might catch up with you. Just like it did with Ruby.

I’d decided to give her space to heal. I made sure, with cards and occasional flowers, that she knew I loved her and thought about her all the time. But I was done pushing her. Her suicide attempt had shocked me to the core. I hate to admit it, but it angers me too.

It had also hammered home the harsh reality that we aren’t given much time. That we have to be responsible for our own happiness first. And to that end, I’ve thrown myself into pursuing the dream I’d shelved since becoming an adult.

My first commissioned piece is due to be delivered this weekend, when Ike and Viv will be celebrating the anticipated arrival of their baby and are planning to reveal its sex to friends and family. The harvest table is Ike’s gift to Viv. She has no idea it’s coming, and I can’t wait to see her reaction. Ruby is scheduled to be there as well. Pam told me that.

Six fucking weeks: I haven’t seen her beautiful eyes, felt the comfort of her body, or tasted her ripe lips. Six weeks of burying myself in wood chips and designs. Six weeks of taking myself in hand in the shower after another day of Ruby on my mind. I’m sick of the empty release with nothing but her memory to keep me company. I sure as shit am not going to see her for the first time in a room full of people. I need some time alone with her. Some time to make sure Pam’s assessment that Ruby’s made giant strides since she was released, means that she is ready for me in her life. I sure as fuck am ready for her, even though I’d wait forever if it took that long.