Rend

by Roan Parrish

  The words tore through me like slow, dark bullets and I started to shake.

  “Tell me, Matty. Tell me it’s true. You belong to me. I belong to you. Please, tell me. Tell me you’re mine.” He was begging me, the pain in his voice so raw and so open that turning away from him was impossible.

  He was crying. I was crying. We were begging and demanding and promising and crying.

  “I’m yours. I-I-I belong to you.” My voice was just breath. “Rhys, please, I want it to be true more than anything.”

  “Yes,” he said, pulling me tight against his heaving chest. “You are mine, and that means that I’ll always take care of you. And I’m yours. That means you’ll always have me.” His voice was fierce, even through his tears, like he thought he could make it true through sheer force of will.

  I nodded and squeezed him harder.

  “You’re not leaving. You’re not going anywhere. You don’t know how marriage works? This is how it works. We fight, we have problems, we figure it out. We don’t give up. We don’t run away.”

  I looked down. He ran his finger over my cheek and touched my mouth. He touched my eyebrow and my chin. He pressed his wet cheek against mine and spoke into my ear.

  “And I want to get one thing straight right now.”

  Then I was looking into electric-blue eyes snapping with emotion.

  “You don’t ruin my life. You make my life a hundred times better than it would be without you. I know sometimes you can only see the bad stuff. But you have to believe me. You. Don’t. Ruin. My. Life. Got it?”

  I bit my lip and nodded.

  “Are you just placating me right now?”

  Was I? I looked around. At our dog. At the kitchen, where Rhys had bought me one of those overly sweet grocery store cakes that I loved. At our keys hung next to each other by the door. Rhys was generous as hell, but he didn’t do many things that he didn’t want to do. He didn’t have to. So, if I was here, it was because he wanted me here. That much I believed.

  “No.”

  Rhys leaned in and kissed me, so slowly I felt like the whole world was moving in slow motion. I gasped into the kiss, the shock that I could still have this rocking through me. As Rhys let me go, he took a deep breath.

  “You really feel like shit all the time?” he asked. His voice was calmer now, tears slowing.

  “No, I— Kinda. No. I mean, I do when I feel like I’m fucking this all up. Or when I just can’t…um…relax. Not, like, every minute of every day.”

  He nodded slowly.

  “I didn’t think much about how different our ideas of marriage would be,” he said after a while.

  “You mean because your parents had a perfect marriage and they love each other and I was basically scraped off the ground like old gum?”

  Rhys snorted in amusement.

  “Don’t say shit like that, baby. But, yeah.”

  He slid his fingers into my hair.

  “I never wondered what it meant to be married. It just felt normal to me. I know we had kind of a whirlwind thing and all, but once you’d moved in here, I just…I guess I just went about my business cuz to me, once you’re married, that’s it. You’re together now and that’s the end.”

  “To me, it was a beginning,” I said and watched Rhys melt. He slid his hand to the back of my neck and tipped our foreheads together.

  “You feel like our life together could be taken away at any moment because that’s what’s always happened to you. I want to prove to you that won’t happen. It seems like the only thing that’ll prove it to you is time.”

  “Time.”

  “Yeah. I love you. I love you so much. Can you give us time?”

  Tears flooded my eyes again. I bit my thumbnail and nodded.

  “Okay,” he said, and his inhale of relief seemed to come from the depths of his being. “Okay, that’s good. That’s so good, Matty.”

  “Okay,” I echoed. I was so tired. I felt like I’d gotten run over by a train.

  “We keep telling the truth,” he said, looking into my eyes. “We keep talking. Nobody leaves.”

  Nobody leaves, nobody leaves.

  “N-nobody leaves,” I breathed.

  * * *

  —

  I woke to the distant sound of Rhys talking low. It was very early and my limbs felt heavy, my head still fuzzy from the night before. Then I heard footsteps, but he didn’t come back to bed.

  I crept out of bed and looked out the window. Caleb’s truck was outside as it had been so many times when he came over, needing Rhys. I followed the sound of their voices. Sitting at the top of the stairs I could hear them in the living room. I’d sat here listening to them talk once before, afraid I’d overhear words of love and instead heard Caleb’s choked pain and shame.

  Poor Rhys. For all his light, he seemed drawn to darkness.

  “…wrong with me,” Rhys was saying. “Because I thought everything was going well. Again. And I missed it, again. It’s like I’m doomed to be oblivious to warning signs that the people I care about the most are struggling. I fucking missed it, Caleb. I was adopting dogs and buying candy for Halloween and looking at Matty, picturing how maybe someday we’d take our own kids trick-or-treating, and thinking what an amazing dad he’d make because he’s the sweetest, most caring…and he was—fuck, he was hurting so much.”

  My heart broke for Rhys, but as it cracked open, something bright and unexpected took wing. I had never, not once, thought about having children. It was a blank spot in my mind. But Rhys thinking I would make a good dad? Rhys thinking about me that way at all? It felt like the world grew somehow bigger around me.

  “Look,” Caleb said, gravelly voice even lower than usual. “You gotta stop judging Matt by your own standards of happiness. It’s not something you can master like you learned to play guitar. He’s probably not just gonna get happier and happier. And if that’s your expectation then you’re gonna be disappointed. And then you’re gonna make him feel like crap.”

  Rhys garbled something I couldn’t make out.

  “I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying Matt has had a rough go of things and never dealt with them. And then you came along. Big old beast of sunshine and plans and charisma and a steady damn hand. And he fell in love with you. And suddenly Matt—with all that shit in his past—was hanging out with you all the time. Where do you think that shit went? It didn’t disappear. It didn’t transform from pain to joy like water to fucking wine, Nyland.”

  “God, I’m such an idiot.”

  “You’re a believer, bro, that’s all.”

  “The fuck’s that mean?” Rhys grumbled.

  “I dunno…you have a kind of faith that things’ll work out if you just do your best. It’s sweet, man. But also, ya know, deeply entitled. Like you think you should have the power to do anything.”

  “I wish I did.” Rhys’s voice was a twist of frustration and grief.

  “Well, what would you do if you actually were all-powerful. Would you erase Matt’s past? Change his feelings? What?”

  “I’d…I…No, I guess not. Because it’d change who he is, and he’s perfect.”

  I laid my head down on my knees.

  “Guess I’d just make him know—like deep-down know—that he can tell me anything. I— He…he thinks I’m weak, man.”

  “Weak how?”

  “He said he didn’t tell me stuff sometimes because I couldn’t handle it.”

  “Hmm. What else did he say.”

  “That it…that he didn’t wanna ruin the way I saw the world. Like I’m a little kid or something. Like I’m too weak.”

  “Aw, man, let it go.”

  “What go?”

  “This…this fuckin’ thing you do where you’re not satisfied unless you shoulder everyone else’s burdens and fix everything and like
rescue cats from trees while doing it.”

  “I don’t—”

  “You do. You know you do. Because you tried to do it with me a hundred times. You can’t fucking save people, Nyland.” Caleb’s voice was steel. “You can only be there for them when they save themselves. You couldn’t have made me be sober, bud. You know this. You could have wrestled the needle outta my hand, flushed the shit down the toilet, driven me to every meeting, driven me home after, made me drink water, and threatened every dealer from Brighton Beach to the Bronx and it still woulda made fuck-all difference because none of it touched what was going on inside. You know that.”

  “I know that.”

  “You didn’t fail me, Rhys. You didn’t fail me because I wasn’t your responsibility and it wasn’t about you. Do you hear me? It had nothing to do with you.”

  “I know, I just—”

  “Shut up. This is the dark side of a fuckin’ savior complex, man. It’s an ego trip and it’s not real. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Matt had a whole life before he met you and a metric ton of shit went down before he ever knew your name. And I get that you feel like crap right now, and I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry, bro. But none of that is about you.”

  “But—”

  “Nope. It’s not. It’s affecting you because Matt’s your partner and because you love him. It’s affecting your relationship right now. You have to deal with it, sure. But the rest of it? That’s on Matt. God, your face right now. I don’t mean it’s Matt’s fault. I mean it’s Matt’s business to deal with his shit.”

  “But I want to help him deal with it.” Rhys’s voice was small and afraid. Caleb sighed.

  “I’m sure you do help, man. That guy is over the damn moon for you. The fact that he married you, that he moved out here to be with you…Look no disrespect to Matty, I love the kid, but when I first met him I thought he’d be gone in a month. He was skittish as fuck, always looking at the door. Or he’d look at you like he just wanted you to fuck him so you wouldn’t notice how freaked he was.”

  “Shut up,” Rhys growled, but I think we both knew Caleb was right.

  I couldn’t even find it in me to be embarrassed that Caleb had seen it. I’d been a mess. You’re still a mess, a voice said. But…I was a different mess, wasn’t I? I was a mess because I had someone I loved so desperately I was terrified of hurting him or losing him. Terrified that the sheer intensity of my feeling would crack me wide open. I was a mess because I had so much now, not because I had nothing.

  “Sorry,” Caleb said. “I was trying to say that he’s chosen you at every point. He wants to be with you. He adores you. That’s not in question. The only question is what do you guys need to make it work for both of you?”

  “I need Matt to trust me,” Rhys said immediately.

  “Okay, but I mean…what tools do you need—what resources? Like, I needed to go to rehab. Uh, yeah, okay, it didn’t work the first, um, three times. But I needed the space. The dedicated time to pay attention only to the fact that I was an addict. Without the distraction of all the other things I was. Nothing to hide it behind. I needed that and then I needed to go to meetings. I needed to quit music. I needed to move out of the city. I needed Huey. Hell, I needed you. I needed you to take my truck away and hold my hand and just be there some nights when I was crawling out of my skin. So you gotta figure out what you guys need.”

  Rhys didn’t say anything. I could practically feel him thinking.

  “Can I suggest—”

  “Yes,” Rhys said immediately.

  “Has Matty ever talked to someone? A therapist.”

  “I…don’t think so.”

  “Well…he should.”

  “I don’t know if he’ll want to,” Rhys said slowly.

  “Yeah, well I sure as fuck didn’t want to go to rehab either, bro, but that’s what had to happen.”

  “I just don’t want him to think that I think there’s anything…wrong with him.”

  “Well, there is something wrong with him. He was abandoned and traumatized as a kid and he’s fucking miserable,” Caleb snapped.

  Rhys snarled, “That’s not his fault.”

  “Of course it’s not, Rhys! See, this is what I’m talking about. This is your fucking blind spot. Things don’t have to be someone’s fault to be true. But you still have to deal with them.” He sighed. “Bro, he’s your husband. You have to help him do what’s best for him. And sometimes that might suck for you both. But that’s the promise you made—the promise you were desperate to make to him. Isn’t that what you told me?”

  “Yeah,” Rhys choked.

  “Well. So. Keep your damn vow.”

  I was down the stairs before I even realized I’d moved. Rhys and Caleb sat on the couch, both looking straight ahead, and both their heads snapped to me.

  “Matty…” Rhys said, blinking owlishly.

  “I’ll g-go,” I said. Rhys’s brow furrowed, and I saw panic in his eyes. He reached out a hand to me. “No, I…I’ll go…talk to someone. I…I’ll do it.”

  Something passed over Rhys’s face that I’d never seen before. He still had his hand held out to me. I took it, suddenly aware that I was only wearing a pair of cutoff sweatpants.

  I let Rhys pull me into him, awkwardly trying to arrange myself in his lap. Caleb murmured his goodbyes, and I felt the briefest squeeze to my shoulder before the door shut.

  “Will you really?” Rhys asked, voice full of fear and hope.

  “Yeah,” I said, wrapping my shaking arms around his neck. “I’d do anything for you.”

  “For us,” he said.

  “For us.”

  Chapter 15

  I got home from walking Max on Thanksgiving morning to find Rhys on the phone, smiling.

  “Hey, c’mere,” he said, covering the phone.

  I narrowed my eyes at him suspiciously. “Why?”

  He crowded me against the front door and planted his hands on either side of my head. I always got a little swoony when he did that and I automatically tipped my face up for a kiss. He kissed me, twining the hand that wasn’t holding the phone in my hair, and I slung my arms around his waist.

  “Mm, ’kay, good reason,” I said.

  Ever since our blowup the week before, things had felt…better. Not a surface calm. Not a patch job to hold us together for the moment. But a deeper, steadier solidity.

  Rhys held me on the couch for all of five minutes the morning after Caleb left, before opening his laptop and searching for a therapist. I was happy to let him do the research and make the calls. Within an hour I had taken someone’s canceled appointment for three days later. It was fast and definitive and so very, very Rhys.

  I was doing my best with Rhys’s call for honesty. When I’d told him that going to his family for Thanksgiving made my insides curl up and die (and yes, I would talk to my therapist about that) but that he should feel free to go, he’d been disappointed but said there was no way he was going without me. That maybe we’d think about it next year.

  Next year.

  Rhys was taking his promise to prove we had a future very seriously. So seriously that at first he’d driven me crazy, cornering me at random moments and telling me he loved me with such intensity that he looked like he was about to ax murder me. Finally, I’d snapped at him, “Oh my fucking God, I get it!”

  Rhys had looked shocked, then hurt, but then he’d grinned, like me throwing his love in his face was exactly what he’d been hoping for.

  “Good,” he said. “I’m so glad you get it.”

  His tactics had gotten slightly more subtle since then, and I was a little bit mortified at how much I liked them. He got the idea after my first session with the therapist. She was named Susan, and every time Rhys uttered her name you’d think he was praying.

  Our session was awkward and halti
ng and I’d only given her the barest bones of my situation, but she had been calm and said that we’d get into particulars later, but for now, one thing I could try was simply telling Rhys in the moments when I was having doubts. She said it would help me feel less alone in our relationship. Less like I had secrets from Rhys.

  “But I don’t want to make him feel bad,” I’d told her.

  “They’re your feelings,” she’d said. “Not truths. It’s up to Rhys to have his own feelings.”

  Rhys was very much in favor of this idea, though I suspected that Rhys would have agreed to anything Susan suggested might help. He even went a step further and decided he’d tell me all the things he loved about me. I told him he didn’t have to and he said, “Doctor’s orders.” “That’s not what she said, and they weren’t orders,” I told him, but he had that stubborn look on his face that meant he wouldn’t be talked out of it.

  Every morning now, Rhys told me how glad he was that he was married to me. Sincerely, without any hint of ax-murderer zeal.

  During the day, he texted me sweet and silly little things he liked about me.

  You’re such a good kisser.

  Can’t wait to take a walk with you tonight.

  You were so fucking hot last night I’m still thinking about it ;)

  You’re so beautiful.

  I thought of a place we should add to our list!

  Max and I love you, with a picture of the two of them.

  And sometimes, You’re mine, Matty. Don’t forget it.

  We’re married. That means I’m yours forever.

  The sweet ones made me squirm self-consciously, the hot ones made me blush madly. The ones where he said I was his…they filled me with a deep, hot, sense of joy that made me want to hide it away so no one could take it from me.

  I thought I probably should feel ridiculous. After all, I was such a wreck that my husband felt he had to text me daily affirmations. But…I couldn’t bring myself to be anything but grateful.