He chuckles. “Then he’s got a cruel sense of humor.”
He always does that, talks himself down. Can’t he understand just how much he means to me? “No, he doesn’t. Because if I’d chosen, I don’t even want to know what I’d have wound up with. Probably another little loser like the one who got me pregnant.”
“You know, I’ve always been curious about that guy.” He pulls the car out onto the road. “You ever see him around?”
Rubbing my arms, relishing the heavy heat pumping through the car, I roll my eyes. “Unfortunately. He and I go to the same school. I bump into him every once in a while.”
“I ever see him?”
I love when his voice gets all growly.
Smirking, I pat my caveman’s knee. “Probably not. He likes to think himself big dog on campus, so you’re pretty much guaranteed to see him at every party and bar in town. Since we don’t do that…” I shrug, letting the rest dangle.
A light dusting of Texas snow starts raining down. Which is to say a mix of rain and ice, slush really. Turning on the wipers, Ryan taps his fingers on the steering column.
“Doesn’t it ever bother him?”
“What’s that?”
“Not seeing his kid? I can’t imagine that. I’d never do that to mine.”
“Wish more guys felt like you.” I give him a grim smile. “But most don’t care. He knows Javi’s here, I’ve never stopped him from seeing him. First year he’d come around every once in a while. Then the visits became less and less. Until finally they stopped altogether.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
I toss my hands into the air. “I don’t know. It used to. Not anymore. It’s easier this way. Javi’s all mine, I raise him the way I want.”
“And his grandparents?” He frowns.
“My mother is his only grandparent.” I lick my lips, settling back into the seat, staring out the window.
Aching for so much that Javi will never get the chance to experience. I don’t think about these things often anymore. Life is just life. I resigned myself to that fact years ago and I don’t lose any sleep over it. But thinking about it now, it isn’t fair.
The only grandma Javi will ever know might not live to see him become a man. Might never actually get to hear him speak his first words.
Ryan touches my cheek and I look toward him.
“Let’s talk about something else.”
Appreciating the gesture, I pinch my lips. “Fine, how about what you plan to bring to Thanksgiving.”
“Hey, that wasn’t in the plan. I planned to eat lots of turkey and watch football.”
I pinch the curve of his sexy ass, remembering how I’d been able to cup it last night. The man could move in bed. It made my toes curl thinking about the things he did to me in there. “Loafer, you come, you bring. That’s the rules.”
“Omelet? I’ll make sure it doesn’t look so ugly this time.”
Remembering the first one he made me, I snort. “That thing was pretty hideous. But I don’t think so. We’re not making turkey anyway. We’re doing a traditional Panamanian Thanksgiving.”
Stopping at the red light, his brows gather. “And what’s that?”
“Tamales wrapped in banana leaves, ropa vieja.” I pause. “Means old clothes, by the way, before you ask. Patacones, which are delicious, they’re crushed plantains, taste a lot like fried chips, and probably some tocino.”
“Mmm… sounds appetizing, especially the old clothes, that what you called it?” He pats his belly and I don’t miss the heavily laced sarcasm behind those words.
“Excuse me, mister.” I wag my finger in his face as we slowly ease back into traffic. “It’s delicious. I have no idea why they call it old clothes, but it’s actually steak and vegetables stewed in tomatoes. It’s really good and you’ll love it. Ade makes the best. ’Course, she’s Mexican, so that’s sacrilegious of me to say. But it’s true. So what are you bringing?”
He shrugs, turning left into the grocery store parking lot. “I don’t know. I’ll figure something out. You like dessert?”
“Tres Leches?”
Getting out, he waits until I meet him around the other side of the car before spreading his jacket over my head to keep the sleet off. We dust each other off once we get below the overhang, shivering as we walk in.
“Is that that milk cake stuff?” he asks, getting back to my question.
“Ahh.” Opening my mouth exaggeratedly, I nod. “So someone is learning Spanish. And here I thought you just liked to hear me whisper naughty stuff in your ear.”
He actually blushes, which is so adorable I can’t help but sidle into him, letting anyone looking know he’s mine and mine alone.
“Not exactly, but this is Texas and it’s everywhere. I can’t make that stuff, but I can make a mean Jell-O mold.”
Tossing my hair over my shoulder, I laugh. “Make it blue raspberry and we have a deal. It’s Javi’s favorite.”
We’re tossing what few groceries we still need into our cart. Ryan holds out a stalk of cilantro for me to smell when I see him go completely rigid.
“Ryan?” Turning, I touch his arm, but he’s not looking at me.
He’s standing face-to-face and toe-to-toe with an older man. The man looks to be in his late fifties, early sixties maybe. More white in his hair than black, wearing thick glasses and a blue button-down shirt on his still-muscular frame.
Lines bracket his mouth and eyes, but it’s obvious to anyone with half a brain who this man is. Because the eyes are the exact same—the deepest blue of a bottomless ocean.
I clear my throat, knowing someone needs to break the tense silence, and extend my hand.
“Hi, I’m, Lili. You must be Ryan’s dad.” Maneuvering a step back so I can press the length of my spine into Ryan, I smile as brightly as I can.
The man barely spares me a glance.
“Lili, Jack. Jack, Lili.” Ryan makes hasty introductions, his whiskey voice strained and rumbling.
Finally Jack looks at me. “Who are you?”
Embedding his fingers into my shoulders—maybe for comfort, maybe to prevent himself from punching his dad in the face… I don’t know—Ryan leans over me, his entire body trembling.
“My girlfriend.”
Jack’s answer is a disgusted grunt. “So you’re back. Didn’t think to look your Mom and me up, didn’t think we’d care at all. That it, boy?”
“Cut the shit,” Ryan hisses. “We both know that’s not true. All that time I was in Afghanistan, I didn’t get one goddamned letter from either of you, so don’t tell me you fucking cared. At least don’t lie.”
Jack jerks his thumb at me. “You let him kiss you with that mouth?”
His question is so condescending and mocking that I have to bite my tongue to keep from snapping.
“It’s a wonder you ever found anyone to date you.” Jack rolls a bag full of oranges in his hand before dumping it into the green basket he’s holding.
Keenly aware of the pairs of eyes beginning to gather around the produce area, I rub my hand down Ryan’s side, hoping to calm him.
“How long you been back?” Jack shifts his feet and it’s obvious the small talk he’s making is completely forced since he keeps checking his wristwatch and glancing toward the door.
“Mom waiting outside?” Ryan drawls, obviously also aware.
“Actually, yes. We’re meeting your uncle.”
At that, I feel Ryan’s body go completely still and my heart beats so hard I can taste the adrenaline in the back of my throat.
“You remember Uncle John. You used to be best friends with his boy, Alex. Good kid that one, comes and visits. You know, remembers his family.”
I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Hearing. Sometimes when someone tells you a sob story you think it can’t honestly be that bad, right? But this is worse. How can a man just look at his son like that? With such contempt and scorn, such hate? It’s visceral and biting and I want to slap the
smug smirk off the man’s face.
“Oh, I’m sorry, you mean the bastard I almost killed? Now why would I want to see that piece of—”
Jack leans in, his nose so close to Ryan’s face I feel squished between the two of them.
“Utter another fucking word,” he grates out so hard his spit lands on my face. I have to fight not to gag. “Say it. I dare you, Ryan. We all know what really happened. You’re a liar. A screw-up and a fucking liar.”
Forgetting anything other than getting him away from this ugly, hateful man, I shove Jack back. For a fleeting second astonishment floats through his steel-blue eyes, like he can’t believe I dared touch him that way. But it’s gone just as quick as it appears.
Nostrils flaring, hands flexing, he rights himself on the store fridge, then makes as if to come back at Ryan.
Whipping my finger up, I plant my hand firmly against Ryan’s chest just in case he’s got any crazy ideas. Like, say, attacking his dad the way he had Olivio.
“Go away,” I warn the man, dropping my voice low so that prying ears don’t hear. “He doesn’t want to see you anymore, and frankly, neither do I. He’s a good man, better than you, and you never deserved him.”
By the end I’m shaking so hard I’m surprised I’m even still standing.
Licking his teeth, Jack snarls. “You know who the real piece of shit is, Ryan? You. Always were, always will be. Fucking wish I’d made her get that abortion.”
With those final words, Jack turns and walks away.
Faces, too many of them, are staring at us. But especially at Ryan. I hate them all. How dare they stand there and look? Gawk as if he’s some freak sent here to entertain them?
“What?” I snap, eyeing all of them until they hastily glance down and retreat.
Still shaking, I turn and grab his hand.
His fingers are ice cold and he’s still staring at the spot his father had last been.
“Baby?”
He doesn’t move, doesn’t even acknowledge me. It’s as if he hasn’t heard any of what I’ve been saying. So I shake him. He flinches but still won’t give me his eyes, so I shake harder.
“Honey, look at me.”
When he finally glances down, I see the fire of his anger. It burns bright and cold in his eyes, but beating beneath that I see the small child. The one he’d told me about. The one who’d fed a stray rat, who’d wanted his father’s attention, his father’s approval…
“You’re none of those things, you hear me? He may have raised you, but I know you better. You’re not now and never will be any of those things.”
Teeth grinding, he flicks his eyes at the fruit stand behind me.
“We need to get out of here,” he says, and I shiver at the intensity of it.
We’ve gotten everything we need anyway. Nodding, I hurry to the register, pay, and chew on my thumbnail as he loads the bags into the car.
He’s so silent.
Every once in a while he’ll spit, but he still won’t look at me. We get back inside the car in silence. A muscle in his jaw clenches and the silence in the car is deafening.
When we get back to my house, he calmly unloads and helps me carry it all inside. Nodding at Ade and Mama, he then turns to me, speaking the first words since leaving the store.
“I’ll be back. I need to take care of some things.”
Bile floods my throat. “Please don’t do anything stupid.” I grab his hand, not sure what he’s planned. He doesn’t own any guns, always saying his hands are the only weapons he needs in the house, but right now, all sorts of crazy thoughts are tumbling through my head.
Is he going to go find his dad and kill him?
His uncle?
The name had instantly transformed him. Whatever the demons were, they involved Uncle John.
He turns to go.
“Baby, please. Promise me.” I grab him and rub his knuckle.
His lashes flutter as he leans in to kiss me.
I want to hang on to him and never let go. If there were some way to crawl inside his head right now and force him to stay, I would. I don’t want him to leave this house.
“Please?” I whimper.
I watch him go without another word. The moment he’s out of sight I fling my jacket off and run to my bedroom.
Picking up the phone with shaking fingers, I punch in Alex’s number.
He picks up on the second ring.
“Alex! I don’t know… I don’t…”
“Liliana?” His voice is clipped, terse. “What’s wrong? Where’s Ryan?”
I sob. “He left. I don’t know where he’s going, but he left. We were at the store and his dad was there…”
“Shit.” I hear the rustling movement of clothes. “Did they talk?”
“Yeah, and it was bad.” I scrub my arm across my face. “And Jack brought up John and…”
“Fuck!” There’s jostling, a female voice in the background, and an emphatic “ssh” before Alex gets back on the phone. “Don’t worry. I’ll find him, okay?”
The line goes dead and I plop onto my bed, dropping the phone on the floor, I need my Ryan to come back.
“Please, God. Please,” I mutter incoherently for the next several hours.
***
Ryan
I’ve driven for hours, slamming my fist into the wheel over and over. Not knowing where I’m going, only that I have to get away from her. She can’t see me like this. Can’t see me lose my fucking mind, not again, not after the last time.
I’d promised her I’d keep it together.
But I don’t know how to survive this. Don’t know how to work through this.
Not like I haven’t known how my dad has always felt about me, but that he takes his side, that he’d said all that shit in front of her. Stirred everything up.
She knows.
She has to know.
I’m sick.
My gut’s cramping so bad I have to jerk the wheel to the right, barely crawling out the door in time.
I puke along the side of the road, hunched over on my hands and knees, looking like a baby, praying to God a car will swerve and put me out of my misery.
The sun is down, the stars are out, and I don’t know what to do.
I don’t even know who I am anymore.
Here I am, in the gutter, throwing up, and my dad is at his perfect fucking house, with my perfect fucking mom, drinking wine with his perfect fucking family.
I hate them all so much.
Hate that it still hurts.
Eyes tearing, I wipe my mouth and crawl back into the car. I need to hurt something, want to kill something.
Kill the memories of them.
Make it not hurt anymore.
An inhuman howl rips from my throat. I’m not even sure where I’m headed, but muscle memory has driven me to the gym.
The perfect place to pound out my aggression.
When I walk in, there’s only one other guy in there. And he’s getting ready to wrap it up, putting things into his black gym bag, looking at me strangely.
I don’t want to know what I look like right now.
I’m not dressed for a work out, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing does other than forgetting.
Going up to him, I ask to borrow his tape.
“Sure.” He tosses me the roll. “But I’m not giving you my gloves.”
“Don’t want them.”
I turn back and walk to the bag, tossing my shirt over my head. I quickly tape my hands and then let my fists fly.
Drowning out the words with a satisfying crack.
Over and over again.
At some point I know I’m all alone in the building.
My mind is a blank except for the mantra beating through my skull. Rotate hips, pivot, punch. Rotate hips, pivot, punch.
Sweat pours down my brow, my back.
Rotate hips, pivot, punch.
One.
Two.
Three.
Harder. Harder. Harder.<
br />
Panting so hard, lungs heaving, expanding air in and out.
My knuckles are swelling; they burn and are split. Blood mixes with my sweat. But I don’t stop because the voices are too loud.
“Good. So fucking, good, Ryan. Yeah, just like that. You know you like it. So fucking good.”
The words are back and they’re grinding into me, ripping like a claw through my gut, tearing into the viscera, making a bloody mess and not giving a damn. Burrowing deeper and deeper and deeper with no mercy.
Legs splayed apart, a zipper down, me on my knees.
Only ten years old.
Sobbing, my eye throbbing where he’d punched me, told me never to talk about it. Told me no one would believe me anyway.
Valentine’s Day.
The day my whole world changed.
Became dark and ugly and terrifying and I’d learned what the word hate really meant.
Rotate hips, pivot, punch.
His fat, meaty face gazing into my tear-streaked one as he ran a heavy hand through my hair. Moans falling from his lips.
“Ryan, fuck me, man. I’ve been looking all over for you.”
Growling, I backhand the bag. I’d never heard the door open.
“Why didn’t you tell me!” I pant, trying to reason through the icy breath of panic coursing through my blood, filtering through my head, telling me I’m worthless, disgusting.
Alex holds his hands out, takes a step back, eyes wide as saucers. “What, dude?”
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me you were still seeing them?”
Banging his head against the wall, he growls and closes his eyes. “I run into them every once in a while. What the hell do you expect me to do, Ryan? You don’t want anyone to know, you don’t want me to talk about it. So I pretend, just like you, I pretend I didn’t fucking see what I saw. I pretend I didn’t catch my goddamnned dad doing the shit he did. It fucking haunts me, man. Fuck!”
He slams his fist into the door.
“I can’t do this.” I grab my head. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“You shut the hell up.” Alex shakes his finger at me. “I’m not going to go through what I did with you in February. You’re going to handle this; you’re going to figure out a way, you hear me?”
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