I’ve never pushed him far this before because I think, deep down, I’d always feared this would be the outcome. “Ryan.”
His name falling from my lips—it’s my last desperate plea.
Leaning his forehead on the lockers, all I can see is his body jerk and it kills me because I know he’s crying.
I can’t leave him like this, I can’t just run away. Approaching him cautiously, hand raised, I sniff back the tears and touch his bare shoulder blade. His hot skin ripples beneath my hand and a horrible shuddering sound falls from him, but he doesn’t say anything, just grips the edge of the lockers like his life depends on it.
I want his arms around me, want his hot lips on mine, kissing away this hurt, making love to me all night long. But I said words I don’t think I can ever take back.
He’ll never forgive me for this.
I’ve shattered his heart on Christmas Day, ripped it from his chest and tossed it to the ground. Devastated, I wrap my hands around his waist and kiss the line of his spine, my tears mingling with the kisses, tasting salty.
He doesn’t turn around, he doesn’t grab me, and doesn’t try to stop me when I finally have to let him go.
Turning back to the door, I grip the knob and wait. For several heartbeats, I stand silent as a mouse, praying he’ll stop me, tell me something, anything.
But he doesn’t.
Knowing he won’t understand, I speak to him in Spanish. “Te amo con todo mi corazón, pero lo estás rompiendo.” I love you with all my heart, but you’re breaking it.
Ryan lets me go.
***
Ryan
I hear her leave, hear her footfalls echo down the hall until they fade completely. What just happened?
Numb, dazed, I stand there like a moron, feeling as if I’ve just died and am now a soul standing over my body, watching the crumpled, ravaged thing with a sense of detached shock.
She didn’t just do that.
My Lili didn’t just walk out.
Leave me alone, give me an ultimatum. Tell me or I walk.
She wouldn’t do that to me.
Because I always believed her when she said she loved me.
I felt it in each kiss, each touch, each gentle little sigh as I’d filled her. But as the lights flicker through the stadium and she never returns, I know it’s really over.
A violent ripping tears through my gut and I grab the nearest wastebin, throwing it all up.
My life is over now.
Nobody cares anymore. Wiping the back of my mouth with my hand, I march to my bag and yank the box out. Flicking open the lid, I stare at the delicate ring.
I’m not sure how long I stand there, feeling betrayed, violated all over again.
I’d fucking given her everything and it hadn’t been enough.
With an inhuman roar I throw the box at the wall, watching as the ring sails out, plinking softly to the floor.
All my dreams, all my hopes… Everything, it’s all gone now.
Grabbing my bag, I shove it onto my shoulder and turn, intending to leave it. Leave it all behind, the same way she’d left me.
But as I step outside into the depressing gray hallway, emptiness spreads through my skull. Dropping my bag, I run back inside to the ring. Falling to my knees, I pick it up and fist it, tucking it to my chest as I kneel over and scream.
So loud and so long that I know if anyone remains they’ll find me, they’ll hear. But I don’t give a damn. Not anymore.
Crumpled in a heap, I fall to my side and close my eyes and let my mind just drift.
A broken heart can kill. Maybe that will be the way I go. Found dead in the morning, eyes open, this ring clenched in my fist. What a damn loser I’ve become.
But no matter how much anger there is, how much I tell myself not to let one woman do this to me, I can’t move.
I’m paralyzed and gasping for breath, waiting for that death. Praying for it.
That’s how Alex finds me.
He walks inside, his blond hair tussled, his shirt on crooked as if he’s just rolled out of bed and thrown something on.
“She called me. Told me where you were.” His gray eyes miss nothing.
Sees me huddled like a baby, sees the garbage can full of my filth, sees the glint of the ring… I close my eyes.
“Here to tell me ‘I told you so’? Because you were right.” I laugh. “You were fucking right.”
Kneeling next to me, he slaps my arm. “Get up. I’m not here to say any such thing. But you can’t stay here all night.”
I look at him. “She left me, Alex. What the hell am I supposed to do now?”
Shaking his head, he grips my shoulders and forces me to sit up.
“Fight. Live. Deal with this shit, but live and move on. Now get the hell up.”
Dropping my head into my hands, I shake it. “Tell me she wasn’t good enough, tell me I can do better, tell me something, Alex, because I think I’m going to die if you don’t.”
He just stares at me and thins his lips, and that says everything.
She was better than I ever deserved, better than I could have ever expected to have.
“I should have told her, man. I should have…”
“Then call her. Call her right now and tell her the truth. Do it. She told me what she told you, but she didn’t leave you, Ryan. She walked away from the situation. She’s a mess, man. Both of you are—this isn’t what either of you want. And I’m no damn psychologist, but this isn’t right. I shouldn’t have to be here. This shouldn’t be me. Why can’t you two get your shit together?” He squeezes his eyes shut, scrubbing his jaw.
I try to imagine that phone call, her picking up, me telling her everything, laying it all out there and her still saying no.
But behind the pain, there’s anger. A giant ball of it and it’s filling me, because she didn’t have to do this. I was going to tell her everything, I was going to. But she never gave me time. She demanded and expected me to just jump and beg and wag my tail like a fucking dog.
Shoving to my feet, I tuck the ring into my pocket, grab my bag, and look back at him. Locking Lili away into a vault deep, deep inside me. A place I won’t have to touch, won’t have to remember.
She wants no part of me, fine. It’s over. I won’t think about her, I’ll move on. Live, fight, show everyone I’m better than this. Better than me.
“You coming?” I ask him.
Alex reads it in my eyes. He must, because he puts on the mask too. The one we always wear, the one that demands nothing, the one that says everything’s okay… so long as you never talk, never remember.
“Yeah,” he sighs. “I’m coming.”
Chapter Twenty Six
Liliana
February
December rolls into January and then February.
Mama’s hardly talking anymore and some nights I just need her to. Need it desperately. Like tonight when the dreams haunt me.
I can’t get his face out of my head, the utter devastation that was scrawled across it. The hurt and betrayal flashing in his brilliant blue eyes.
And he’s right, I betrayed his trust. I’d begged him to trust me, to share, but I left him when he needed me most. Left him alone in that locker room while I nursed my wounds, knowing his had to be so much worse.
Hard rain falls against the roof. I miss him now, more than ever. Crawling out of bed, I stretch my arms across the window and stare into the night, wishing I could be lifted out of here. Taken away, somewhere, anywhere… where the pain is gone. Where the burden of so much, too much, doesn’t leave me panting and sweating each night.
It’s a constant yearning that never really goes away. Even when I’m laughing, hanging out with a group of friends, or sitting and focusing while a professor lectures, the longing is my constant companion.
Where is he?
Who is he with?
And Javi, he’s not doing well at all. He knows, senses something is wrong. Sometimes I’ll catch him staring o
ut the window or watching a football game and just moaning.
The other night he let me hold him. And not while he’d been sleeping. He was watching the TV, sitting beside me. Then, looking at my thigh, he’d gripped my hand and squeezed so hard my fingers went numb.
He misses Ryan desperately and that’s his way of asking where he is. Where’s my daddy?
And that’s how I honestly think he views Ryan. Because for months, that’s what he was.
The tears, they’re always there, always burning the back of my throat. The first few days were hell. I’d sit and stare at my phone, go to school, come back and stare at my phone, go to work, come back home and stare at my phone. Knowing if I called he’d hang up.
I hurt him.
I know that, but at the time I felt like I had no choice. After the night in the tub when he’d rocked and moaned and shuddered, I’d been so scared because I didn’t think I could do it. Didn’t think I had it in me to just pretend anymore.
Now… I’d take it all back. I can deal with anything so long as he’s by my side. So long as he strokes and loves me, but I don’t even have that anymore. I have no one.
Ade’s busy with Mama.
Javi never speaks.
Past three in the morning… I close my eyes. I have to know. Have to know that at least he’s okay.
Grabbing my cell phone, hands shaking so hard I have to redial the number twice, I call.
“Hello?” Alex’s sleepy voice drawls across the line.
Sitting cross-legged on the edge of my bed, I grip my small phone with both hands.
“Alex,” I whisper.
It takes a minute before he speaks again. “Lili Bean?”
I take a stuttering breath as the relief of hearing that name tugs a half-forgotten smile from the corner of my lips. “Yeah.”
The sound of sheets moving and him sitting rings through the line, then, “How you been?”
Not good. Miserable. Desperate. “Awful.”
“Yeah,” he whispers. “You haven’t been by the coffee shop in a while.”
Licking my lips, I nod. “I know. Didn’t think you’d forgiven me.”
A long exhale. “It’s not me, Lili. I was never angry at you. House has been silent without you, though.”
Running the backs of my fingers along my chin, I wonder what that means. Is he being nice and just saying what I want to hear, or is he really telling me Ryan’s not filling his bed every night?
“How… how is he?” My heart thunders, pounds at the base of my throat.
“About as good as you’d expect. Fighting, eating, sleeping.”
“Does he… does he ever?” I close my eyes, unable to finish my thought.
“Talk about you?” he supplies and I nod, even knowing he can’t see me. After a lengthy pause, he sighs. “No. Never.”
It’s a blow to my chest.
Not that I should be surprised. That was Ryan’s MO. Never talk about the things that hurt the most. Ignore it, pretend it doesn’t exist, and move on.
But I hate he’s doing that with me. I hate myself for doing that to him.
I pinch the bridge of my nose, and empty static fills the line. I don’t know what else to say, but I’m also not ready to hang up. Alex is my tether to him, the connection between us. Like as long as I have him on the phone, Ryan isn’t all that far away.
“Is he…” I stutter. Taking a deep, calming breath, I just blurt it out: “Is he with someone else?”
Alex is quiet so long that I can’t help it, I wail. Because the silence is deafening and tells me everything I need to know. It’s a horrible sound, full of hurt and raw agony, and I can’t breathe.
“Lili, stop,” he hisses. “He’s not seeing someone else. Look, Ryan’s breathing, okay. But he’s not good.”
I shove a fist in my mouth, hiccupping around the lump in my throat. The relief that floods through me makes my legs weak. But nipping on the heels of that relief are Alex’s words.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he’s getting into fights. A lot of them.”
“He’s beating people up?” I ask, remembering the day I saw him brutalize Olivio.
“No.” I can almost picture him shaking his head. “No, I mean he’s antagonizing and picking at guys until they come at him. Then he just stands there, Lili, lets them just kick the shit out of him. Fucking drives me nuts. He laughs with each blow. Guys at the gym think he’s sick or twisted or some shit.”
I drop my head. “I didn’t mean to do this to him, I swear, Alex. I just wanted him to tell me, to share with me…”
“I know. Truthfully, I told him to tell you all this months ago.”
“You did?” My mouth goes dry.
“Lili, I’m a just a dude. But I love him. Ryan… he went through shit. Shit that changes a man. I’ll never leave him alone—he’s my responsibility to take care of, but I hoped… hoped you were the one to fix him. I think you might have been if he’d trusted you enough, if he’d just been willing… You know he was going to propose to you that night?”
The words fly at me like bullets, crashing into me, ripping me apart from the inside out. My body goes cold and I blink.
“What?”
“Yeah.” His voice sounds strained, tired. “He bought the ring the day we went shopping.”
Looking back, I remembered his excitement that day. How he’d worshipped my body that night, whispered over and over he loved me, that it would be all right. We would be all right.
I have a heart palpitation. Not a hard one, but powerful enough to drive the breath from my lungs. I’ve suffered with them my whole life during times of high stress. When I was pregnant, when Mama got diagnosed, the day Papa left… the night I walked out on Ryan.
“Lili, you still there?”
I think I say yes, but I’m really not sure.
“I’m sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have told you that.”
“It’s almost Valentine’s Day,” I whisper. “Next week.”
The line goes still, so quiet I think he’s hung up. “I know.”
“Are you going to another bar?”
“Not if I have anything to say about it. I’m going to put a padlock on his door.”
“Alex?”
“Yeah?”
I close my eyes, heart still pounding too hard. “If he does something…”
“I’ll call you.”
We hang up then and I stare at the phone like maybe there’s some way to reach inside and yank him out. Pull Ryan back to me.
The digital screen turns black and I throw it to the carpet.
Getting up, I walk across the hall, quickly glancing into Javi’s room. His hands are tucked underneath his cheek. Opening Mama’s door, I walk inside.
She doesn’t move, doesn’t even open her eyes. Just lays there and the only color on her is the moon spilling across her frail, thin frame. Ade sits up from her pallet beside Mama, rubbing her eyes.
“Liliana?” she mumbles.
Smiling through the tears, I press a finger to my lips and then crawl into Mama’s bed and hug her, wrap my arms and legs around her, and cry into her dress, staining the mauve cloth. Grabbing her hand, I rub it across my shoulder and pretend it’s her, pretend she’s hugging me back, telling me everything will be okay. That in the end, love always conquers all, that I’m not alone… never have been.
Finally, I fall asleep.
***
Ryan
Heading into the kitchen, I grab the kettle and put some water on to boil. Alex is staring at me. Just staring with determined eyes.
I hate that look.
“What?” I snarl and scratch my back. “You’re looking.”
“I’m thinking.”
“About what?” I snap, grabbing a bowl and mug out of the cabinet.
“It’s Valentine’s Day next week,” he finally says.
Pouring my cereal and grabbing a chamomile bag, I shrug. “So?”
“So what’s the plan?”
<
br /> Slamming a hand down on the counter, I take a deep breath. “Stop trying to always save me, Alex. I’m going out. Same thing I do every year.”
“Aren’t you tired of this? Sick of it? Look at you, man. Have you even looked at yourself in the mirror for a while? You look like shit, like you’ve gone a hundred rounds and you still don’t quit. Why won’t you stop? Fuck, man, I’m exhausted.”
I do look at myself.
All the time.
My face is always swollen and black and blue. It isn’t pretty, but I don’t want to be. I don’t want any other woman to look at me the way she did. I don’t want to feel what I had. I want to be numb, and I am.
During the day.
Nights are another matter.
My dreams are a frightening amalgam of Valentine’s Day mixed in with Christmas. His eyes in her face.
“I’m not gonna off myself, okay. So just chill. I’m done playing the martyr. I’m done caring. This is my life. I’ve accepted it, why can’t you?” I stalk to the opposite end of the table and dump my bowl on it, not caring that most of the food winds up on the table instead.
“Because I love you, man.” Alex shakes his head with a look of sheer exasperation on it.
Digging into the dregs of my oatmeal, I snort. “Then stop. Loving me is a cancer. Haven’t you learned that by now?”
“Have you ever talked to anyone?”
Lifting a brow, I shovel a spoonful into my mouth. “Yeah, I talk to the heavy bag and my training partner’s face.”
“I’m serious!” He slams his fist on the table. “I told myself the day you left, the day you went away, that if you ever came back I’d stick by your side. I’d do whatever it took to make you human again, whole again, and I meant it. I still do.”
Rolling my eyes, I swallow my tea. “Shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep. You can’t fix someone that doesn’t want to be fixed. Lili learned that. She left.”
First time I’ve talked about her since that night, and it’s still hard to think about. I miss her every day, crave her touch like a junkie wants a hit. But she isn’t coming back.
“Maybe take a page out of her book—better for everyone that way.”
“She called last night.”
eyond Desire Collection Page 142
