The Girl and Her Ren

by Pepper Winters

  I didn’t know if he was trying to make a joke to cut through the tension or if he was serious. Either way, Della wouldn’t be leaving a bed the moment I found her one.

  “Is she free to go?” My mind already leapt ahead, problem solving and planning. Where the hell would we sleep tonight?

  “She is. I’ve made an appointment to see her in the morning.”

  Della swung her legs over the bed, her feet dangling high off the floor. “I’m fine, Ren. Honestly. We’ll just treat it as a mini-vacation, and then we can go home.”

  I smiled and let her believe I accepted that, when in reality, I was already committed to staying close to town for the next few months. Autumn had already arrived. We only had another six to eight weeks of chilly weather before we would’ve been driven into civilisation by the snow anyway.

  We were here now.

  We would stay until spring.

  Pushing me away a little, Della sprang to the floor, wincing and grabbing her stomach.

  “Goddammit, let me carry you.” Wrapping my arms around her, I tried to pick her up, but she shoved me back. “I can walk, Ren. Don’t even think about it.”

  My jaw locked, but I wouldn’t argue in front of a stranger.

  “Thank you, Doctor Strand. I’ll see you in the morning.” Della took my hand, and together, we headed from the strong-smelling room and back to the waiting area.

  I settled up, paid yet another small fortune, and accepted a card with a new appointment time for eleven a.m. tomorrow.

  By the time we were on the street, thick darkness had fallen and even the restaurants were closed. I doubted we could find a similar cottage like our last one at this time of night. I doubted we could even find something to eat.

  Della pointed at a quaint sign up ahead. “Look, it’s a Bed and Breakfast. Let’s crash there and sort out better accommodation tomorrow.”

  I froze.

  The thought of sleeping in a house with strangers. Of seeing those same people in the morning. Of hearing them through the walls and sharing their showers.

  God, no.

  I honestly didn’t think I could do it.

  My feet actually backed away as everything inside me repelled against the idea.

  I would rather sleep on the street. Naked.

  But then Della flinched and hissed between her teeth, her face going white and hinting she wasn’t as okay as she pretended.

  She was ill.

  She was tired.

  And it was no longer about me.

  It was never about me.

  “Okay, Della. Bed and Breakfast it is.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  REN

  * * * * * *

  2019

  I DIDN’T SLEEP.

  Of course, I didn’t sleep.

  After we’d checked into the last available room in the five-bedroom Bed and Breakfast, I’d paced the small flower-decorated space like a caged rat. Thanks to my idiosyncrasies, I didn’t have a hope in hell of relaxing in this place.

  Just as I feared, the sounds of pipes groaning as another guest had a shower and the flush of a toilet a wall away drove me nuts.

  I wasn’t claustrophobic, but living so close to other people was past my very limited tolerance when it came to my fellow human race.

  I didn’t know how Della stood it, considering we both preferred trees and silence to buildings and chaos. Then again, she’d spent her childhood in noisy school classrooms and busy malls. Her natural habitat included both, while mine was firmly set in wide open fields with only a tractor and wind for company.

  Doing my best to stay calm, I pictured emptiness all around me with no threats to listen to and no people to suspect.

  But it didn’t work.

  I despised being so close.

  I hated that we weren’t free to go where we wanted.

  I cursed how, even now, even though almost two decades separated me from Mclary, I still had the occasional panic attack that demanded I run.

  The day I’d had my first attack—when John Wilson closed the door at Christmas to give me my first pay packet—I’d wondered if I’d outgrow them.

  And I had, to a degree.

  But my childhood had made me distrustful, and the loner who had run when he was ten was just as happy on his own with Della now that he was twenty-nine as he had been as a boy.

  I was simple.

  I needed Della.

  That was it.

  Nothing else required.

  And the thought that she could be taken from me by something as idiotic as this?

  It made me fucking rage.

  It was exactly what I’d feared happening. It was why I never wanted her pregnant in the first place.

  I paced again, checking the bathroom for intruders—as if they could climb through the tiny window—doing anything I could to stop my temper from building and latching onto the one person I shouldn’t be angry at but was suddenly insanely furious with.

  By the time I entered the bedroom again, my fists were clenched, my heart beating chaotically, and I itched for a fight—anything to expend the sick-fury and never ending need to keep Della safe.

  I couldn’t fight her body from hurting her.

  But I could fight—

  “Ren.” Della noticed my unravelling self-control. How could she not with my pacing and jumpiness and longing looks out the window?

  “Ren, come to bed.”

  Bed? Lie down? Sleep? Let my guard down when other people slept so close? In the same building as us?

  “Can’t.” I flung myself into the high-backed chair with an orchid decorated ottoman, swallowing a cough.

  The meagre supplies I’d brought with us meant we’d at least been able to clean our teeth after the landlady kindly brought up some ham sandwiches and a few chocolate cookies as an evening snack.

  She seemed nice enough, but so did anyone who wanted to lull you into a false sense of security.

  “Ren, the door is locked. We’re safe.”

  I narrowed my eyes at the flimsy lock and the flimsy door and its flimsy hinges. If someone wanted to come in, they could. No problem.

  Conversation was good, at least. It gave me something else to think about instead of the undying need to scream at Della.

  She huffed as if she didn’t quite understand me even though she should. Of all people, she should understand exactly what I was struggling with.

  She cocked her head. “You didn’t have a problem sleeping at the Wilsons, and they were just across the driveway.”

  I clutched the armrests hard, forcing myself to stay on this subject and not yell a totally different one. “To start with, I was sick and didn’t have a choice. And by the time I was better, I’d learned to trust them.”

  “Well, trust that nothing will happen here. We’re just guests like everyone else. We’ll checkout in the morning, and everyone will go their separate ways. No one cares who we are.”

  I did my best to relax, but the tingling anxiety continued to zoom in my veins. Needing to change the subject—to prove to myself I wasn’t a monster who screamed at Della when she wasn’t well—I asked gently, “How are you feeling?”

  Her face fell as she plucked at the pansy bedspread with its copious amounts of pillows.

  “I’m okay. I just keep hearing the words ‘you’re pregnant.’ You know?” She shrugged, a gleam of tears springing from nowhere. “I thought I’d feel happy if I ever heard those words. But all I felt was terror. The pain…if this is what it feels like to be pregnant, I don’t know if I can—”

  “Stop it.” I leaned forward, digging my hands into my temples and wedging fingers into my hair as if could prevent her from speaking. “Just…go to sleep.”

  Her gasp spoke volumes of how I’d shocked and upset her. “What do you mean? Wait. Are you angry with me?” Shifting higher in the pillows, dressed in just her t-shirt and underwear, she demanded, “Why are you acting like this?”

  “Like what? Pissed off that you’re in
pain and there’s nothing I can do about it?”

  Stop it, Wild.

  Just stop it. Before you go too far.

  “Forget about it.” I raked my fingers through my hair and let them fall to my knees. I’d been the one to work myself up. I’d made myself feel sick and out of control. Not her. “I’m sorry. Go to sleep, Della. Get some rest.”

  A long pause before she muttered, “I won’t be able to sleep unless you get into bed with me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can. It’s just a bed, Ren. They’ve washed the sheets. They’ve—”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Then what is it because your temper is driving me—”

  Swooping to my feet, I growled. “I can’t touch you. I can’t lie beside you. I’m the reason you’re in agony. Why did I put so much responsibility on you, huh? To not even bother supporting you with taking the pill at the right time every day, making sure you were okay, ensuring that things like this didn’t happen. You’re so fucking young. Far too young to get pregnant, let alone a complicated one. What does that even mean? Is it because I carted you out to the wilderness and thought I could keep you healthy and happy? Is it because I didn’t give you what you needed as a kid and your body is all messed up now? What?”

  My roar found every corner of the room and bounced back amplified. “I mean it, Della. You’re only nineteen. How did I think it was right to touch you? Let alone sleep with you?! I’m sick. I’m perverted. I’m the reason you’re in agony and…and, I don’t know how to make it right.”

  I stalked to the door, then back to the window, needing open spaces and trees. My lungs begged for fresh air. “I’m furious at you for putting yourself in danger this way, but it’s me I should be angry at.”

  Punching myself in the chest, I seethed, “All me. I knew getting involved with you would be a bad idea. I’m ten years older. I should know better. Maybe it was me, huh? Maybe it was my screwed-up sperm that made you pregnant where it can kill you. Goddammit!”

  Breathing hard and struggling, I stood in the centre of the room, desperate to pick up the confessions I’d just littered all over the floor, but unable to move.

  Most of my issues didn’t even make sense. All I knew was I was horrified, terrified, and pissed off at everything.

  Della sat stonily in bed, her chin high and eyes bright. “How can you say that? How can you say any of that? Loving me was a bad idea? Screw you, Ren. It’s not your job to make me swallow a damn pill every day! It’s not your fault that the pregnancy is ectopic. None of this is your fault!”

  “I didn’t say loving you was a bad idea. I said sleeping with you was.”

  “And I said screw you!”

  “Della—” My heart punctured for how my worry twisted my words. “Look, all I’m saying is, I should’ve kept myself in check. I shouldn’t need you the way I do. I shouldn’t expect to have you every day. Sex is a health risk. Especially when you’re still so young.”

  “If you say I’m young again, we’re going to have a serious issue, Ren Wild.” Della sat on her knees, the blankets discarded. “Girls have babies when they’re fifteen, for God’s sake. Sometimes even younger. I’m not young. I’m fully grown, and you’re forgetting it’s not just you who wants sex every day. I initiate as much as you do. It’s not your job to treat me with silk gloves and hold me at arm’s length when you need me as much as I need you!”

  My temper roared back into cyclonic heat. “No, Della, it’s my job never to send you to the goddamn hospital!”

  “And you didn’t! What happened is a freak thing. Even the doctor said these things happen randomly with no rhyme or reason. It’s not your fault.”

  “Not my fault?” My temper coiled and snapped. “Not my fault? Okay, let’s just see what isn’t my fault.” Holding up my fingers, I counted on them as I spat, “You grew up with no parents. You lived a lot of your childhood totally homeless with a kid who knew nothing about nutrition or health. You trusted everything I did when most of it was wrong—”

  “Why the hell are you re-counting the past now? This has nothing to do with any of that!”

  “Shut up and let me goddamn finish, Della!” My snarl was the harshest I’d ever been with her, but I couldn’t control it anymore. We’d been together for a year and a half, and in that time, I’d remembered the past often. Most of the time, I loved thinking of her as younger and older. Proud rather than disgusted to have the privilege of loving her in so many different ways.

  But now?

  Now that reality had slapped me in the face, I crippled beneath blame.

  Heavy, terrible blame.

  I’d always believed my choices had been made with her best interests at heart. I’d always put her first. Always fed her over me if there wasn’t enough food. Always wrapped her in my jacket if hers wasn’t warm enough.

  I’d screwed up many times raising her, but I’d like to think I’d been honourable and true.

  But…I hadn’t.

  My choices had always been about me.

  And that had never been more obvious.

  “You were happy at your creative writing course. You were working on your future. You had everything I wanted you to have, and what did I do? I took you away from all of it!”

  Pacing again, I struggled for air. “I didn’t ask if you wanted to live in a goddamn tent. I didn’t discuss with you what you thought about abandoning everything. I ran the moment it got hard between us, and I snatched you for mine the moment I knew I couldn’t survive without you.”

  Della shifted again, her forehead furrowed, and hands balled.

  I didn’t know if it was from pain or anger, but I had no hope of stopping everything I’d bottled up. These dirty, awful conclusions that had whispered cruelly in my ear as I’d sat in the doctor’s waiting room. Waiting and not knowing if I’d be told good news or bad. Waiting and not knowing what was wrong with my Della and what I’d done to cause it.

  Because it had to have been me.

  Because I should’ve known better and not been so fucking selfish.

  “I love you, Della. And I’m so fucking sorry I did this to you. I’m sorry I have no money to keep you healthy. I’m sorry I have no career to build you the house you deserve. I’m sorry I somehow got you pregnant and now you’re sick and in pain and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. I’m sorry for all of it, but you should know that when it comes to you, I’m useless. I wanted you, so I stole you. I loved you, so I kept you. I didn’t stop to think that by making you mine, I owed you more than I ever did before. I owe you a life that everyone else has. I owe you a stable environment. I owe you a man who can fucking provide and who isn’t afraid of humanity, for God’s sake!”

  “Ren, stop—”

  “No!” My eyes narrowed to sniper scopes, a cough exploding from my lips. “Let me finish.” My chest rose and fell, spikes stabbing my lungs as I inhaled with even worse admittances. “With you, I’m the rawest form of myself. I obey no laws, I follow no rules. If someone hurts you, I will hurt them back, ten times worse. No, a thousand times worse, because you mean more to me than anything. I would kill for you, Della. My entire purpose on this earth is to love and take care of you. I’ve been doing it for almost twenty years, and I plan on doing it for another twenty and beyond. But how the fuck can I mean that when I’m the problem? All this time, I believed I was protecting you from them when I should’ve been protecting you from myself!”

  Dragging a hand over my mouth, I shook my head as a future I’d always wanted incinerated into dust with reality. “What if we do end up having a family, huh? What happens when you’re in labour and about to give birth? Do I expect you to suffer on your own and deliver in a forest that hides your screams? Do I think I can just drop you off at the hospital when it’s time with no I.D or money, and a few hours later, we’ll walk back to our tent with a goddamn new-born? A new-born who needs shelter and safety and a mother who is healthy and happy and has a bed and a shower and a
fridge and a roof—”

  “Ren!” Della climbed off the bed, flinching as another wash of agony worked through her. “Enough. None of that matters. We’re not having children yet. It’s fine—”

  “But don’t you see? It’s not fine. It’s shown me just how precarious all of this is. How I’ve been so fucking blind and wrapped up in this fantasy that we can stay wild and not suffer any consequences. How did I not see this? How did I not understand that this life can never be permanent? It’s too risky. I need a job. I need to provide for you. I need to stop being a creature who thinks a tent is a suitable home and be a man instead and build you the life you deserve—build you a future we both want and a future we can’t have unless I grow the fuck up.”

  My pacing ended by the chair, and I collapsed into it, all my rage depleted. All my terror shared. All my worries tainting the air just like they’d tainted my mind.

  Pinching the bridge of my nose, I murmured, “I just can’t stop thinking that I did this to you, and you’re the one paying for my mistakes. That this would never have happened if we’d just stayed in our old apartment and figured this out in a place where humans are meant to live, not drag you halfway across the country with nothing.”

  “Ren.” Della cut in. “Ren, look at me.”

  It took a monumental effort, but I did.

  She sat on the side of the bed, whitewashed and tear-streaked.

  Our eyes locked, and the love I felt for her poured free in painful waves, obliterating my anger, commanding I go to her.

  I couldn’t fight it.

  I’d never been able to fight it.

  I needed her as much as she needed me, and I’d fucking shouted at her while she was ill.

  Christ, I’m a bastard.

  Storming toward her, I climbed onto the mattress—boots, knives, and all—and pulled her into my arms. Tucking her back under the covers, I kissed the top of her head and breathed in her delicate scent of pine and earth and air. “I’m sorry, Little Ribbon. I didn’t mean to say all that. I’m just…I’m so scared of losing you.”