He was watching her keenly, alertly, in the indirect wash of light from the hall, his entire expression vivid and unsurprised by her outburst. She stared at him, and then knew that he had been pushing her again. And he was pushing her now as he said quietly, “Besides—what, Devan?”
She spoke the bitter words deliberately, “What I wrote was a lie,” and she knew she’d got him. As shock came like a douse of icy water over his features, she turned and left the room.
My God, she thought, a few moments later, as she fell into her bed. When will I ever get enough sleep? She was immensely thankful when unconsciousness crept over her to make her unaware of the dull heaviness sitting in her chest.
Downstairs, Ryan turned as if careful of his balance and he stared at Devan’s older sister for a moment before asking, softly, “What in God’s name did she mean by that?”
Helen said, hushed, “I don’t know. She never would talk to me about it.”
The next morning, Devan awoke very early, and she lay for a few minutes listening to the birds singing outside her window. It then occurred to her that this was the earliest she had awakened in a long time, and she rolled over to try to go back to sleep, but found she couldn’t after so much yesterday. Then she threw off her covers and stood to stretch cautiously. The persistent nagging pain behind her left eye was still present, but much diminished, and she found that she could ignore it well enough if she tried. By tomorrow, it would be totally gone.
She showered and washed her hair, taking care to be very quiet as nobody else was awake, and then, after dressing, she descended the stairs. With the lights off and the rooms unoccupied, the living room and dining room seemed cold and bleak. She hesitated on the bottom step for no good reason, feeling forlorn. The thought of Ryan flooded through her and she grimaced wryly. In the last two days she had been as terse and as unwelcoming as possible. Remorse and regret filled her, but she pushed it down. He had forced himself into her life. He wasn’t wanted. Perhaps now he would leave.
She stepped off the bottom stair and passed through the dining room, looking idly into one of the rooms that shot off to the right of it, for the light was on and that was unusually careless of Helen, who always made a tour of the downstairs before she went to bed. When she looked briefly in, she stopped dead.
Ryan was sitting in the armchair, his head bowed, his face lined with a great tiredness, the firm mouth set. His light brown hair was wildly awry, his light grey-blue eyes staring at the floor in front of him, unfocused. His broad shoulders were slumped, his arms lying along the rests, the hands together in his lap and laced loosely. To the side of the chair was a half empty cup of what looked like coffee, and several stacked books.
Her books.
And then she realised he was wearing the clothes he had worn the day before. She took all that in a split second, and then he was glancing up at her expressionlessly. That quiet look was devoid of everything, and it sent an inexplicable chill down her spine, for she’d never seen him look that way before. She gestured with her hand. “That looks like coffee,” she said.
He didn’t look over the side of his chair. “It is,” was his brief reply. Then he raised one hand and rubbed at his chin, feeling whiskers. “There’s more in the kitchen, if you want it.”
She stood quite still, feeling her understanding of the situation slip away from her. It wasn’t a nice feeling at all; at least, before, she thought she knew what to expect of him, and what he expected of her. Now she didn’t know anything. Her eyes moved over him, arrested. “What are you playing at?” she asked, slowly. He didn’t reply, so she pressed, “You’ve been up all night, haven’t you?”
His head went back to rest on the chair. “Yes.”
Devan let her eyes roam over the room putting the pieces together, assessing, judging. Then she felt hurt and was angry at herself for it. It was wrong to feel hurt, wrong because she should have expected it, should have realised this would happen, should have known. But the pain was there, in her eyes before she could hide it, bleeding. He, too, had given up on her. His head came up and he was staring at her, his light eyes narrowed, his expression unreadable. “It’s over, then?” she asked flippantly and, without waiting to hear the words, she headed towards the kitchen and the waiting coffee.
She should have remembered how fast he could move, but she hadn’t, and was jolted to the core when he came up behind her, put his violent hands on her shoulders and practically threw her around and into the wall. She made a sound of fright deep in her throat, and would have moved if she’d had the chance, but he was already on her, his hands slammed on either side of her head, his body holding her in place by weight.
She was looking up with huge eyes into his, and was shocked even further at the rage and sneaking pain that was hard in his face. He brought his head down to hers, and he whispered through his teeth, “No, it’s not over.” She felt a wild trembling course through her, and shut her eyes against that look of him. Then she felt his hands in her hair, roughly thrust, jerking her head. “Look at me!” Really frightened then, she did, her body shrinking from his and the feel of those hard, pressing muscles.
She said on a half moan, “What’s wrong with you?”
He shook her, making her cry out, and he shouted in a deep voice, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Stop it!” Her hands were futilely on his wrists.
“Stop it! Go away! Leave me be!” he roared, and his face was lost to her in the rush of damnable, blinding, unexpected tears that filled her eyes, spilling out. Then he growled, “Do you know what I did last night? You shook me, you really did, by what you’d said. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t accept that something and someone I’ve had confidence in for three years could be such a lie. You shook my faith in myself, and my own perceptions, and so I read your books again. It was all there, the conviction, that fine passion, truth, God, your beautiful poetry! Your characters have some of the most sensitive and compelling relationships I’ve ever read—how can you call that a lie? How can you believe that of yourself? Do you, really? If you do, you’re not at all the person I thought you were!”
Helen had sent her wakened children back to their rooms as it was before six, and she’d come down the stairs herself, worried at the sudden uproar. She stood quietly for a few moments, looking on the two who were quite unaware of her, and then she turned and silently went back to her own room, her face quite thoughtful.
Devan’s face was breaking into anguish, her hands digging like talons into the corded strength of his wrists. “It has to be a lie,” she whispered, her breath coming harsh and uneven. “It has to be.”
His forehead was down on hers, his shoulders bunched as his hands forced her to remain in that close, revealing position. She was off balance, not knowing or understanding how she managed to stand, everything awhirl inside of her. She felt as though he had taken his two hands and ripped the fabric of herself wide open and was looking deep into her at the hurt which had scarred but never really healed, which bled sluggishly at the wincing touch of air.
“Why?” He spoke the word with stiffened lips.
She cried, and it was a thin, faint scream of pain, “Because nothing else makes any sense!”
“Why?”
But then she was really sobbing, with body racking, ear hurting, low, raw, harsh-sounding sobs, and her body was shaking so that she would indeed have fallen had he not held her so tightly, so roughly. All she could manage to say was a low litany of, “Leave me alone, g-go away, for God’s sake, can’t you see how you’re hurting me? Can’t you see? I hurt!”
Through her haze of shaking wet blindness, she could feel him breathing hard and deep as if he had run a long race, his body as tight and tense as steel. She couldn’t see to know that his eyes were watching her face with a deep horror and wincing compassion. Then he said, as if he couldn’t stand it, the words coming to her faintly, “Stop it. Ssh, don’t. Stop.”
But she couldn’t, for she was a helpless v
ictim of the weeping that had taken hold of her body, the tears running into her mouth. She tasted salt, and then, with a groan, he put his open mouth over hers. Through the salt of her tears, she tasted coffee on his wet, warm breath, and she felt the slight stubble of his beard rasp at her lips, reddening them. She had time to discern that it wasn’t a kiss at all, but a mouth to mouth pressure, an aggression of himself imposed on herself, a force he was making her realise. He pressed those rough, rasping, hurting lips all over her wet face as he cradled her head. “Stop it,” he said in a low voice. “Stop it.”
It worked; the sobs stilled. She breathed hard, uttering something that was appallingly like a whimper, and her hands slipped from his wrists. His own hands were loosening, and she felt herself slide along the wall as if she would fall, and her hands went involuntarily to grip the front of his shirt. He trembled, once, and then pulled her into his arms, wrapping them tight around her body, holding her hard against him. With one hand, he pressed her head into the hollow of his neck and shoulder, his legs braced wide apart to support both their weights.
She heard herself say, dully, “You’re giving up on me. You’re giving up.”
He shook his head sharply, his jaw knocking her temple. “No, I’m not.”
“Then you’re a fool.” She held on to him tightly. “I don’t have anything in me, I don’t have anything.”
His hand crushed her against the hardness of his collar bone. “Shut up.”
But she persisted, “You were, you know it. You were going to quit.” Her mouth moved on him as she said the words, he was holding her so tightly. She couldn’t get in a deep breath.
But then he was loosening his arms, holding her away by her shoulders so that he could see her face. Those light eyes weren’t light at all, she found, as she stared back. They were a deep, stormy blue with large pools of blackness. He said, “I was. Before. If what you’d said was true, I could be now. But it isn’t. You do have something. You have so much pain inside you, you’re a reeking well of hurting. It makes me hurt just to be near you, you’re so full of it.”
She looked away. “Then don’t get near me.”
He continued, as if she hadn’t spoken, “I might have known you would be like this. Everything you feel is so intense, it dominates your entire being, doesn’t it? All that marvellous passion isn’t gone from you, it’s crippled by something I don’t know. Something about you, something that’s happened to you, something that’s hurt you so badly, you don’t know how to get yourself out of it. Something I’ve got to find out.”
Relentless words. She shook her head against his blind determination. He still couldn’t see. “Ryan, it won’t work. Take my word for it.”
He smiled then, faintly, passing his hand gently over her still damp hair. “I almost did. You project your feelings so intensely, I was beginning to get swamped by that stubborn conviction of yours. You nearly got to me last night, until I took that step back to look at you for what you really are. You won’t shake me again.”
She had a sudden fear that he would shake her, though, as he had from the very beginning, as he had over and over again. She felt an apprehensive dread of the near future. What would happen? What would he stir in her? What would he do when he finally did realise that his efforts were futile? How could you build something out of dead ashes?
He let her go, his hands hovering for a moment as he waited to see if she could support herself, which she did, her knees locking into stiffness, one of her hands going behind her to splay out against the wall. She watched him turn and walk away, and he threw absently over his shoulder, “Oh yes, and the coffee’s off limits for you again, until the end of the week.”
“I could just go into town and buy a new machine!” she snapped, feeling the display of ill temper steady her.
It made him throw back his head and laugh as he disappeared into the kitchen, a merry, truly amused sound. “You do that,” he shouted, the words wafting back to her, “and I’ll take that away, too!”
She sighed gustily, rubbing at her itchy eyes. Crying always made her feel worse than terrible, and her head was throbbing full out. She contemplated going to the kitchen to pour herself a cup of coffee despite his admonition, but he was probably halfway to his car with the machine by now. She went to the bathroom instead, and took a dose of aspirin. Besides, she found she had a sneaky determination to cut back on her caffeine intake, anyway. Of course it had nothing to do with Ryan. That was pure coincidence.
A moment later, he was shouting at her again. “Will you come on, for Pete’s sake? What’s taking you so long?”
She had been splashing cold water on her face, and her head came up with a snap at that. Then she was yelling, furiously, her head pounding with the pressure of it, “Don’t you be thinking you can give me any damned orders, mister!”
He was in the open doorway of the bathroom then, and regarding her with overtly astonished eyes. But she could see the wicked enjoyment behind it all, and suddenly she felt good. Not great, not profound, but simply, quietly good. “But I wasn’t ordering you,” he said limpidly. “I thought you were coming to the kitchen, so I started your breakfast. Come on, it’s getting cold.”
She grumbled, allowing him to drag her along behind him, “I’m not hungry.”
He retorted, “You’re never hungry. If I held my breath for that, you’d pine away. Now, sit. Eat.”
She took one look at the fragrant steaming eggs, ham and toast laid attractively on a plate and turned away, shuddering visibly. “There’s no way,” she said simply, with difficulty. “I am absolutely, positively not going to eat that. No doubt about it.”
This time he really was astonished, looking from the plate to her again. “But why not?”
“In the not so distant past,” she gritted, smelling the egg and beginning to feel sick, “I happen to have vomited after eating over-easy eggs. I’m sorry. Thank you for cooking it, but I cannot.”
“Oh,” he said blankly, and then, “Well, I can make the eggs disappear, but what about the rest? You haven’t a learned aversion to ham and toast, have you?”
She peeked again, uncertainly. “Er, I don’t think so.”
He took the plate, whisked the offending eggs off to another, and then slapped the first with the rest of the food on to the table. “There you go,” he told her cheerfully. Then for good measure, he went to the refrigerator and pulled out a fresh orange. “Do you like fruit?”
“Yes,” she said weakly, feeling bulldozed.
He pulled back her chair with his one free hand. She sank into it slowly. Then, as she began on the salty, juicy ham and crunchy buttered toast, he sat and peeled the orange. She started to follow his movements with her eyes, watching as he fragmented the segments. By the time he was finished, she fell on it ravenously, the fresh sweetness tasting better than anything had for a long time. He leaned back in his chair with a smile. When she glanced at him and stopped, an orange segment halfway to her mouth, a stricken look coming over her features, he visibly tensed.
She looked at the fruit she held, and set it carefully back down. “You look tired,” she said quietly.
“Perhaps,” he said, with some dryness, watching her closely, “because I am tired.” Her expression went smoothly blank. His eyes sharpened. Then he went on, casually, “Are you going to blame yourself for that? You shouldn’t. It was entirely my own doing, I assure you.”
“Yes,” she agreed tonelessly, pushing the segment around with her forefinger, delicately. “You did it because you cared. You’re here because you care.” Something came and went in her expression, fleeting but so vivid and intense he unconsciously sat forward and held his breath. She stood and walked slowly away, stopping at the open entrance of the dining room. She said painfully, her back to him, “Don’t care about me, Ryan. I don’t have anything to give in return.”
She walked out, and the kitchen seemed to echo briefly with her words, and then with emptiness. “That’s not true,” he whispered, though
she wasn’t there to hear. He bent his head and shaded his eyes with his hand.
Chapter Six
Devan met Helen, Gary and Janie at the bottom of the staircase as the three finally came down for breakfast. She mumbled something under the heat of her sister’s interested gaze, and then hurried up to her room. After about fifteen minutes or so of feverish activity, during which she made her bed, straightened her wardrobe, and totally rearranged two dressing-table drawers, she stopped, resting her head against the open third drawer, her hands tightening on its handles. She felt she was suffocating under Ryan’s continuous presence, and under the weight of her own chaotic thought. Then she slammed shut the drawer, whisked up her shoes and purse, and clattered back down the stairs.
In the kitchen, Janie was finishing her breakfast while Gary, an inherent gobbler and already done, was sneaking bits of food to a furtive Paris; Helen nibbled at a piece of toast and pretended that she didn’t see. Ryan was nowhere in sight.
They all looked up at her entrance. “I’m going to town for a little while,” she said shortly as she plopped in a chair and tugged on her shoes. Her sister raised calm eyebrows but didn’t comment. Devan didn’t know why she felt goaded into explaining, “I need some space. It’ll do me good to get out of the house.”
Helen swallowed around a piece of crust and said mildly, “Nobody was arguing with you.”
Devan’s head snapped up from tying her shoelaces, and she looked from gaze to gaze. “Well,” she said, too brightly. “I guess I’ll see you guys later.”
“Can I come?” asked Janie, with her mouth full of cornflakes. She was dressed in faded overalls, and her carrot hair was braided at the back.
“Me, too,” said Gary, immediately.
“No,” said Devan, repellingly.
Neither took heed, as they both began to clamour a cacophonous complaint. Devan tried to stem the flow but was unsuccessful, and when she looked to Helen pleadingly, her sister just sat back and smiled, not about to get involved in the subject.
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