by Annie Jocoby
“Yeah, but I feel that I'm going to have to help you get your life back on track. I know that this trip had derailed you.”
“Please don’t concern yourself. I can handle myself. I’ve been doing it all my life.”
Again, he looked hurt. “When are you going to let me in?”
I honestly didn’t know the answer to that question.
Later on that night, I was unable to sleep because Ryan was wrapped tightly around me like usual. As I lay there, I thought about everything. Specifically, I thought about the “let me in” comment. I was still keeping him at arm’s length, and it wasn’t for the reason that I originally thought. Yes, he was beautiful. Yes, he was rich. Yes, he was generous. Yes, he was stratospheres out of my league. But, somehow, his problems made him more human to me, so all of that “out of my league” business seemed less so. By now, he was simply Ryan, the sweet guy who walked through fire through much of his life, and was still dealing with it today. The guy who, for some reason, fell in love with me at first sight. I had no doubt of his feelings for me, and I was starting to not question why he felt them.
Yet, I was still keeping him at arm’s length.
It wasn’t fair. He shouldn’t have to pay for the bad relationships and bad men that came before him. He shouldn’t have to pay for the sins of others. The ones who cheated and lied. The ones who verbally abused. The ones who just didn’t care, and that would encompass all of the men in college. I had been single for so long that I was starting to get jaded, to believe that all men have a fatal flaw of some sort, a defect that would preclude them from ever being the recipient of my heart. The scary part was that, for the most part, these fatal flaws did not manifest in all their glory until I had gotten to know them, and been with them for awhile.
They usually didn’t manifest until about six months into the relationship.
I sighed as I realized that we were coming up on the sixth month. We met at the first of June, and here it was, November. At any moment, he was going to cheat or lie, or cheat and lie, or start to show a volatility of emotion that would be disqualifying. Not that I could blame him. Geez, if anybody deserved a character defect, it would be this guy, after all he had gone through.
Then I felt sad as I realized that my walls might lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. I didn’t want to be hurt, so I shielded myself. Because I shielded myself, I was more distant than I should’ve been. Because I’m distant, he would turn to somebody else. And the cycle would continue with the next guy.
I sighed. The clock read 3 A.M. Ryan was wrapped around me, sleeping soundly, not talking at all. I wished I could say the same. If only I could take a Benadryl. Those usually knock me out. But, extricating myself would be next to impossible, and I didn’t want to wake Ryan.
So, I lay there obsessing.
Finally, it was 6 AM, time for Ryan to wake up. I gently pushed him, and he awoke with a start. He looked at me, without seeing me again, for just two seconds, then I saw his more familiar expression. He smiled “Oh, thank God. I was dreaming that you couldn’t handle everything, and you left.”
“You should be so lucky.” I smiled.
He didn’t smile back. “No, I’m lucky for just the opposite reason. I don’t know why you stay, but here you are.”
We got up, and showered in separate bathrooms. Then, both of us got dressed in silence. He was lost in thought, probably thinking about the day ahead. I really didn’t know what to say, so I just didn’t say anything.
On the way to the institution, Ryan stayed quiet. I felt a little paranoid, thinking that he was upset with me because of the way that I was keeping him at arm’s length.
However, that wasn’t it at all.
“I want to vomit,” he said. “I’ve had such a nice weekend, I really don’t want to ruin it with more talking about stuff that I don’t want to talk about.”
I nodded. “Well, just remember, I’m here for you.”
He looked at me. “Uh, I hope to tell you everything sometime.”
Everything? There was more? My heart sank.
At that, he got out of the car. “Uh, see you at 5?”
I nodded.
And, so it went, for the next two weeks. Me coming to see him for a few hours in the evening, usually having dinner. More and more, Ryan just picked at his food. He was losing a few pounds, although he still had an amazing Adonis body. Then I would leave around 9 every night, then come back at 5 the very next day.
I was on the hamster wheel.
I did get to spend the night with him one night a week. But he didn’t come back with me on the following weekend.
I knew why – he was afraid to be alone with me.
I felt extremely sad about that.
Finally, it came time for his 30 days to be up. Time for an exit interview with the infamous Dr. Silver.
I, of course, had to attend.
Dr. Silver looked just the same as the first time I saw her, except her hair was put up. She had on a silk blouse, a tight black skirt, and Christian Leboutin shoes, a different pair this time. Funny how I was starting to know my designers, now that Ryan was in my life.
She looked at me meaningfully. “Okay, now, Ryan is ready to leave and get back to Kansas City. And you’re going to be staying with him, right?”
I nodded. “Living with him, actually.”
“Okay. Well, do you have any questions?”
I looked embarrassed. “Uh, I don’t know if I should ask this…”
She looked at me. “You and Ryan can be intimate as soon as he is ready.”
“When will I know that he’s ready?”
Ryan was looking at his hands. Then he looked at me. “I’ll be ready, hopefully, now.”
I shuddered, remembering the last time.
“Are you sure?” I asked him.
“No, but we have to try,” he said.
Dr. Silver, surprisingly, did not shoot us her withering glance at this admission. She actually smiled. “That’s fine, you won’t know that you’re ready until you try.”
I looked at her in disbelief, then sighed. That basically meant that what happened before could happen again, and I wouldn’t be able to prepare for it.
But the interview went better than I thought that it would. Maybe she was PMSing the first time she met with me.
Ryan came with me to return the car. I touched the car longingly. “Bye, car,” I said.
Back to the jalopy. What am I saying? Back to life, back to reality.
I wanted to throw up.
I saw him watching me as I touched the car longingly. I turned around. “Come on, let’s go.”
We took a shuttle to the part of the airport which had the private planes. I figured that it would be like riding on a puddle jumper.
Was I wrong. The plane was the size of a typical puddle jumper, but the interior was all luxury. There was a mini-bar, a large flat-screen television, and a leather sofa. Even the bathroom was nice, with gold fixtures and an actual toilet. I was surprised that there wasn’t a hot tub in there.
“Buckle up,” Ryan said, pouring me a glass of wine, then taking his place beside me on the couch.
I did. The plane took off, and it was unlike any sensation that I have ever had. My stomach was in my throat as the plane lurched into the air. I felt a little bit woozy. The wine certainly did help, though, to calm my nerves.
Once in the air, Ryan touched my leg. “I love you,” he said, for perhaps the 100 time. I had never told him the same, except that one time when he was asleep.
I smiled and said nothing, taking a sip of the wine. I squeezed his hand a little.
“You scared?” he asked.
“No. Well, a little. I’ve never been on a private plane.”
“So, what do you think?” he asked, right as the seatbelt sign went off.
“Well, it certainly is better than the sardine can with crying babies behind my head.”
He nodded, but I knew that he’d never flown coach in his life.
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“Would you like to watch some television?” he asked.
“Sure.”
He turned on the TV. There was a selection of movies at our disposal. We both decided on the movie Taken with Liam Neeson. I’d seen the movie before, and thought that it was pretty bad-ass. He thought the same.
He grabbed my hand, and rubbed it thoughtfully. I found myself wishing that the flight would never end. It was pretty cozy up there, just him and I on the leather couch. I snuggled up to him, and he stroked my hair.
“I can’t wait for you to move back in,” he whispered in my ear.
Well, “move back in” really isn’t the phrase for it. The only property that I “moved out” were my clothes. “Me too.”
“So, what do you got going when we get back?”
I didn’t want to think about it. “Uh, I don’t know.”
He looked distant. “I was wondering if I could come by tomorrow. To your office. To help you get settled back in.”
I looked at him. What about his job? “Sure. But what about the bank?”
“I took a leave of absence. They aren’t expecting me back right away.”
I nodded. Must be nice.
We watched the rest of the movie in silence, him stroking my hair. I couldn’t concentrate much, as I couldn’t stop thinking of the disaster that no-doubt awaited me after being gone for three weeks. I could just imagine the volume of e-mails, letters, motions, etc., that awaited me.
This was the Sunday blues writ large.
Chapter Twenty-Five
After we got back to KC, it was just like I knew that it would be. I arrived at my parent’s house, and announced that I would be going back to Ryan’s. My parents were happy about this, and my sister was a bit sad, because we had some fun bonding together when I was there. I had to say that I was relieved, because I knew that, with the forcible eviction and the bad-credit situation, I probably couldn’t find another place to rent.
And, of course, I was happy to be moving back in with Ryan. His place was gorgeous, but that wasn’t all. I was thrilled to be with him again. Problems and all.
The office was another story. The second I got in, Melinda pounced. “Here are your phone messages. The ones on top are 911.” I rolled my eyes. There were no less than 10 messages marked “911.” She then produced a stack of mail at least two feet high. “Here’s your mail.”
“Thanks!” Then I logged into my computer. My day was starting out shitty, might as well go all the way.
As expected, there were about 100 e-mails for me to look at, all of them professionally related. I was going to have to triage everything.
I felt nauseated.
Most the mail was bullshit, thankfully. Junk mail, motions that I really didn’t need to attend to, and some mail that wasn’t even addressed to me. However, there was enough important mail that I felt that I needed to spend the better part of the day trying to answer it.
My heart stopped when I read the return address from one of the pieces of mail. It was from the Supreme Court of Missouri.
This can’t be good.
It wasn’t good. It was a bar complaint from Rachel, the lady with the child custody case. I read the complaint, and realized that I really didn’t have a good defense to her charges. Nonetheless, I tried to answer the charges as best as I could. I tried to comfort myself with the thought that most of these charges come to nothing, but, then again, I knew some classmates who had been disbarred for screwing over their clients.
After writing out my meager defense to what she stated, I looked at the second-most important looking piece of mail. It was also from the State of Missouri, but not from the Supreme Court. I opened the letter and read. It was a letter informing me that I was appointed counsel on a case where the state was trying to severe the parental rights of a neglectful mother.
I groaned inwardly, calculating the untold hours that I would spend, waiting in the crowded juvenile court room. The last time I had a case like this, I literally was waiting for four hours in the waiting room. Then, I was told to come back the next week, because the judge couldn’t get to my case. One of these cases will suck up hours and hours of my time, and I wouldn’t get paid for it. Plus, the hearings for these matters are endless, and go on for years.
Juvenile court was the ninth circle of hell.
There was one more piece of mail that made me nauseated. The IRS - they put a lien on my bank account for the back taxes I owed them. The lien was for $60,000, which meant that all of the money in that account, which pretty much only consisted of the money that Ryan wired me, was now gone.
“Crap!” Then I put my head in my hands. So much for the money Ryan wired to me. I started to shake. Now what?
Presently, Melinda came into my office. “Your gorgeous boyfriend is here,” she said, fanning herself and giving me the face like “Oh, my god!”
“Hey,” I said, without enthusiasm, after he came into my office.
He smiled. “I’m here to help you.”
“What would you like to do?”
“What do you need for me to do?”
I gave him the pile of mail. “Just open these for me, and prioritize them, if you could.”
He carefully opened every piece of mail with a letter opener. Within a half hour, he had every piece of mail opened and sorted into categories. Letters from opposing counsel was one category. Letters from judges was another category. Motions from opposing counsel for domestic cases was a third category. Motions from opposing counsel for bankruptcy cases was a fourth category. Judgments was a fifth category.
These were the only categories.
I was impressed. He knew what to do with each piece of mail.
“Would you like me to call any of these people?” he asked.
I nodded. I had to smile as he got on the phone with some of the other attorneys who sent me correspondence, asking them questions on my behalf. He knew the right questions to ask, to my surprise.
By the end of the day I had preliminarily tackled everything. With Ryan’s help, I got letters out, answered every e-mail that I had to answer, and at least left messages to everybody who had called me. He was an enormous help.
Around 6 PM, I was ready to quit. It was a full day of playing catch-up, and I was able to make a dent in my three weeks worth of work in just one day, with Ryan’s help.
“Thanks for all your help,” I said.
“Please. You helped me more than you know by coming out to see me in California.”
“Well, thanks, all the same.”
He grabbed my hand, and we walked out of the building. I got in my car, he in his. I was going back to my parents’ house to get my clothes, and would move back in that night. Ryan followed me to my parents’ house so that he could help with that, as well.
That night, after I moved back in, Ryan prepared a bubble bath for me. Just for me. He had scented candles by the bathtub, and had even chosen a book for me to read in the tub. “Relax and enjoy,” he said, smiling, as I got undressed and into the tub. I soaked in the tub, and I did end up relaxing and enjoying myself.
So much so that I fell asleep.
Ryan came in the bathroom to check on me, about two hours after I got into the tub. He gently nudged me awake. “Come on, sleepy head, let’s go to bed.” I staggered out of the tub and into the bed, and he lay down beside me. “Welcome home, beautiful,” he whispered before I became unconscious again.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ryan didn’t go back to his own work all that week. Instead, he came to my job to help out. He was wonderful that week, making phone calls when I asked him, filing papers, and helping out Melinda. He even helped me with new client intake, presenting coffee and water to my new people, and chatting with them when I was late seeing them - which was often, because I had to pile up as many people as possible, every day, so that I could make up for my lost time out in California.
Melinda couldn’t believe her eyes. “Oh, my sweet Jesus, that man is beautiful!”
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I nodded. I was used to hearing that. She continued. “And he is so efficient and kind! Where did you find him?”
“I invented him. Like in Weird Science.” I almost felt that to be true. I couldn’t come up with a more perfect guy if I’d actually invented him.
“Seriously, where did he come from?”
“I met him in a bar,” I said, not bothering to mention the fact that I initially had a one-night stand with him.
“I gotta get out more. Hubba hubba!”
I laughed. Melinda had a boyfriend, but they were perpetually having problems. I sympathized with her, remembering my own checkered past before meeting Ryan.
By the end of the week, with Ryan’s help, I was not only caught up, but I was ahead a little bit.
“Man, you need to come in the office more often!”
“I wish I could. But, alas, I have my own job to get to on Monday.” He smiled. “But I sure have enjoyed helping you, for a change.”
I sighed. I wished that he could stay here and help me. But, as he said, he had his own job to go to. A job that he hadn’t been at for six weeks, now.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
About a month after I moved back in, around Christmas time, everything changed again. I arrived home early one day to find that the lights had gone out. A fuse must have blown. I went to the basement to try to find the fuse box, not wanting to bother Ryan at work to ask him where the fuse box was. It was already dark, even though it was only 4:30 PM, so I had to use a flashlight to navigate my way around the large house.
Seeing nothing in the basement, I proceeded into the attic with my flashlight. I got momentarily distracted, however, with Ryan’s high school yearbook. I always love looking at yearbooks, and I was really eager to see his.
I looked at his name in the index. He was on a multitude of pages, meaning that he was actively involved in the school. I flipped to one of the pages – it was the superlative section. He was voted “Most Popular,” “Best Looking,” “Most Athletic,” and “Cutest Couple” – this last superlative was for himself and Alexis. Flipping through to other pages, I saw his picture on the football team, where he was captain, and I also saw his picture for his crew team. I didn’t know that he was a rower, as well. He was also featured in the homecoming spread, as he was homecoming king, and the prom spread, because he was prom king. I looked up Alexis as well, and found out that she was the head cheerleader, and she was also homecoming queen.
