The past few weeks have drained me emotionally, so while she sleeps, I decide to head up to the bar before anyone gets there to get a little space from everything. I write Candace a note before I leave, letting her know where I went and to call when she gets up.
Walking into Blur, I leave the front door unlocked while I busy myself filling bottles behind the bar. I spend a good amount of time staying occupied, but my mind is elsewhere. It’s in that alley, and my stomach won’t seem to unknot itself to buy me any relief. I grab a bottle of scotch and take a seat at the bar, filling my glass.
I don’t take a sip; I just sit and stare at the burnished liquid. It’s placid, and I get lost as I zone out in the glass. I’m so deep in my head that I don’t even hear the door open, but when someone takes a seat next to me, I turn to see Jase. His expression tells me that he knows I know. Candace must have told him last night. I focus back on my glass that’s still sitting on the bar, cradled in my hands.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
I can barely move my head up and down to acknowledge his words that take me out of my daze and bring me back to the mass of emotions.
Without looking at him, I talk. “I always knew she was hiding something, I just . . .”
“I know.”
“She has these moments in her sleep . . . almost nightly . . .”
“It’s a lot better now,” he says, and I turn to look at him.
“Better?” He nods and I ask, because I want to know, “How bad was she?”
His head drops to the side, not wanting to tell me when I ask again. “How bad?”
“Don’t do this.”
“How bad?”
He takes a pause before he tells me, “Bad. It was like suddenly the Candace I had always known was gone.”
I turn back to my glass and take a drink before setting it back down, relishing the burn in my chest. Warmth.
“So she was different?” I ask, wondering what she would have been like if only I’d met her before that night.
“Yeah, but like I said, she’s better.”
“Better,” I repeat, not knowing what else to say, trying hard to keep the pain at bay. “How?”
“She used to have these hallucinations. It freaked me out. They were intense, and I’d always find her vomiting in my bathroom.”
His words punch me in the gut. Thinking about her like that is almost too much, and I feel the tears return, but I fight to hold them back.
“She said she knew him.” My words crack as they find their way out past the lump in my throat.
“Yeah.”
I turn back to him and ask, “You know him too?”
Shaking his head, he tells me, “I met him once.”
“Who is he?”
He releases a hard sigh when I press, “Who is he?”
He still doesn’t respond when I question, “Did you ever do anything?”
“I wanted to. I still do.” His breathing staggers as his eyes redden and gloss over. “But I can’t. Candace made me promise, and I just can’t break that promise. It would hurt her too much.”
“Why didn’t she do anything?”
“She was scared. Embarrassed. I tried talking to her, but she’d rather bury it, so that’s what she did.”
I shake my head, and when I do, he speaks up, “Look, man, I wanna kill that bastard. I do. I saw what he did to her, and he fucked her up . . . bad. But I love her. And as much as I hate that all she wants to do is hide this shit, I don’t fight it because I don’t want to hurt her.” I watch his tears fall as he adds, “I know what you two have is completely different than what I have with her, but she’s my fuckin’ heart, man. I hate her choices, but I also know how fragile she is right now, so I let it be. Right or wrong, I just give her what she wants.”
I can’t speak even if I wanted to because the pain in my chest is nearly unbearable at this point. All I can do is give him a nod, and I know he sees the emotion on my face. How could a person hide it?
He stands up and grips my shoulder, saying, “I couldn’t deal with this shit if it weren’t for Mark. If you ever need to talk . . .”
“Yeah. Thanks,” I respond on a breath before he turns to walk out the door.
When he’s out of my vision, I drop my head in my hands and let it out. It’s a haze of unrecognizable emotions beating through me. To look past this and let her continue to sit and do nothing is something that I don’t think I’m capable of. But Jase is right. My girl is so damn fragile even though she’s so damn strong. It’s a paradox that’s hard to deal with. She’s gonna break one way or another.
Irritation boils inside, and the longer I sit here it starts to eat away at me until it takes over and I stand up, kicking over the stool, screaming, and smashing my glass against the brick wall behind the bar followed next by the bottle. The blast of glass shattering and sprinkling to the floor is all I hear through the ringing in my head. I grab my keys, leaving the mess, and head to my jeep.
I drive. Making my way back to my loft and upstairs to find Candace standing in my closet, slipping on a sweater.
“Why didn’t you do anything?” I ask, unable to control my frustration.
She turns to look at me, confused, when she asks, “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t make me say it.”
“Ryan, please. Don’t,” she says and then walks past me to sit on the edge of the bed.
“Who is he?” I press, emotions getting the best of me.
She keeps her chin tucked down. Avoiding.
“Candace, tell me his fuckin’ name!” I belt out because sitting around and not doing shit isn’t gonna work for me.
“Please don’t do this,” she chokes out as she begins to cry.
“Why aren’t you more pissed?”
“I am.”
“You’re not,” I tell her as I stand in front of her. “I don’t see it.”
She doesn’t respond, and I plead with her, needing to make sense of all of this. “Tell me why I don’t see it. Make me understand because this shit is killing me.”
“Because I don’t know how to show it,” she weeps as she looks up at me.
My heart is hammering hard in my chest. She’s so locked up, and I don’t know how to help her.
“I need you to show it. I need to see it,” I tell her as I kneel down in front of her, gripping her legs.
“Don’t.”
“I wanna see you fighting. I wanna see you doing something since you won’t let me do shit.”
“Why? For what?”
“For you, Candace! It’s for you,” I say in a hard voice. “Show me that you’re mad because my anger is beyond what I think I can handle right now.”
Her breathing picks up as she cries harder.
“Show me,” I push.
“I can’t.”
“You can. Use me,” I urge. “Yell at me. Scream. Hit me. Punch me. Something! Just do something!” I shout as she sobs. “Stop crying and do something! Hit me!”
“Ryan, stop!” she screams, and when she tries to move away from me, I grab on to her wrists and she kneels down next to me, bracing her hands on the floor as she cries.
“I want you to fight. I want you to fight because I’m so fuckin’ mad and you won’t let me fight for you.”
“You wanna fight?” I stand in the doorway and listen to my dad. “Come here,” he says to my mom with a crooked finger, and she steps towards him. “Hit me.”
“No.”
“Hit me, you little bitch!”
She stands there crying when he pulls his clenched fist back and punches her in the stomach, forcing out a gush of air as she heaves and doubles over.
“Daddy, stop!”
He looks at me. “You want me to stop?” he asks before impaling her ribs with his boot.
Her screams are strained as I start to cry.
“Stop!”
He kicks her again as she lies there, lifeless.
“Tell me to stop again, you sack of
shit.”
I look at Candace doubled over on the floor—crying—and it hits me.
“God, baby. I’m sorry,” I say, reaching out to touch her, but she coils back from me.
“It wouldn’t even do anything,” she snaps. “You want me to fight? Why? It’s not going to change anything. It’s not going to make it better. It’s not going to take it away.”
Realizing that I pushed her way too far, that I scared her by yelling at her, I reach out, and again, she resists my touch. “I’m sorry.”
She doesn’t hear me, she just continues, “I just wanna forget. I just want it to go away. But me fighting isn’t gonna make that happen. The damage is done, and I can’t go back.”
“Baby,” I say as gently as I can. “You can’t pretend it didn’t happen.”
“Why not?” her voice a mere whimper. So desperate. “What’s so bad about pretending?”
This time when I reach for her, she doesn’t flinch, and I fold her up in my arms. “Because it did happen.”
“Why?” she cries into my chest. “Tell me why this happened. Why me? What did I do to deserve this?”
There are no answers as she completely breaks and continues crying, collapsed in my lap. I feel like absolute shit for pushing her to this point, and all my fears are brought back to the forefront. I can’t deny for one second that I don’t resemble my father in frightening ways. That I could be so selfish to be screaming at my girlfriend as she’s crumpled on the floor crying. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me, but I can’t do that shit to her. Fuck, why did I just do that to her?
“I’m so sorry.” I’m desperate as my voice cracks.
She grips her arms around me while I rest my cheek on top of her head. I can’t believe I let my anger take control of me. Just knowing the thoughts of what I would do to that guy if I ever saw him scares the shit out of me. I can’t let this happen again with her; I just can’t because I know myself well enough to know that I’ll never walk away from her, so I have to get my shit under control.
I rub her back until eventually she quiets down, taking in hiccups of breaths. She has the sleeves of my t-shirt fisted in her hands, and when she lifts her head up, she keeps her eyes closed. I kiss her forehead, and she presses her weight into my lips. She’s exhausted.
“Hey,” I say lightly, and when she hums in response, I encourage, “Can you look at me?”
She does, and when I see how red her eyes are, I feel disgusted with myself.
“I’m so sorry. I should have never raised my voice like that. I just feel so helpless, but how I feel isn’t your fault. I don’t want you to think that it is.”
“You can say that, but the thing is, it’s because of me that you feel this way.”
I don’t know how to respond to her words, but she doesn’t give me time when she says, “I just . . . I don’t want to lose you. I don’t have very many people that . . . I mean . . . I don’t even have a home anymore.”
When she looks up at me and into my eyes I tell her, “You are home.”
“Am I?”
Wiping under her eyes with my thumbs, I ask, “Is this what you want?”
Nodding her head, she whispers, “Yes.”
“Then you’re home,” I give her and wrap her back up in my arms.
***
Candace wound up getting a bad headache and is sleeping again. Not only is she worn out from what happened earlier, she’s also not feeling well after drinking so much with Jase last night.
I leave her be as I head down to my office. Despite the shit day, I need to call my mom because in Candace’s drunken state last night, she revealed that her birthday is in a few days, and I want to surprise her by having my mom here. They have been talking more and more on the phone, and I know Candace would like to see her. Hell, after this month, it’ll be nice to have her here for a few days.
“Hi, dear,” she says when she answers my call.
“Hey, Mom. I have a favor to ask.”
“Sure. What is it?”
“It’s Candace’s birthday on Thursday, and I was wondering if you can manage to get away for a few days and come stay here with us?” I ask.
“This Thursday?”
“Yeah.”
“Ryan, that’s in five days. Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?” she nags.
“Because I just found out last night. This was sprung on me too, Mom.”
“Why did she wait so long to tell you?”
“I don’t know, but it slipped out last night. I know she’d love to see you, so I was hoping . . .”
“I’ll be there.”
“Thanks. I’m not gonna tell her, so if you two talk before then, don’t mention anything. I want her to be surprised.”
“Lips are sealed.”
“And no gifts,” I remind her.
“Ryan.”
“I have no problem with it, but I know how she is, so . . .”
“Fine. No gifts,” she says with a faint laugh. “How has everything else been? I haven’t talked to Candace in a few days; how did her audition go?”
“It seemed to go really well. She was insanely happy afterward. She should know if she got the solo on Friday.”
“That’s great. Is she around to talk to?”
“She’s sleeping.”
“Oh, okay. Well, tell her to call me when she has time.”
“Yeah, I will.”
“Everything else okay?” she asks, and although I’ve always been open with my mom, I know this thing with Candace will forever remain private, so I simply tell her, “Yeah, Mom. Everything’s great.”
We continue to chat for a few more minutes before we say goodbye. When I walk upstairs, I see Candace curled into a small ball in the center of my bed. Shrugging off my shirt, I crawl in to take a nap with her. I slide in behind her, and as I pull her into me, she rolls over to face me, eyes still closed. Draping my arm around her, she nuzzles her head in the curve of my neck, and finally, after all the tension of the day, I relax in the warmth of her.
Chapter Thirty
“What do you want to do for your birthday, babe?” I ask as she stretches before heading to the studio for rehearsals. I always enjoy seeing her like this—poised, hair up tight in a bun, leotard with an old pair of torn, baggy sweats. There’s no doubt she was made to dance because she completely looks the part, and that look is doing things to me that I need to get under control.
“Nothing. I told Jase that the four of us could just grab dinner.”
“We do that all the time.”
She sits on the ground to roll her ankles when she says, “Please don’t get any ideas. I really don’t like doing anything for my birthday.”
“Why?” I ask when I sit in front of her and take her leg in my hand to rub out her muscles.
“My mom would always throw me these over-the-top parties when I was little. Well, she threw them for her and her friends. It was all show with the moms, everyone trying to one-up the others. It was never what I wanted, and I would spend the whole day upset but forced to pretend to be their perfect daughter and behave as etiquette told me I should.”
“So let me do something nice for you,” I suggest.
“It makes me uncomfortable. It always has. I’m a year older; I just don’t see the big deal in making a fuss over it.”
“Candace.”
Her only response is a shrug of her shoulders.
“So tell me then, what was it that you really wanted when you were a kid?” I ask when I move to massage her other leg.
Her hands rest in her lap as she sits on the floor and tells me, “Simple. It sounds trite, but what I really wanted was my friends to come over and play with me. Have a cheap cake from the grocery store instead of the fondant covered ones my mom would order from the bakery in town. That fondant tastes like crap, you know?” she says with her brows raised with exaggeration, and I laugh at her.
“I don’t even know what that is,” I admit with a smile.
“Well, it’s gross. And I hated—hated—being forced to open all the gifts in front of everyone. I never got toys, but instead little trinkets and things. Like that bouncy ball,” she exclaims. “I never got stuff like that.”
“So that’s why you hate getting presents?”
“It’s just awkward for me, so I’d rather not deal with it.”
“I’ll call Jase. Why don’t we just hang out here? Eat pizza, watch TV,” I suggest.
She smiles, agreeing, “Sounds perfect.”
She’s simple in ways that I like, but for reasons that shouldn’t be. I’ll give Candace her non-birthday birthday party, but I can’t not get her something to make it special. Because it is. So I’ll find a way to do that for her without making her feel uncomfortable. My girl can be a challenge, but I like that about her.
***
While Candace is busy on campus all day, I head over to Fremont to stop by a couple vintage antique shops. Jase and Candace are always hanging out here, and I know Candace well enough that she doesn’t buy most of her things from mass marketed retail shops. Yeah, she’s simple, but she likes nice things.
I spend a couple hours roaming around, but nothing catches my eye, so I decide to walk down to Peet’s and grab a coffee. When I pass by one of the little shops, the name stops me because Candace came home the other day with some shaving lather for me from here.
Stepping into Essenza, the place is filled with fine European perfumes, soaps, clothes, and jewelry. This looks like a place that she would shop. I’m the only one here and the lady behind the counter steps out and walks over to me, saying, “You look lost,” with a friendly smile.
“That obvious?”
Her smile is warm and even though she screams elegance, she’s quite relaxed when she offers me a glass of wine.
“I’m good.”
“So what are we shopping for?”
“A girl. I know she’s been here before, so I thought I would stop in,” I tell her.
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