Better for Us

by Vanessa Miller

  Nodding, Ryla said, “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just ready to go home.”

  Danetta hollered for Jaylen. “Your mom is here, so hurry up.” She then looked back at Ryla. “Are you sure you don’t want to sit down?”

  Waving away the gesture, Ryla said, “No, I’m just ready to go home. I have a splitting headache.”

  Jaylen came running into the foyer. She screamed, “Mommy!” but then stopped and began looking around. She turned back to her mother and said, “Where is Daddy? I thought we were going back to Dallas with him.”

  “Not right now, honey. Daddy has some very important business to take care of.” She tried to sound like the normal, happy, chipper event planner that she was as she added, “He can’t very well entertain us while he’s trying to win an election, now, can he?”

  With a dejected look on her face, Jaylen reminded her mother, “Daddy wants me with him. He said that the campaign wasn’t any fun until I arrived. I need to get to Dallas, Mommy, because my daddy is going to miss me.”

  Chewing her bottom lip and rubbing her temple to relieve some of the stress and strain she was feeling, Ryla tried to think of an answer for her daughter. Maybe she and Jaylen should just go on back to Dallas. Who did Noel think he was, relegating her to one side of Texas while he took the other side?

  Danetta put her hand on Jaylen’s shoulder and said, “Baby, go get all of your stuff. Auntie Danetta needs to speak with your mommy for a moment.”

  Jaylen skipped her way to the stairs. As she climbed them, Ryla held up a hand of defense. “I can’t go through this right now.”

  “Stop hiding behind those sunglasses.” Danetta reached up and pulled the glasses from her friend’s face. Danetta gasped. “What’s wrong, Ryla? Why have you been crying like this?”

  Ryla pulled her glasses out of Danetta’s hand and put them back on. “Let’s just say you were right and I was way off base. Are you happy now?”

  “You know I’m not.” Danetta continued to look her friend over and then asked, “Did you and Noel have a big fight or something?”

  “No, Noel doesn’t fight with people who don’t matter to him.”

  “What happened, Ryla? Talk to me.”

  “I can’t do this.” Ryla rushed over to the door and grabbed hold of the doorknob. “Tell Jaylen to meet me in the car. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

  Danetta nodded and then patted her friend on the back as she exited.

  * * *

  Like a firestorm, Noel blazed into his campaign headquarters ready to get down to business and put this election behind him. “Good morning.” He waved at his staff as he passed them on his way to his office. Before Noel could close his door, Ian had come into his office and closed the door for him.

  “What are you doing here so early?”

  Noel glanced at his watch. “I don’t know how getting here at ten in the morning is considered early.”

  “You know what I mean. I wouldn’t have expected you to be out of bed so soon.” Grinning as if he had knowledge of a well-kept secret, he added, “I mean, you are a honeymooner.”

  Noel sat behind his desk. “I’m a honeymooner with an election to win. So, if you don’t mind, I would appreciate it if we could get off my personal life and get back our focus on winning this election.”

  Ian shrugged. “I’m fine with getting out of your personal business. But I have a little personal business of my own that I need your help with.”

  Happy to talk about anything but the wedding, Noel perked up and said, “What can I help you with?”

  “I need a phone number for one of Ryla’s bridesmaids.”

  The wedding again. “I was only introduced to Ryla’s friends a few times. But I do know that one is married.”

  “I’m talking about Surry. I tried to talk to her at the wedding, but she sort of blew me off. But I figured I would give her a call and see where I stand.”

  Noel wanted to tell his friend to run—don’t get involved with anyone associated with Ryla. But he wouldn’t let his own bitterness spoil it for Ian. “I’ll see what I can do. Now, can you tell me where we stand in the polls?”

  “I had Cathy gathering that information. But since I didn’t think you’d actually show up today, I told her not to rush it.” Ian headed for the door. “Let me check on those figures.”

  “And can you see if anybody has some Tylenol or something?” He put his hands to his head and rubbed his temples. “My head is killing me.”

  Ian left the office and Noel was left with his thoughts of last night with Ryla. It had been a beautiful experience to be with her again. Ryla had been loving and giving, but as he woke early this morning and looked down at his sleeping beauty, his heart raced, his pulse quickened as sweat began to drip from his forehead.

  He was having a panic attack. His only thought was to get out of that bed and as far away from Ryla as possible. They had too many issues to ever be able to make a marriage work. He threw his clothes into his suitcase and then wrote her a note. But as he was heading out the door of their suite, he suddenly felt like the runner he’d accused her of being.

  As he stood by the door, thinking about going back to his wife, a vision of her one day walking out the door and leaving him tore at his will. Why was he in love with a woman who could so easily discard him? Noel had no answers for his weakness, but he didn’t have to succumb to it. He opened the door and left the suite. Noel wished he could say that he didn’t look back. But that wasn’t the truth. The entire way to his car, Noel kept looking back, wondering if Ryla would realize he was gone and try to stop him.

  A knock on his door brought Noel’s attention back to the events of the day. “Come in.”

  Cathy walked through the door carrying a folder in one hand and a bottle of Tylenol in the other. She set the folder on his desk. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning, yourself,” he said, reaching for the pain pills.

  She grabbed him a bottle of water from the top of his file cabinet, opened it and handed it to him. “You look stressed,” she said, as Noel plopped three pills in his mouth.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” he said, and then pointed at the folder. “Is this the polling information from this weekend?”

  “Sure is, buddy, and your numbers are up.” Cathy clapped and then added in a gleeful tone, “So I guess that whole marry-your-baby’s-mama stunt worked out for you, huh?”

  Noel looked up from the poll numbers he’d been studying. “What?”

  She winked at him. “You don’t have to pretend with me. I saw how you treated Ryla when she and Jaylen first arrived. So I knew that you didn’t want anything to do with her. And the fact that you’re back in the office so soon after your wedding speaks for itself, don’t you think?”

  Ryla had been right about Cathy all along. She was one of those women who would stop at nothing to break up a family. He stood and addressed the issue. “I’m married, Cathy, and I love my wife. End of story.”

  She stammered. “W-well, I—I just thought...”

  “You thought wrong. And I think it’s time for you to go. I appreciate all the work you’ve done for this campaign, but Ryla feels uncomfortable with you being here. And I have to agree with her.”

  With a look of astonishment on her face, she asked, “You’re firing me?”

  Noel sat back down. “You can give your letter of resignation to Ian and then pack your things. You shouldn’t have any trouble finding another campaign to work for, because you were an excellent employee.” He stressed the word.

  “Don’t worry, Noel. I won’t say anything to the media about how you planned your marriage to get your poll numbers to rise.” She sneered and then added, “And how pathetic Ryla is for going along with your scheme. You two deserve each other.” Cathy turned and huffed out of his office.

/>   Noel didn’t know if Cathy’s statement about him and Ryla deserving each other was true, but he did know one thing. He needed a drink.

  Chapter 22

  Ryla had been in bed all week, refusing to shower or even change her clothes. Her mother had come by a couple of times a day to make either soup or sandwiches for Jaylen. After the third day, however, Juanita entered her bedroom, closed the door and then sat down on the edge of her bed.

  Ryla put the cover over her head, because she didn’t have the energy to deal with her mother right now.

  Juanita pulled the cover away from Ryla and said, “I’m not even going to pretend to understand why you would marry that man and then leave him in two days, but—”

  Her mother’s words snapped her back to life. She interrupted her mother as she jumped up and blurted, “You think I left him? Ha! I wish I had left him. But this time Noel left me with nothing but a note to figure that he wasn’t coming back.”

  A look of confusion crossed Juanita’s face. “But why would he do that to you, honey? He seemed so in love.”

  Ryla grabbed a pillow and held on to it as she fessed up. “Noel is still holding a grudge against me, Mom. He can’t love me, because he’s still so angry with me about keeping Jaylen from him.”

  “But he asked you to marry him.”

  Ryla hated having to tell her mother what a fool she had been for love. But since she had willingly taken part in the farce, it was time to let her mother in on everything. Tears glistened her eyes as she confessed, “He asked me to pretend to marry him. I’m the one who went all the way with it.”

  “Oh, Ryla.”

  Ryla held up a hand, not wanting to deal with the pity she heard in her mother’s voice. “I know, Mom. I was a fool to think I could get Noel to love me again.”

  “No, baby.” Juanita shook her head. “Noel’s the fool if he could ever stop loving you in the first place.”

  Touched by her mother’s words, Ryla reached out for her mother. The two women hugged.

  When Juanita stood back up, she said, “I’m going to take Jaylen home with me for a few days to give you time to cry your eyes out and then pull yourself back together. Okay?”

  Ryla nodded. She then watched her mother walk out of her bedroom and listened as she gathered Jaylen’s things and left the house. Her little girl hadn’t even come into the room to say goodbye, but Ryla didn’t blame her. She was a mess, and Jaylen was probably terrified by the sight of her mother.

  For the next few days, she tried to follow her mother’s advice. But the sad truth was that Ryla didn’t know how to pull anything together anymore. Knowledge of that brought laughter to her lips for the first time that week. She was the party planner extraordinaire, known for throwing together fabulous events on short notice. Heck, she’d even put the fabulous stamp on her own wedding, with only six weeks to plan. But none of her planning skills would get her out of this deep depression she had fallen into.

  Sleep became her friend. No one mocked or judged her while she slept, so Ryla spent her days ignoring the ringing of her telephone as she lay in a comalike state.

  Suddenly, her blinds were flung open and Ryla had to pull the covers over her head to keep from being blinded.

  “Get up.”

  Ryla lowered the cover and sent a piercing glare in Danetta’s direction. “How did you get in here?”

  Danetta held up the key. “I told your mother that I was going to take you to church this morning, and she handed me her spare key. Of course, neither of us believed that you would get out of bed to open the door for me.”

  “You don’t have to sound so rude. I’m going through a traumatic time in my life. Shouldn’t I be allowed to wallow around for a few days?”

  “A few days, yes. But you haven’t gone out of this house since you entered it on Monday. You won’t answer the phone and your mother tells me that you haven’t combed your hair or changed your clothes in days. And that’s not you.”

  Tears formed in Ryla’s eyes. “I really loved him, Danetta. But he doesn’t love me anymore.” She hit the blanket with her fist. “Maybe I’m not worthy of love after what I did to him.”

  Danetta searched the room until she found a hand mirror on Ryla’s vanity. She sat down on the bed next to Ryla and said, “Look.”

  Ryla started screaming, “Get that mirror away from me.”

  “The mirror isn’t going to set you on fire, Ryla. What’s wrong with you?” Danetta asked with an arched eyebrow.

  “I can’t stand to look in these mirrors.”

  “Since when?” Danetta demanded to know.

  Ryla slumped back in her bed and sighed. She had meant to ask Danetta about the man she’d run into at the mall a few months ago, but so much had been going on that she’d never had a chance. But now that her mirror was tormenting her, she needed answers. “I ran into this man at the mall a few months ago. He showed me this little black book that read something like, ‘Why did Jesus die?’ on the cover. When he opened the book, there was no answer to the question, but a mirror that showed my reflection. It has bothered me ever since, because I don’t know what he was trying to say.”

  “Wow. You’ve never mentioned this to me,” Danetta said.

  “I meant to, but life became so busy that I forgot about it, and now I can’t get it out of my mind.” She looked Danetta in the eye. “Was that man blaming me for demise in general?” Noel blamed her for so much. Maybe others saw the Guilty stamp on her forehead also.

  “No, hon, not at all.” Danetta smiled. “I wish you had told me about this earlier. Then maybe you wouldn’t be such a basket case.”

  Ryla sniffed. She then grabbed the toilet paper she had been using, since she had run out of tissues, and blew her nose. “I’ll probably still be a basket case, but at least I’ll feel better about not being blamed for one more thing.”

  Danetta rushed on with her explanation. “The reason that man showed you a picture of yourself was because he wanted you to know that, if you were the only person on this earth, Jesus still would have bled and died for little ol’ you.”

  “Why?” Ryla asked, as if to say she wasn’t worth the effort.

  “Because the Lord loves you so much that He even wants to help you get through this terrible time in your life.”

  “But why? I don’t get it.”

  Ryla had closed herself off from people who hurt or dismissed her, refusing to give them her love to throw around. So the idea of God loving her despite the fact that she hardly went to church or worshipped Him in any meaningful fashion was hard to comprehend.

  Danetta held out a hand to her friend. “Come to church with me. Come find out about the God who loves you so dearly.”

  Ryla had tried to fix things herself and had done a poor job of it for so long that the idea of someone else helping her get where she needed to be intrigued her. She threw the covers back and said, “Why not?”

  * * *

  Ian shook his head as he watched Noel try to right himself on the sofa. He finally gave up and fell face forward into the cushions. Ian opened his cell phone and called Donald. “I hate making this call,” Ian said the moment Donald came on the line, “but I picked Noel up at a local bar a little while ago, and he just passed out.”

  “I’m on my way” was all Donald said, and then he hung up.

  Ian walked over to his friend and shoved him. “Did you hear that? I called your brother and he is on the way over here to figure out why you would sabotage your future like this.”

  Noel lifted his head for a brief moment. “Tell him to bring me a beer.” He then fell back into the cushiony softness of his sofa.

  * * *

  The service was wonderful and Ryla was so glad that she’d gotten out of bed to attend church with Danetta and Marshall today. Praise and worship pr
oved to be a magical time for her. Ryla raised her hands, and for the first time in a very long while, she wasn’t thinking about what she would get out of praising the Lord. She simply wanted to praise God for the great being that He was.

  After the sermon, the pastor asked if anyone wanted to give their life to God. The concept intrigued her. Ryla had never given anything to anyone who hadn’t given her something in return. But today would be the day to try something new. She stepped into the aisle and began walking down to the altar. With each step she took, the heaviness of her trials and tribulations seemed to fall off.

  As she prayed the sinner’s prayer with an altar worker, Ryla felt the weight of unforgiveness fall away. No longer would she hold her father’s failings against him. With this newfound ability to forgive, Ryla found that she no longer needed to judge every man by her father’s standards. And in finally seeing what she had done to Noel, she realized that she owed him a true apology.

  * * *

  Donald was sitting on the floor with Ian and Noel, force-feeding his brother black coffee and trying to talk some sense into him.

  “I love her, man. I really love her,” Noel confessed.

  “Then why’d you leave her, dummy?” Ian asked, anger flashing in his eyes.

  Taking another sip of his coffee, Noel said, “Because I’m exactly what you said—a dummy. And because Ryla has so many issues that she will eventually leave me again. Honestly...I just don’t know if I can handle her leaving me again.”

  “You do know that fear doesn’t come from God, don’t you, bro?” Donald asked.

  “Yeah, I know, but this fear has gripped me to the point where I would walk away from the woman I love. Forget the fact that she tricked me into marrying her. I was crazy to be mad about that, because I’d gladly marry Ryla. My problem is that I’d be forever concerned that I might do something to cause her to leave me. I don’t want to live like that.”

  “Do you want to live like this?” Ian pointed at him.

  Noel knew that Ian was referring to the fact that he had gotten drunk after being sober for years. “No, I don’t want to live like this, either.”