Demanding Ransom

by Megan Squires

  It’s been three weeks since the coffeehouse. Three weeks of trying to live my life without Ran. And now, at this point, I’ve spent more time without him than with him. We had two months together. Now it’s late March and I’ve gone three months without him. Time is a weird thing. How it sometimes rushes when you need it to slow, and other times it drags on like a funeral dirge. It never seems to cooperate.

  “Hey,” I mumble, shoving the cup with the dead fish behind my back. “I volunteer here twice a week.”

  “Yeah?” Ran rests his helmet on the hood of my truck and slings a messenger bag over his shoulder. “For school?”

  “Yeah. Psychology.” I wonder if he knows this is my vehicle, the way he drops his belongings onto it. I’m pretty sure I got it after our fight, after his last memory. “I’m doing a paper on Alzheimer’s and have to research a few case studies.”

  Ran hooks his fingers under the strap of his bag and slides them up and down across his chest. His broad shoulders tighten. “Happen to meet a guy named Tom in there?”

  “Yeah.” I don’t look at him.

  “That’s my dad.”

  “No way,” I reply, but it’s too monotone. I should have worked on adding a little inflection to indicate some sort of shock.

  “Yeah.” Ran shifts his weight and peers around my shoulder. “Hey, what’s that?”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. Damn. “It’s just a dead fish I need to get rid of.”

  His face drops. “Oh.”

  “Yeah,” I say, my voice quivering. “Stupid goldfish. These things are impossible to keep alive. You’d think they could get their patients pets that are a little sturdier, like turtles or something. I think those are pretty hard to kill.” I scoot past Ran toward the gutter at the edge of the lot and tilt the cup, emptying the water and its contents into the grated drain. I hear the faintest splash as the fish hits the bottom.

  Ran’s mouth falls open and I can see him swallow, his throat tugging up and down as his chest rises quickly. “Okay,” he says, shaking his head like he’s trying to erase what he just saw. He scoops up his helmet. “I’ll see you around, Maggie.”

  “See you around, Ran.”

  I grab the driver’s side door to my truck and slam it closed once I’m in the confines of the cab. Ran turns his back to me, and I watch him take long and precise strides toward the nursing home’s doors that stretch open and swallow him up. I wait until his shadow slips down the hall and I lose sight of him.

  Then I completely fall apart.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Finals Week — June

  Voices follow the shuffling footsteps down the hall. The bars must be officially closed for the night. That would explain the sudden influx of students and the buzz of noise at nearly three in the morning. And it sounds like the drinking and partying have picked up where they left off in the student lounge at the other end of the dormitory.

  I roll onto my side and tuck my hands under my pillow. Cora’s bed is empty and I’m wide-awake, half anticipating her to burst through the doors with another random guy attached to her lips. I hope that’s not the case because I can’t take up my usual roost in the loveseat in the lounge tonight. I really need a good night’s sleep in my own bed. The past three were all-nighters, and I’m praying my grades reflect that just as much as the purple bags under my eyes do.

  I try to keep my eyes closed, but it doesn’t work. Papers and finals flash behind my lids, and when those disappear, they’re replaced with the nervous anxiety that’s held tight in my chest, manifesting itself in the hazy images of Mikey’s doctor, charts, and CT scans.

  I finished my last final this morning, and while the rest of the school impatiently awaits their final grades, I’m holding my breath, dreading a totally different result: the results of Mikey’s most recent scans. He completed his doctor’s initial treatment plan two weeks ago, and it’s been a waiting game ever since.

  I honestly think there’s nothing I hate more than this state of not knowing. Limbo. It sucks. I wonder if it’s possible for limbo to become a permanent place, rather than just a temporary holding cell. Because I feel like I’ve been locked in it forever. At least for the last decade. Ten years of waiting for my life to move out of this indeterminate state. Waiting to finally experience those inalienable rights Ran talked about. Being happy. Finding love. I was so close. I was almost out of my purgatory. My waiting game was almost over.

  My eyes meet the clock. 3:15 a.m. If I fall asleep now, I can still get four hours of sleep before my alarm jolts me awake. That’s not terrible. The boxes are already stacked high in the corner of the room like a cardboard Christmas tree. All that’s left out is my laptop, my clock, and a few things from my makeup bag. I’ll strip the bed, fold my comforter into the last empty box, and there will be no trace left hinting at the fact that I inhabited this dorm room for the past nine months. It will belong to someone else just after summer break, and it will be as though my year in room 504 in Hawthorne Hall never happened.

  I’ve almost surrendered to the loose promise of sleep when I hear a faint knock on my door, so quiet that at first I think I’m imagining it. Several seconds pass and I strain to hear, squinting my eyes in the dark, which really makes no sense. Like when you turn down the radio when you’re trying to find a place while driving. But for some reason I think it helps, and when I hear the echo through the wood the second time, I leap out of bed and rush toward the sound.

  “Hey Maggie.” There’s a blast of alcohol that greets me along with the voice.

  “Brian,” I gawk, stepping back to avoid his staggering body that careens toward me.

  He grabs me around the waist. “We made it, Mags,” he croons in my ear.

  I shove him off. “Made what?”

  His eyes are dilated and his lips form sloppily around his muddled words. “Made it through freshman year.”

  “Just barely.” I push him onto Cora’s bed and sit down on my own. In this small room, this is about as far away as we can get from each other.

  “You heading home for the summer?” He slides down and closes his eyes, tucking his legs up under him like he’s in the fetal position. Oh no. This is not going to work. Brian is not going to fall asleep here in my dorm. This is not how my year ends. Brian is not a part of it.

  “I don’t know what my plans are,” I say, resigning to the fact that I’m going to have to physically touch Brian to get him out of the room. My skin crawls like I’m covered in thousands of fire ants. I wonder what made him think he’d be welcome here in the first place. “It all depends on Mikey’s results.”

  “That sucks so bad that he has cancer,” Brian slurs against the sheets and it sounds like he has cotton in his mouth.

  “Yeah.” I yank on his arm and cringe at the feel of it, hot and clammy against my palm. “Time for you to go, Brian.” I manage to pull him into a sitting position, but he teeters for a couple of seconds before swaying back over to the other side, crashing onto the foot of Cora’s bed.

  “Sophia won’t have sex with me anymore.”

  I didn’t see that coming. “What?”

  Brian nuzzles his face against the crumpled duvet cover. I think he’s drooling. I’m never going to hear the end of this from Cora.

  “She’s sleeping with Colby.” I don’t know who Colby is, nor do I care. All I really care about is getting Brian out of my room without him emptying the liquor-laced contents of his stomach all over the floor on his way out. “She’s sleeping with Colby, Maggie.”

  “I’m sorry.” I’m not. I’m more sorry that I answered the door in the first place. I should know better than to respond to three o’clock in the morning wake-up calls.

  “He’s my roommate. She slept with my roommate.” He belches a wet hiccup that sounds like it’s accompanying something else. He cannot throw up on Cora’s bed. Drool is one thing—she may forgive me for that. Vomit is a completely different story.

  I tiptoe to the foot of the bed and prop my hand betw
een his shoulder blades. It’s disgusting how sweaty he is. I find it impossibly hard to believe that at one point in time, Brian’s sweaty body on my bed would have turned me on. This is the polar opposite of being turned on. I’m actually a little worried that I might throw up, too.

  “It sucks to be cheated on, Mags,” he groans, just at the same moment I managed to rally my strength to shove him off the bed. Brian tumbles to the concrete floor with a thud. “Uggghhh,” he moans, clutching his side.

  “Yes, it does.” I wipe my hands across one another. “Brian.” I crouch down to his level and his pained eyes look up at me. “You have to go.”

  Closing his eyes, he nods at least ten times, like he’s one of those bobble heads on a dashboard of a car. “Yeah.” He slumps back onto the floor.

  I stand above him with my hands on my hips for a moment, trying to figure out what I’m going to do with him. It’s almost like disposing of a dead body, the list of possibilities my mind runs through. I finally decide on grasping him around the ankles and dragging him out into the hall to become someone else’s problem, when he pushes up on his elbow and stares at me, clarity flitting briefly across his face.

  “I’m sorry, Maggie.” Brian gives me a soft, apologetic smile. He pushes all the way up to sit cross-legged, but continues to wobble unevenly. “I was a dick. I shouldn’t have done that to you.” He shakes his head as though he’s scolding himself. “Not after three years. Not after what I took from you.”

  The sound of the party raging down the hall rattles the old windows, and Brian’s quivering voice matches it to a T.

  I bend down to his level. “You didn’t take anything from me, Brian. I gave it to you.” He looks up at me expectantly. “And I forgive you… I think I actually forgave you a while back.” The light that catches Brian’s eyes reveals the relief that I think he’s been seeking for quite a while. I can see it slipping out of him and feel it breathed through him.

  I don’t know when it happened exactly, when I chose to stop hating Brian for what he did to me. But it occurred somewhere along the line, and seeing him like this tonight—this hurt, confused man balled up on my floor because someone did the same to him—makes me realize what I have for him must be true forgiveness. Because even though the thought of him still disgusts me on some level, the fact that I feel bad he’s experiencing the same pain has to mean something. It feels like forgiveness—however foreign—and something in me is lighter just by giving it out.

  “You should go, Brian.”

  “I know.” He nods slowly. “I’m so sorry, Maggie. You didn’t do anything to deserve what I did.” He shrugs. “I guess I deserve what Sophia did, though. You know, like payment for my sins or something.”

  “I don’t think that’s how it works.” We’re eye level now, though Brian’s eyes shift unsteadily side to side as his body sways. “And I bet you’ll forgive her someday, too. We all make mistakes.”

  “You were a good girlfriend, you know?” Brian leans forward. “I’m sorry I was such an ass to you, Maggie.”

  “You weren’t always an ass, Brian. That’s not who you were. You just did things occasionally that made you seem like one.” I pull on his elbow to steer him toward the door.

  He pauses before taking the handle in his grasp. “I really hope Mikey is okay.” Swiveling on his heel to face me, he says meaningfully, “You deserve some good in your life.” Before I can stop him, Brian pushes his lips to my forehead. It’s not as revolting as I envisioned it would be, and strangely, it feels appropriate. “Have a good summer, okay?”

  I smile and blink up at him. “I’ll try. You too, Brian.” And then he slips out the door.

  I turn to face the empty hollow of the room, replaying what just happened again in my mind. Brian hurt me. Brian got hurt. Brian apologized for hurting me. I forgave Brian. When I break it down into those four components, it seems logical, like it’s some equation on how to be human. But when I think about it deep down—think about the betrayal, the hate, and the pain that goes along with it—nothing about it feels natural. It’s not natural to forgive. It’s a choice, one that has to be intentionally made in order for it to be real. If I can forgive Brian for what he did, maybe I can extend that same forgiveness to others in my life that require it. It might not be as easy as this odd exchange, but it might be possible. The hope I thought had completely vacated from my life blooms in the tiniest crevice of my being.

  Now that the room is mine again, I slink back under the covers and yank the comforter up to my chin, cocooning myself under the still-warm fabric. 3:30. If I fall asleep now, I might not be a total zombie tomorrow. More like a sleepwalker. I’ll settle for that.

  Another knock at the door.

  “Brian,” I say, raising my voice so he can hear me through the wooden barrier. “Go home and go to bed!”

  Two more loud knocks.

  Grudgingly, I plant my feet on the ground, walk toward the door again, and tug it open. I instantly gasp and heat rises in my body, flooding my senses. “Ran.” His name falls from my lips.

  “Hey Maggie.” He has his black leather riding jacket on and ripped jeans slung low on his hips. A white V-neck shirt peeks out from under his collar. Only Ran could look this amazing in the dead of night and it frustrates me to no end. “Can I come in?”

  I tumble backward and try to regain my footing so I don’t fall onto the floor in the heap Brian was moments earlier. The room is hot, like someone has cranked up the furnace, and I pull at my shirt to billow it, allowing air to float over my skin. Ran’s eyes follow the movements of my hands and that’s when I see it. His face can’t hide it; the way his brow lifts gives it all away. “That’s my shirt, Maggie.”

  My stomach twists into a pretzel and I bind my arms across my chest, hoping to conceal the Ducati logo that’s inked across it, hoping to hide the shirt that I’d taken from him back at the cabin.

  “We need to talk.” He looks over at the bed and then back at me, scanning my stolen top once more. “Is it okay if we talk?”

  My head is fuzzy with confusion and I lift it up and down like a twitch. Ran paces across the room and sits down right in the middle of my bed. I decide to position myself at the head of it, and I lean my back onto the cool cinderblock wall, willing the temperature to bring down my full-body flush.

  “Let me just start by saying I don’t remember anything more than what I told you the last time we talked. It seems only fair to lead off with that.” Something in me nosedives. I don’t know what it is because I’m certain it’s not hope. I don’t allow myself to hold onto hope when it comes to Ran. Maybe a glimmer of it is making itself present in the other compartments of my life, but there’s no room for it where Ran is concerned.

  He keeps talking. “I don’t remember anything more. But I do know that you owe me something.”

  Nerves shoot through my stomach. “I owe you something?” I’d never expected those words to drop from Ran’s mouth because in all the times I told him I felt indebted to him, he consistently reiterated the fact that I didn’t owe him a single thing. But hearing him say this now pulls at my unsettled core. The doctors—and my silly research—had been clear that Ran hadn’t lost himself, that he was the same person. He was the same soul—just with a slice of his life pulled from its place. But this statement doesn’t support that theory. Maybe something in him has changed.

  “This.” He slips his hand into his pocket and when he takes it back out, a crumpled piece of paper is in it. He flicks it in front of my face between his index and third fingers. Raising his eyebrows, he gestures for me to take it. “Do you know what that is?”

  I unfold the sheet. “Our list.”

  “Why would we have a list, Maggie?” Ran’s eyes sliver and he shakes his head. “Why would we have this sheet of all of these bucket list things we want to do together if we were just friends?”

  The room spins. It doesn’t help that the entire dorm pulsates with the hypnotizing beat of music down the hall. And it also
doesn’t help that I’m going on three and a half days without sleep. For all I know I could be dreaming all of this. Betraying what little sense I have left, I stretch my hand across the bed and touch Ran’s arm, just to be sure of him.

  “You know what you owe me?” Ran pulls his arm back, almost flinching. His voice is firm—not angry or upset—but demanding. Demanding an answer from me that I’m not sure I’m ready to give. “You owe me the truth.”

  My chest caves. “Ran,” I sigh, “I told you the truth back at the hospital, when I thanked you for rescuing me.” I hold in a pocket of air on reserve because my lungs aren’t working the way they should. Nothing is working the way it should. It never does.

  “Right, I get that you’re grateful I was at the scene of the accident—”

  “That’s not it,” I interrupt. “You rescued me, Ran.” I drop my gaze and pluck at the fabric on my quilt. “In more ways than you’ll ever know.”

  Desperation crosses over Ran’s features and he rakes his hands through his hair, gripping the strands between frustrated fingers. “Damn it, Maggie. Why won’t you just tell me?” he growls. “Would you please stop being so cryptic and for once just be straight with me?” The shake in his voice makes me jump out of my skin, and when his pleading eyes land on mine, I feel their impact deep in my gut. Ran clenches his jaw and sucks in air between gritted teeth. After a tense pause, he says, “Because I’ve spent the past six months without you, and honestly, that’s worse than the two months I supposedly lost.”

  I don’t want to cry. It seems impossible to fall apart when you aren’t whole to begin with. And I’m definitely not whole. I haven’t been for years. I’m just scraps, and those can’t fall apart. I’m shredded. That’s what all of this has done to me, completely shredded me. Like those stupid machines that you place one sheet of paper in on one side, and retrieve the sliced-up strips on the other. Shreds that can’t be pieced back together, no matter how hard you try.