Never Standing Still

by Anie Michaels

  I told Megan and Ella all about Marcus’ struggles, his medical issues, but I also told them about his light and his spirit. Hours passed as I told them stories about him, funny things he did, adventures we’d had. I explained to them about how Nancy took care of him while I was away, which was why I was always quick to leave after a job. Then I told them that while I was away he was in another accident, but that he didn’t live through it.

  They didn’t ask for specifics, which I appreciated, and I figured someone else had filled them in enough they weren’t particularly curious. I wiped the tears that had fallen and blew my nose, using a box of tissues that I assumed had been put in my room during my three-day coma.

  “So, how does Riot play into all of this?” Ella tilted her head to the side, obviously curious about him and our relationship.

  I took in a deep breath and then exhaled loudly, trying to find a way to put words to what was between Riot and me.

  “Riot was, well, a mistake,” I said with a rush of breath. “I let my guard down with him, let him into my life, let him into Marcus’ life, and then it all just collapsed around me.”

  “Why do you think it was a mistake?” Megan asked.

  “It’s hard to make the dots connect in my brain, let alone explain them to someone who wouldn’t understand,” I said, trying not to come off as angry, but I could feel something brewing right in the hole where my heart had been three days ago.

  “Can you try?” Ella asked, softly. “He’s out there Kalli,” she said, motioning to the door of my bedroom. “He hasn’t left this house in three days and he’s worried sick about you.”

  “He just needs to go. I’ll never be good for him. I’ll never get past this. I just can’t.”

  “Tell us why, or at least try, Kal.” Megan’s voice matched Ella’s, soft but insistent.

  “Every single person I’ve ever loved, or who has ever loved me, has gone away. So, even if I let him stay, eventually it would end and I’d be alone anyway. Plus,” I said, the tears coming more rapidly. “If I hadn’t gone to see him, if I’d come home like I planned, Marcus would still be alive.”

  “Sweetie, that’s just not true. You can’t let that weight sit on your shoulders,” Ella said, a new level of concern in her voice.

  “It is true. He ran from Nancy, he was upset that I wasn’t home like I said I would be, that’s why he was being unreasonable. If I’d come home we would have probably stayed in and played Monopoly, or watched a movie, like we always did. But odds are he wouldn’t have been on his bike or gotten hit by that truck.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Megan said. “Bad things happen, you can’t take responsibility, honey.”

  “Bad things happen to me. My life has been one bad thing after another, so,” I said, wiping my nose again, “I’m not putting myself in a position of losing again.”

  Ella’s lips were in a straight line and I could tell she had more to say to me about it, but was thinking better of it. We sat in silence for a few minutes, and every once in a while I could hear Riot’s deep voice from the living room and Nancy’s sweet one responding to him. My eyes closed and somewhere deep inside me I tore out the last part of Riot that had taken hold of me.

  “I can’t hear his voice anymore, Ella. Please tell him he needs to go.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to be that easy, Kal. He’s pretty convinced you’ll want to see him, that you’ll let him back in.”

  “I won’t,” I said with strength I didn’t have. “I can’t,” I said in a whisper.

  I closed my eyes and turned away from her, not wanting to hear or say anymore words. Eventually, I felt both her and Megan’s weight lift from the bed, and heard the door open and then latch shut again. A few quiet moments passed, but then the yelling started. Riot’s loud and gravelly voice shot down the hallway.

  “She can’t just push me away!” he screamed. I wasn’t sure if he was yelling just because he was angry, or if he was trying to make sure I heard him. It didn’t matter. The sound of his voice filling my room did nothing to change my mind. If anything, it solidified my resolve.

  It was better to let him go now. He deserved better than me, better than someone who would never be able to let him all the way in. And I didn’t deserve anything.

  “Kalli!” he screamed. I grabbed my pillow and held it over my head, trying to muffle the sound of his screams. I heard him coming closer to my door, then I heard a commotion, Bob’s voice telling Riot to calm down and give me some space.

  “Kalli, you can’t just ignore me! You can’t just pretend I don’t mean anything to you, like I don’t love you!” He was screaming and sobbing at the same time, and even though I didn’t want to cry anymore, I couldn’t help the tears that poured out of me. “I lost him too, Kalli.” I heard him fall to the ground outside my door, murmuring how he’d loved Marcus too, how he would miss him.

  Then I heard him right up against the door, just on the other side.

  “His death isn’t your fault, Kal, baby. It’s not. But if you push me away, if you give up on us, that will be your fault.” He was quiet for a moment, apart from the cries I heard coming quietly from him. “I’ll never leave you,” he sobbed.

  I listened to him crying on the other side of my door for a while, eventually removing the pillow and absorbing the sound. A part of me wanted to hear him cry, was comforted a little by the fact that he was upset about losing me, but not enough to change my mind or open the door to him.

  I was very aware of the fact that if I opened the door, if I let him touch me, I’d lose my ability to keep myself from him. No, he needed to go.

  “Go away, Riot,” I whispered into the empty room, knowing full well he couldn’t hear me. But I repeated myself, each time getting louder and louder.

  “Go away, Riot.”

  Louder.

  “Go away, Riot.”

  Louder.

  “Go away, Riot!”

  Louder.

  “GO AWAY!”

  I was screaming, could feel the oxygen burning in my lungs, the blood rushing to my face.

  “GO AWAY! GO AWAY! GO AWAY! GO AWAY! GO AWAY! GO AWAY! GO AWAY!”

  I screamed until I nearly fainted, until there was nothing left in me to push out, until every part of me was empty. I literally screamed myself to sleep.

  When I woke, I left my room and was welcomed by an empty and dark house. Empty, that was, except for Nancy, who was sitting on my couch. She looked just as ruined as I felt. We looked at each other for a moment, words unnecessary; we were both irrevocably broken. After a beat or two, I opened my mouth to speak, surprised by the sound of my harsh and strained voice.

  “Is he gone?”

  Nancy just looked at me for a moment. Then, in words I’d probably remember for the rest of my life because they felt heavier than anything she’d ever said to me, she answered.

  “Yes, dear girl. He’s gone.”

  Epilogue

  Riot

  I straightened my tie in the mirror, trying to fix something that was unfixable. There was nothing wrong with my tie. There was something wrong with me, but it wasn’t something I could adjust to make right, or wiggle back into place. She was missing from me. So much hurt had drifted through my life in the last week, but nothing had hurt worse than hearing her, broken and weak, screaming at me to leave, to go away.

  I sighed, giving up on my mission to fiddle with my suit. It wasn’t a fashion show. It was a funeral. No one would care if my tie was slightly crooked.

  It had taken me three days in Kalli’s house to realize that my being there was just hurting her more, adding to her pain. It took every ounce of strength I had to leave her there, and honestly the only reason I could walk away was because she so desperately wanted me gone.

  My phone rang and I saw it was my agent again. After I’d jumped on the first plane to Seattle, I’d had to explain to the studio why I wouldn’t be back for filming the next day, or the next week for that matter. Usually, this would
mean a cut from the show I was working on. The studios don’t wait for anyone, especially a newbie like me. But luckily, the writers were invested in my storyline and the producers found a way to work around my absence, filming scenes without my character. My agent was calling to remind me that if I wasn’t back at the soundstage tomorrow morning I would be replaced.

  I silenced the ringer, sending him to voicemail, and then shoved my phone in my pocket, grabbed my keys and bag, and headed to the lobby of the hotel to check out.

  Forty-five minutes later I was walking into Marcus’ funeral, which had started a few minutes prior. I knew Kalli wouldn’t want me there, so I purposefully came a few minutes late, hoping to just sneak into the back of the church unnoticed.

  The front of the church was filled with flowers, all surrounding a pedestal with an urn atop it. Next to the urn stood a large picture of Marcus, his face shining with a bright smile, sitting on an easel. He looked just like a seventeen year old young man, but also so much like a child. Perhaps it was because I knew him, because I understood that even though he looked like he was nearly an adult, he was so innocent and pure, so childlike.

  A small smile came over my face as I also thought about how stubborn he could be, how he was a sore loser and a gloating winner, all our games of Monopoly coming to mind. He was an expert Mario Kart driver. He was so much more than that picture or even that urn could hold. And I felt lucky I’d had the opportunity to know him, even for such a short while.

  My eyes drifted to the front row of pews and I spotted Kalli’s auburn hair. My heart lurched at the sight of her, my eyes begging to see her face, my arms aching to hold her, to comfort her. Her shoulders were low, sagging, and every once in a while I saw them shake, and I knew she was crying.

  To Kalli’s right sat Nancy, and next to Nancy was Bob. On the other side of Kalli was Ella and I was at least relieved that her friend was there for her. I saw Porter, Megan, and who I assumed was her fiancé sitting next to her as well. My body relaxed a little seeing Kalli surrounded by people who cared about her. Even though she wouldn’t let me near her, wouldn’t let me love her in the way I wanted to, at least she had a support system. She had people she could lean on, if she allowed herself to lean on anyone.

  I shook my head at her stubbornness, thinking of how it must have been a family trait. Next a wave of sadness came over me with the realization that she had no family left. After the sadness came the longing, because I desperately wanted to be her family. I had, in fact, thought we were halfway there, working toward becoming a family, when tragedy struck, sending Kalli back down the rabbit hole.

  For whatever reason, Kalli decided to shut down after Marcus passed, to deny herself the opportunity to be cared for. I couldn’t fault her for the way she grieved. Grief was grief, and whatever she felt, however her mind processed her devastation, well, I couldn’t argue with that. Sure, I had a moment of my grief, where I felt the loss of Kalli as well as her brother, where I came to terms with the fact that she wasn’t going to allow me to comfort her or even be with her, and I might have lost my composure. But in the last couple of days, I’d come to terms with my role in Kalli’s life.

  I would simply wait.

  I would hold on to the fact that I knew she was mine and that she would eventually feel those ties that bound her to me, those ropes that tethered us together, and come back to me.

  The service ended and I made sure I was one of the first to leave the church, intent on not being seen by her. But I did find a tree at the edge of the parking lot to lean against, waiting for just a glimpse of her face before I left. I needed something to hold on to, something to take with me. I was leaving her, putting so much faith in our connection and trying to remain optimistic that soon she’d realize she needed me, or at least wanted me, again.

  There weren’t a lot of people at the service, so it didn’t take very long for everyone to leave, and Kalli was one of the last, as I suspected she would be. When she came out of the church and walked into the pale gray light cast down by the clouds in the sky, I nearly gasped at the sight of her and had to force myself to remain in my spot, fighting the urge to run to her.

  Her skin was ashen, eyes lightless, and she was frail. She hadn’t had any weight to spare when I met her, and she had lost at least five pounds, if not more, since I’d seen her last. Where she was soft before, she was sharp. All gentle curves were gone and replaced with corners and edges. I had an unexplainably strong urge to hold her and feed her.

  I watched as she got into a town car, helped in by Ella, and my eyes strained to see every last part of her before the door shut. I knew that was the last glimpse of her, the last time I’d see any part of her, until she decided to come back to me.

  Ella watched the town car leave the church parking lot and then turned and looked right at me. She said something to her husband and then walked over to me. I couldn’t help but notice the belly she led with, one hand softly caressing her unborn child as she made her way toward me.

  “You came,” she said, still a few steps from me.

  “I know she didn’t want me here, but I couldn’t stay away. I tried to be discreet.” I stood up straight, pulling my body from the support of the tree.

  Ella shook her head. “I don’t know if she would have noticed you anyway. She’s pretty out of it still.”

  It hurt to hear those words. I wanted so badly to just hug her, and then shake her, and then hug her again. “She hasn’t been eating,” I said.

  “No,” Ella sighed. “We’ve tried, but she can’t keep anything down. She’s too upset most of the time.”

  I ran the back of my hand under my chin, trying so hard to fight every instinct I had to take care of her. “Are you going back to Oregon soon?” I needed someone there to take care of her for me.

  “I’ll be here for a few more days. Porter and I both took some time off.” She took another step toward me and put her hand on my shoulder. “We’ll watch over her, Riot. I know this must be hard for you.”

  “She’ll come back to me,” I said, my voice low but sure.

  “I hope so,” she replied, but didn’t sound convinced. I couldn’t blame her; she’d only seen us at our worst, never at our best. Only Kalli and I knew what it felt like when we were together, when our bodies were so relieved to just be near each other. She’d never seen the way Kalli looked at me as I hovered over her, filling her, kissing her. Only I knew what Kalli looked like when she forgot, even if for just a moment, how much she’d lost.

  Ella gave me a slight nod, but then headed back to her husband who was waiting at their car for her. I watched the parking lot empty, knowing everyone was headed to Kalli’s house for the wake, but I knew I couldn’t go there. I sighed, then headed to my car and continued on to the airport to catch my flight to LA.

  All I could hope was that, eventually, Kalli would accept the fact that she was mine. I would be waiting for her, standing still, until she decided to find me.

  I hope you’ll look forward to reading the conclusion to Kalli and Riot’s story

  Never Tied Down

  Coming Soon

  Acknowledgments

  The first thank you goes to the readers. Thank you so much for continuing to read my stories and sharing your heart with them and me. If one person reads this story and feels anything, then I know it was all worth it.

  To Hang Le, thank you for the amazing cover that so totally encapsulates Kalli. It is sad and soft and beautiful, just like I imagined.

  To the ladies at Hot Tree Editing, thank you for helping me make the book the best it could be.

  Sabine, Sarah, Kelly, and Andrea – Thank you for reading the book in its bare bones form. I always appreciate the early readers. And Sabine, thank you for giving me Kalli’s last name! I was stuck before, and now it all makes sense.

  To Becca, Riot is yours - let it be known! Thank you for everything you’ve done for me; he’s the least I could do for you. I love you endlessly and I am so grateful to have found
you (first, I might add. I was first. Me. She’s mine!).

  To Enticing Journey Book Promotions, thank you for helping me spread the word, and to all the blogs who have EVER even mentioned my name or my books – THANK YOU! You don’t get the recognition you deserve, but I am so thankful for all of you.

  Thank you, of course, to my family. I am so blessed to have a supportive family who is always encouraging and proud. I love you all.

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