Ren and Della: Boxed Set (Ribbon Duet Book 3)

by Pepper Winters

  DELLA

  * * * * * *

  Present Day

  THERE ARE SO many things I remember about Cherry River, but one of my sharpest memories isn’t the itch and horribleness of chicken pox—to be honest, I don’t really want to remember it so I probably shoved that part aside.

  What I do remember is what happened afterward.

  What was that, you ask?

  Well, the boy who nursed me back to health hadn’t factored in his own invincibility against diseases we hadn’t been around or vaccinated against.

  Ren gave me everything he had those few weeks while I was ill.

  He barely slept. He delivered my cravings. He gave me anything I asked for.

  And what did he get in return?

  Chicken pox.

  I noticed it one night when his usual tossing and turning was eerily catatonic. Ren didn’t sleep well. He never had. I’d been selfish and never minded because if he was awake, it meant I was safe sleeping beside him.

  But this time…Ren didn’t move when I whispered his name in the darkness. He didn’t move just like when he’d had the flu-turned-pneumonia which led us to being befriended by the Wilsons in the first place.

  That catastrophe had a happy ending.

  I didn’t want to tempt fate by seeing what would happen if he got terribly sick again. But those spots on the back of his neck and even one on his cheek above his five o’clock shadow hinted that he was about to endure what I’d gone through.

  The next few days, he grew worse.

  Somehow, as he grew sicker, I grew stronger, and our roles reversed. I was the one dabbing his flesh with lotion to stop the itch. I was the one dishing out painkillers for his fever, and I was the one carrying soup across the driveway courtesy of Patricia’s awesome cooking skills.

  Well, I was the one…until Cassie took over.

  She infiltrated our bedroom and sat beside Ren on our bed. She touched his brow and whispered secrets, and all I could do was return to school, hiding the hissing jealousy in my heart and not able to focus at all on what the teacher said.

  Cassie had school too, but she always seemed to be in my spot beside Ren when I got dropped off by the bus and there until late when it should just be the two of us.

  My frustration steadily grew.

  I’d sit in the corner chair with my legs bunched up and my arms wrapped tight around them, glowering at Cassie touching my Ren.

  Every time she leaned in and touched his cheek. Every time she laughed at something he mumbled.

  Ugh, it was times like that that I hated her all over again.

  She’d been so kind and generous to me—letting me ride her favourite pony, teaching me how to canter and jump, and even letting me tag along to a local show when she competed.

  I struggled because she was a genuine person and didn’t hang out with me to get to Ren—I would’ve been able to tell; believe me, I was suspicious for a very long time—which made my despising her worse because I felt like a horrible, terrible child, and all I wanted to do was grow up faster so I wouldn’t be so silly and petty.

  Funny how I’m older now but whenever I think about Cherry River, I still have both love and hate inside me. I think, if I had to relive that time, I would be just as jealous as I’d been as a seven-year-old, only this time, I’d probably be arrested for murder.

  Instead of just hero worship and parental adoration, I now have forbidden cravings and achings and all the things I know I shouldn’t feel.

  I know you’re probably thinking…eww, how could you fall in love with your brother who is technically your father and definitely your uncle or some other untouchable life figure?

  In my defence, I’ll ask you a similar question.

  How could you not fall in love with a boy like Ren Wild?

  How could you not fall in love with a boy who puts you first in everything, protects you at all costs, worships the ground you walk on, gives you things you didn’t know you wanted, who can hear your thoughts and see your fears? A boy who sacrificed so much without even telling you, leaving you heartbroken when you’re old enough to figure it out for yourself?

  If you’d been taken and raised and cherished by a boy who was closer to your age; therefore, he understood your childish tantrums better, could get in touch with his imagination easier, and have a better ability at discipline because he wasn’t afraid to growl if you got out of line with no grudges or pause between instruction and praise, I think you’d fall in love, too.

  Ren was simple.

  Ren spoiled me.

  Ren kept me in line.

  No one else came close.

  But it wasn’t his skills at raising me that made me fall in love with him.

  Oh, no…

  It was everything else that happened as I grew older, and he grew into a man.

  I suppose you’re wondering if I’m ever going to enlighten you on our third and fourth separation.

  I haven’t forgotten.

  I’m just getting up the guts to tell you, because...the more you learn about me from here on out, the more you’ll probably end up rolling your eyes, and thinking I didn’t deserve all the sacrifices Ren made for me.

  I had been his Ribbon—special, brave, and smart.

  But then, through my own actions, I became argumentative, opinionated, and stupid.

  I wish I could say I’d do things differently, but I honestly don’t know if I would.

  Crazy, right?

  Crazy looking back at the heartache I caused both of us and still selfish enough not to change.

  I was the reason we separated that third time.

  I was the one who ruined everything.

  For so long, I blamed Cassie.

  I pinned all the guilt and regret onto her.

  But it wasn’t her fault.

  As much as I wished I could type a lie and make you hate her just like I did.

  I can’t.

  The fault was mine.

  And I guess, eventually, I’m going to have to tell you.

  But not right now.

  Right now, I want you to continue liking me…for just a little longer.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  DELLA

  * * * * * *

  Present Day

  ME AGAIN.

  Strange, huh?

  I closed my laptop a few hours ago, intending to put aside my past and the emotions that are tearing me up inside, but I can’t sleep.

  I can’t stop thinking about Ren.

  Always Ren.

  I want to cry to relieve the aching pressure in my chest every time I think about him, but all I can do is laugh in the darkness and try to expand my ribs to contain the ever ballooning need that will never earn what it wants.

  Melodramatic enough for you?

  Too much for me, and I’m the one living this soap opera.

  You know, until that last chapter, I’ve never actually said those words out loud…

  Those terrible words that tear away the curtain and light up the truth in blinding stage lights with orchestras playing sad strings and empty amphitheatres pitying the poor wretched soul admitting such a tragedy.

  Never really allowed myself to admit what I’ve known for so long.

  I’m in love with Ren Wild.

  It looks even worse in bold, doesn’t it?

  It looks like a life sentence I can never be free of…which, in a way, is exactly what it is.

  I can’t pinpoint the exact moment my childish affection turned to teenage crush turned to forever kind of addiction.

  But what I do know is I will always love Ren.

  I will always be in love with Ren.

  And I also know I will never have him, and I’ll end up marrying some other man who doesn’t reach into my heart or has power over my every living breath like he does.

  Anyway, enough of my present-day dramas.

  You’re not here to hear about that…not yet, anyway. There’s still a fair piece of the story to go before I can s
hare what I did yesterday or today or what I have planned for tomorrow.

  Spoiler alert: I have no plans for tomorrow apart from ensuring my lies are hidden and my smiles are innocent, and my deep, dark desires are tucked far away.

  Same as every day…nothing new, so I might as well give you something interesting.

  Let’s return to Cherry River.

  I ended the previous chapter talking about Ren being ill with chicken pox and kind of went on another tangent about Cassie (grr) and my idiotic behaviour (ugh).

  Cassie…

  My favourite subject, and yes, I’m being sarcastic.

  I know I keep flogging this subject, and this is the last time, I swear, but when it was just me and her…I loved her. I need you to see that.

  I wholeheartedly adored that girl.

  But when it was the three of us…well…what can I say that I haven’t already?

  Ren was mine.

  Even as a kid, I’d known that. To a seven-year-old, my need for Ren stemmed from being the centre of his attention, the favourite in his heart, and confident in my place as first within his life.

  Cassie threatened all of that.

  And now, as an almost-adult, I can say she threatened my future too.

  I didn’t know it then, but over the years, she and Ren got close—even when they weren’t sneaking behind barns or into stables to make out, they still had a fondness for each other.

  Ren would often drop everything whenever she called on the emergency cell phone she’d make him have on the nights she’d sneak out with her troublemaker friends.

  I’d tagged along with him for a few pickups.

  Whenever that phone rang—way past midnight when John and Patricia believed their innocent daughter was safely tucked up in bed—Ren and I would ‘borrow’ the Land Rover and drive to wherever she was currently tipsy and partying.

  She’d squeal my name, grab my hands as if I was her favourite person, then dash to the driver’s side and plant a big, wet kiss on Ren’s mouth.

  I hated that, but I didn’t mind her floppy and giggly in the back seat, regaling us with tales of bonfires and who hooked up with whom that night.

  She was hard work, but she made it enjoyable by including us in her escapades.

  Ren and I would share a look from where I sat up front with him. He’d roll his eyes and whisper things under his breath only I could hear—copying her or mocking her—our own little game.

  In a way, Cassie made us become closer.

  We had something in common, and we all shared a secret that the adults didn’t know about. Even Liam didn’t know what his sister got up to at night, and I enjoyed being in the big kids group even if I didn’t understand what she meant when she used words like fucked and fingered.

  During those conversations, Ren would turn on the radio and make me dance along with him. He’d drive one-handed while grabbing my arm with the other, distracting me with loud music from whatever naughty things Cassie was confessing.

  Anywho, I did it again…I went on another Cassie tangent.

  I’m not talking about her again for a while.

  Ren.

  I want to talk about Ren.

  I better start by saying, he survived the chicken pox.

  Obviously.

  He healed faster than I did, bounced back to a boy full of health and was back on the tractor even before his skin was spot and scratch free.

  Cassie returned to her popular world of friends and sometimes-boyfriends, and I was able to focus in school again, returning to the top of the class and hanging out with a girl called Celine who I swapped lunches with (she got chocolate while I got yoghurt…so naturally, I wanted what she had).

  Life was good.

  In fact, it was super good for the rest of the year.

  During summer, I’d help Ren with his copious amount of chores around the farm, and in winter, we bunkered down just the two of us in our warm one bedroom.

  I’m sure some days stood out where happiness was acute and misery was absent, but right now, I’m drawing a blank on anything super special to write about.

  I don’t mean to sound as if life wasn’t amazing because it was.

  Life on a farm was full of routine and new things every day.

  Sunrise was our alarm clock, noon was our opportunity to stuff hungry bodies with delicious home-cooked meals, and evenings were spent with the Wilsons or ourselves.

  The Wilsons gave me and Ren a safe place, and Ren gave his labour to ensure I lived a perfect childhood.

  I couldn’t have been luckier.

  And that’s why I’m going to start skipping forward to years I do remember clearly because, as much as this assignment is no longer for public reading, I don’t want to bore myself. Especially, when I have some juicy memories just begging to be written.

  Let’s start with 2008.

  The year started off awesome because it was just me and Ren camping in the hayloft in our old tent for New Years. It was smaller than I remembered and cramped, but we spent the evening eating candy, and Ren caved under pressure to tell me story after story.

  He told me what he did during the days while I was at school. He painted pictures of himself saving a couple of sheep from a neighbour’s farm who had tangled themselves in the boundary fence. He regaled secrets of getting too hot hauling hay on his own and jumping naked into the same river where we all swam.

  He made me laugh.

  He made me fall asleep knowing 2008 was going to be the best year ever.

  And in many ways it was, but it was also full of embarrassing moments as I started to grow up faster than before.

  For the past year or so, I’d been acutely aware that older kids and even adults kissed, touched, and did things that I was curious about.

  I’d wanted to ask Ren why watching him kiss Cassie made my tummy go queasy, but a curiosity welled to know more, too.

  But I never dared.

  I never asked the questions burning inside me, swallowing things like: ‘Why do you have different body parts than me? Why does Cassie rub against you like a moronic cat? Why does Liam have the same body as you but smaller? Do you rub against Cassie like a moronic cat, too?’

  Silly things but things I desperately wanted to know.

  Kids at school tried to educate each other thanks to overhearing parents talk, and so far, I’d gathered snippets about birds and bees and squirms infecting eggs and eggs being delivered by cranes which weren’t really eggs like chickens laid but babies, and sometimes babies were caused by other magic when daddies touched mummies where pee comes out and then she got fat.

  It made no sense to my unenlightened child brain, and I was too embarrassed to ask Ren.

  I was even too embarrassed to ask Cassie.

  So who did I ask?

  Probably the one person I shouldn’t as he was just as clueless as me.

  I turned to Liam Wilson. Nine years old, boisterous but shy and still obsessed with lizards.

  Including the lizard in his shorts.

  And that was how Patricia Wilson found us one summer afternoon.

  God, I’m blushing even now.

  I can’t believe I’m about to write this down, but here I go…

  Liam and I hung out but not all that often.

  I liked him, but I found him so young and silly compared to the calm, collected reservation of Ren. Liam squealed and charged. Ren spoke with rough serenity and moved with assurance.

  Ren was mature with his rough-stubble cheeks and strong muscles. Liam was juvenile with his baby face and twig arms.

  But Ren was too perfect to sully with gross things like what I wanted to know, so I figured Liam would be the perfect teacher.

  Basically, I asked him to show me his if I showed him mine.

  Obviously, I know now why he was only too happy to oblige. It seems all boys are happy to get naked for the right incentive.

  We clutched hands, heat blooming on my face and scandalous danger welling in my chest as we le
ft the house where Patricia was tending to her roses and walked quickly to the shaded grotto around the pond.

  There, we stood awkwardly until Liam pointed at my summer dress with splashes of purple and pink and told me to pull it off.

  I remember the rush of naughtiness even then, quickly swamped by shivers of fear.

  Hiding my quaking hands, I grabbed the hem and jerked the dress over my head and stood bravely with just my white knickers on.

  He nodded all business-like and the severest nine-year-old scowl I’d ever seen, then unbuckled his shorts, shoved them down his legs and ripped off his t-shirt.

  I’d seen Ren naked many times—not so much recently, but I had memories of thick legs, hair-covered thighs, heavy flesh dangling between them, and a stomach and back rippling with light and shadow whenever he moved.

  Liam was a sapling while Ren was the oak.

  He shrugged in his white underpants, almost identical to mine. “Now what?”

  “I dunno.” I shrugged back. “Where are your squirms?”

  His nose wrinkled. “Squirms?”

  “You know, the things that make mummies fat, and then birds deliver babies.”

  “You’re weird.” Pointing at my knickers, he commanded, “Maybe you have squirms. Take them off and we’ll see.”

  “You take yours off, too.”

  He nodded sharply, hooking his fingers into his underpants waistband. “Okay. One…two…three.”

  We both shoved down our underwear and kicked them away at the same time.

  I stood barefoot.

  He stood in his socks.

  We stared at the differences in our bodies, moving closer in fascination.

  “It’s so small.” I reached out to touch the worm-like thing between his legs. “Ren is bigger. Did yours shrink?”

  He batted away my hand, poking his finger in my nipple. “You have no tits like Cassie. Did yours shrink, too?”

  I looked down at my flat chest, so much like Liam’s and not at all like Cassie’s fullness. An awful pressure of inadequacy filled me, of fear that I was deformed, of terror that I needed what Cassie had to make boys like Ren notice me.

  My shoulders slouched. “I don’t know how to get tits.”

  Liam sighed. “I don’t know how to get a bigger worm.”