by J. L. Beck
“You what?” His scent surrounds me, circuiting something in my brain. What was I saying? I feel and smell his breath on my face as he looks down at me. There is no space between us, and I needed to put some there.
“I… I have class today,” I barely reply. I am confused as to how a man like Ryder can think he is incapable of love. His voice alone has women begging.
“But…” His finger trails over my cheek and up to my nose until its just resting on my face. I bite the inside of my cheek, trying to stifle the sigh that desperately wants to escape me. “You could come and spend the whole day with me? We could go to the beach… and other places.”
He is trying to be persuasive. His eyes dilate as I reach up to remove his finger from my nose.
“Don’t you have classes, too?” I question, not really sure why it concerned me. However, now that I think about it more, he never seems to go to classes. I’m not even sure if he’s actually enrolled.
A cross between dread and anger spread across his face. I’m not sure why he would get mad about my question, but I’m not about to shut up. I am going to find out.
He backs up, taking a few steps away from me. His hands shift into the front pockets of his jeans. I see the walls being pushed back up. He is hiding something; he doesn’t want to share it, and the easiest way for him to move on from it is to go cold, to incase himself in a sheet of ice impenetrable by anyone. I know because I do that every thing every time Sam is around.
“We can talk about it…” I say softly, keeping my voice void of my own emotions. I don’t want him to think that he can’t feel the way he does, but I also don’t want push my feelings on him.
Silence passes, and fear clings to me. If we can’t talk about something so simple is there even hope for us? For him?
I look up from the ugly carpeting on the floor to meet his stare. His eyes give way to every emotion that he’s feeling; he’s afraid, angry, and pissed. I know that whatever other reasons he has to hide behind that ice force field were big ones.
“Have you ever simply just been somewhere? Existing but not really doing anything else? Kind of like the air surrounding us. It’s just here for our use, so we can breathe it in and breathe it out.” I nibble on my bottom lip, my eyes shifting to the window. It’s beautiful outside. The sun is shining, but yet it feels dark and bleak. I know it has nothing to do with the weather; the real problem is whatever is bothering Ryder.
“I think we all go through parts of life like that… We all sometimes just exist but don’t really live,” I explain. His eyes cut to me, the very look on his face clings to me. He’s defeated; he’s losing it.
“Would you be my reason to exist, Kennedy? Would you follow me into the dark to be with me?” His words hit me like cold water. I never realized how gone he is. He’s battling something that I’m not sure I can save him from.
I take the three steps that separate us and put myself directly in front of him. Grabbing his hand, I place mine inside it.
“I’ll follow you wherever you go, Ryder. But just know I won’t let you go; I won’t give up on you when the times get hard.” I mean every word I say.
A calmness sweeps over him, and in an instant, I am against the wall. Ryder softly kisses a path from my neck down to my chest. The sensations flowing through me are overwhelming from the roughness of his hands on my legs to the texture of his tongue as it slides over my skin to the prick of pain when he bites down on my earlobe. It is all too much...
I let out a moan instead of saying stop…
We really need to stop.
I take my shaking hand and place it against his chest, pushing softly. His muscles are tense, and when he pulls away, it looks as if it is the very last thing he ever wanted to do.
Yeah, the feeling is completely mutual, Ryder… I would love to take you…
“Should we get going to wherever it is you want to go?” I can’t believe I am going to skip classes to go with him somewhere. I run my fingers through my hair. Fuck, this man can do things to me that I never thought possible.
A smile lights up his face, which in turn causes me to smile.
“We’re going to the beach, and then I have somewhere special I want to take you tonight.” His voice is just above a whisper, flowing into my ears and through my veins.
“Okay…” I mumble, walking over to the oak dresser that holds my TV. Rifling through it, I snag a blue bikini. Now I need to find a dress to go over it. My face grows red. I have to tell him to get out of my room now, so I can get dressed; because I was certain if he stayed in here while I changed, little clothing would be put on, and even more would be taken off.
“Can you step out…?” I say gesturing toward the door. He smiles, his eyes twinkling at me as he checks out the bikini in my hands.
“Do I make you nervous, K?” he asks, his fingers gliding over my shoulder. I shake my head, knowing if I talk I will probably say “yes, you make me so nervous I want to puke,” and he did. Ryder awoke something in me that no one else has been able to. He has been here for me when no one else was; even when he couldn’t hold himself together, he held me together.
His hand slides down my arm and back up until he places it directly over my erratically beating heart. It beats harder once he places his hand on my chest.
“Your heart’s beating like a trapped rabbits,” he observes, smiling lazily. It is then that I become very aware of the fact that I am only wearing a tank top and a pair of very skimpy sleep shorts.
“You scare me…”
I watch him as he tries to pull his hand away, guilt crossing his face. I reach out, grabbing it to hold him in place.
“I mean in a good way; you scare me in a good way.” I am barely able to get the words out between my heart racing and feeling like there isn’t enough oxygen in the room. I think I am going to die.
“What do you mean?” he questions as his eye brow raises.
“I mean this…” I say gesturing to us. “Everything that you’re doing right now scares me. From the way you look at me as if I’m your world to the fact that you trust me enough to tell me your secrets. Your trust, your faith in me…scare me. It scares me that we could hurt each other so badly. We could be the very thing that we both need, or the very thing that pushes us off the cliff.”
I hear his sharp intake of breath. His chest is rising and falling, and then it expands before he wraps his arms around me to hold me tightly.
“It scares me too…” he murmurs into my ear. His breath on my skin causes goose bumps to rise all over. “But you know what Kennedy? It would be worth it to have even a slice of you. So while we’re both scared, let’s do with the time we have.”
I know what his words mean, and as I wrap my arms tightly around him, I know that if we give it our all, we can bring each other out of the dark. We can save each other from the hurt.
***
The beach is a popular place today. Ryder and I came with Jenna and Mimi, but I ended up walking off with Ryder. They wanted to go shopping, and I couldn’t see Ryder doing that kind of thing, so here we are getting to know each other better.
“You realize how bad all this sugar is for you, right?” I ask as we dig into some ice cream. The sweetness of the vanilla and strawberries paired with the sand between my toes causes a warm, fuzzy feeling to flow over me.
The waves of the ocean can be heard from the pier, and the smell of salt fills my nose. I have only seen the ocean a handful of times, and each time was just as amazing as the first. It is even better with Ryder next to me.
We both look out into the ocean, the deep blue as many call it; the sand is a dull brownish color. Even though classes are in full swing, it seems like everyone and their God damn mothers were here.
“It’ll go right to my thighs…” he says, laughing as he mocks girls in general.
“What thighs?” I joke back. The man is made of muscle; his thighs don’t have any fat on them, and though he isn’t one of those muscled up meat heads, I kno
w he can totally take anyone who tries to mess with him.
“I have thighs, Blondie…” Sure he does, I think to myself while shaking my head and forcing myself to not think about thighs and Ryder in the same sentence. Wisps of my hair fall onto my face, clinging to the sticky goodness that coats my lips.
“This is so good… How did I not know about this place?” I am in love with ice cream, absolutely in fucking love; it is my kryptonite as Ryder has already figured out. I know all there is to know about the ice cream shops in Southern California, so how I missed this one…yeah, I had to have been drunk or something.
“It’s the little places like this that go unnoticed” his words have two meanings, and we both know it. I went soft earlier, knowing that was what he needed. Now, I am over being soft; I want to talk about it.
“What’s going on inside that head of yours?” I inquire, taking a bite of my ice cream and readjusting myself on the bench so I can face him more. He stares ahead, his eyes on the water.
“A lot is going on in my head. It hit me earlier just how big of a problem all of this is for me. How I just followed my brother and Corey out here, and for what?” Frustration drips from every word, and I get the feeling he has been sitting on this a long time.
“To watch everyone find happiness? To just put myself through this shit all over? To never be known as anything but a shadow to my brother? I couldn’t stay at my dad’s place, Kennedy, couldn’t stay while everyone else went off to college. My father forced me to stay when Rex moved and went to Monroe High with Corey. I couldn’t stay back again. I knew if I did, I would’ve killed him.”
I gasp, not quiet knowing what to say. Rage is always right under the surface with him, just a pin prick away.
“No, you wouldn’t have, Ryder,” I reply, setting my hand on his knee to comfort him. The look he shoots me should’ve had me running and hiding, but it doesn’t.
He bends forward, so our noses are almost touching. The wind blows, stirring up the salt of the ocean. Our gazes meet and remain locked, even as people walk by staring and the salt stings and assaults our eyes.
“I would have. I would be lying if I said I wouldn’t. Given the chance, I know I would. He had already killed and broke me. At the very least, ending his pathetic life would have been worth it.” His teeth clench as he speaks; I worry his jaw is going to snap from the pressure he is putting on it.
His hand reaches out to grab a lock of my blonde hair that had loosened from behind my ear.
“I know you want to think that I’m the good guy, that I would never do anything wrong or hurt anyone. You have seen the good in me, but I’m not that person. I’m bad. I’m broken. And I’m not even sure I’m capable of whatever is going on between us.”
“Why are you telling me this?” There has to be a reason; most of those things I already knew.
“Because if I fuck this up, which I will, I want you to know that it wasn’t you. It was me. I was never meant to be the good guy in this fairytale.”
I roll my eyes at him. Clearly he has been watching too much Disney. Never in my life would I associate Ryder and fairytale in the same sentence.
“I want you to remember that no one’s perfect, Ryder, and that being angry and hating your dad for what he did is okay. You don’t have to feel guilty for feeling the way you do.”
There’s a pang of guilt that hits me just then. I am giving him the very advice I should give myself. I shouldn’t have ever felt guilty for not wanting to be with Sam.
“No one knows though, which makes it worse. Everyone assumes he’s someone that he isn’t. I hate him, and sometimes I even hate myself for allowing these things to happen, for allowing myself to get so far off track that I can’t even enjoy the simple things with you for fear that I’ll lose it. I’m not socially acceptable to society.”
I let out a snort and laugh that come out sounding like a pig on crack. “Who is? Tell me one person who doesn’t have a problem like us.” I glare at him, giving him that look between a mother who knows best and a friend ready to rip him a new one. Ryder has no self-esteem; when it comes to himself he is scared and afraid. He’s still that little boy who is constantly being beaten, even though he’s all grown up now.
“Most people don’t have problems like us…” he trails off. He doesn’t really know all of my life story; the one time we talked about it led to him getting angry. If I didn’t know all there was to know about his problems I would think he needed some serious anger management classes.
“Either way it doesn’t matter. Everyone has problems.” I take the last scoop of ice cream and place it my mouth. I watch as Ryder lets his melt into a liquidly mess because he’s too busy staring at my lips.
“You’re right, enough moping, let’s go walk along the beach and talk,” he says, grabbing my hand and leaving me a millisecond to throw my cup into the trash. He tugs me along through the sand.
“What was it like growing up for you?” he asks, his hand still in mine. It feels heavy, just like the question he asked me.
“It sucked. My mom and dad were both druggies, so I stayed with my grandparents until college. They helped me with what they could, and the rest I had to do on my own.” It’s the truth. I work my ass off for my scholarships and hold down a job while attending classes. I want to make something of my life, despite its shitty beginning.
“Your grandparents must be the cute, old couple who hit each other with canes, then?” Ryder teases, a toothy grin showing.
“Hardly…” I huff out. “My grandparents are the sweetest people to have ever walked the earth. They would give you the clothes off their back, and they raised me to look at life for what it is. Sometimes it’s hard, and sometimes it’s not. Everything in between you just have to ride `out, make of it as you will.” I damn well near quote the very sentence my grandmother always said.
“Wish my grandparents were that awesome…” He says pouting. I elbow him in the side.
“My turn.” I say throwing him a cheesy grin as we continue to trudge across the beach. We could probably walk either way north or south for miles without an interruption.
“Shoot,” he simply says.
“Why did you come out here if there isn’t anything for you to do? If you don’t go to classes? And you don’t feel like being here suits you then why stay? There are tons of places in the world that could be your hide out. You could turn it into one of those forts you made when you were a kid. The one out of blankets? You could burrow yourself anywhere and no one would try and come and find you.”
He lets out a belly shaking laugh… “You’re kidding right? Did you just refer to moving as the same as building a blanket fort in the living room and crawling in it and hiding?”
I stop dead in my tracks. Is he laughing at me?
“Are you laughing at me? Honestly, that is probably like the best idea I’ve ever had.”
He stops, realizing I’m not following and turns around to face me. The water is lapping at our feet and the coldness of it sends a shiver down my spine.
“Will you make a blanket fort with me?” he asks. His face is completely serious, not an ounce of anything else shows.
“Of course. Back in my day I use to be the blanket fort Queen,” I say giggling. It is so easy to be free and myself with Ryder. I’m not on the lookout for Sam, and I’m not wallowing in my own self-pity of hate. I am living, and I love it.
“Oh really?” he retorts with his eye brow raised.
“Yes really…” I say socking him in the arm. Silence passes and his hand lands in mine again.
“Do you really think I could leave and let everything go? Let my brother and father go? Just… Let it all lay where it is?” He looks at me earnestly. Do I really think that? I don’t know. I don’t know if leaving would make it all go away, but I know it would help.
“I don’t think it would make anything disappear but I think it would make it easier.” I give him the best answer I can as I shrug my shoulders.
; “You want to know something Kennedy?” Ryder asks, stopping and picking up a handful of sand.
“Duh,” I mock back.
“Had I not come out here, I never would have met you. So yeah, there might be shit in my life I hate and regret, but coming out here isn’t one of them.”
He releases the crystals of sand and they fall in tiny pieces, one by one, blowing away into the wind. In that moment I am certain of two things: Ryder isn’t as hopeless as he assumes, and I am falling for him helplessly, just like the crystalized pieces of sand from his hand.
Ryder
Could one really be considered an asshole for bringing a girl up to the ridge where he has taken most of his dates to fuck them? The answer to that, I think for certain, is yes. Then again, Kennedy is different in so many ways. We share a mutual secrecy. She respects my choices and listens. I’ve had an awesome, fucking day with her. Ice cream, the beach, and now I’m taking her up to the ridge.
In reality, it is just an opening on top of a bluff, similar to a “lover’s lane.”
I have a bottle of whiskey and the girl I want with me. Nothing can ruin this moment for me. This is my sliver of happiness in a shit filled life.
I throw the car into park as I watch Kennedy’s big, blue eyes survey the land. By the looks of it, she has never been up here. Hell, I haven’t been up here for the view before, so it is the first time I’m seeing it too.
“It’s beautiful,” she says, her voice clogs with an unknown emotion. I watch her as she gazes at the setting sun. Her blonde waves are shining brighter than ever. She looks like an angel, a beautiful, fucking angel.
I reach into the back of the car and pull out the bottle of whiskey. I wasn’t much of a drinker until college. I still don’t like it except for that it’s a really good way to numb out the shit in my life, to remove the pain and cloud the shitty picture.
“Are you going to drink that whole bottle?” she asks as her eyes examine the bottle in my hands. Her eyes show just how worried she is for me. Am I going to drink this whole bottle? Probably not, but I can try.
