“Dad, not a single soul will miss me,” I tell him.
“That’s not true,” Chase says. “I will. But I want you to have a good time, too.”
I smile at him again.
“Come on, now. You don’t need to miss this dance. You’ll have a good time. What about that Cindy girl? You were friends with her,” Dad says.
I scoff.
“Dad, Cindy Harper was my friend in third grade,” I tell him. He rolls his eyes.
“Well, regardless, you should go to the dance. It’s just silly to miss,” he says. I swallow. I should have known he’d object to me missing some sort of social event. God forbid I miss an opportunity to spread the good word of John Walton.
“You should go to Meade Lake,” Mom says from across the foyer. She has her arms crossed over her chest. Dad whips his head around to her.
“Carla, that’s silly. You went and got her all dressed up, and––”
“Is his mother home?” Mom cuts him off. I turn to her.
“No, but he’s staying with his aunt,” I lie—something I’ve rarely done in my lifetime, which is why they never question me. She thinks for a moment then smiles.
“You should go, honey. Go ahead and get out of that thing. We can probably still return it.”
She walks toward me and kisses my cheek. I throw my arms around her neck and run up the stairs.
It’s sick, because I know part of the reason she is pushing me is because it’s the opposite of what my dad wants. Ever since his affair, the resentment in the house is thick. My mom is spiteful, bitter. She pushes back on my dad on just about everything. And he never says a word when she does.
Chase is still oblivious to it all. But me, I take advantage of it. If they’re not going to be straight with me, then I’ll milk it for all it’s worth.
I tear my dress off and throw on a sweatshirt and some jeans, and I’m back down the steps before Chase has even left.
He calls out to me before we get in our cars.
“Be careful,” he tells me. “And tell Ryder I said hey.”
I smile and nod.
That’s my brother’s way of saying, “I care about you. And I approve of him.” And both mean more to me than anyone knows.
I’m not telling him I’m coming because I know he won’t want me to come take care of him. He has some nasty bug, and I know he’s all alone. His mom is out of town––again––and Aunt Winnie is somewhere across the sea on one of her grand trips she’s always taking.
Ryder and I have officially been together for about five months now, but it feels longer than that. It feels like my whole life I’ve been wearing this mask, and I only just took it off when he became mine.
We’ve visited each other as much as we can. Weekends are hard with his shifts at the diner, but we’ve made it work. Usually, when his mom isn’t home, Aunt Winnie takes him in. I’ve met his mom only twice, and she seemed totally unaware of the fact that she had a teenage son both times. Uninterested, disengaged. She had Ryder at seventeen, and from what I gather, instead of quickly rushing to mature for the sake of her son, she froze in time and is now living out the years that she felt were stolen from her.
He doesn’t know his dad, aside from the measly check he sends every month to his mother. He was the football star at Meade Lake High School, and his parents refused to let a “setback” such as a child ruin that future for him. They offered Ryder’s grandmother a big chunk of money when he was born, and his father pays child support monthly still. But most of the money is gone, and he says he knows his father is waiting for the day he turns eighteen to cut him off completely. He’s married and lives in Maine with his two lovely daughters, whom Ryder has never met.
But Aunt Winnie, she’s special.
She’s his mom’s younger sister, but she takes care of Ryder. There’s this gleam in her eyes when she looks at him that his mother doesn’t have. Like she’d try and stop the world from turning for him. She also politely told me that she’d kick my ass if I hurt him. I like her.
Now that Chase is in the thick of basketball season, I’m even more thankful for Ryder. He’s been the escape I didn’t know I needed. Well, he’s the escape that I never did need before. But my parents are different. Our family is different. It feels foreign, being at home, and I never know what might spark some sort of massive argument that will last for days. I never know when I’ll walk past the guest room and hear Mom trying to stifle her sobs.
I pull off the highway to a rest stop where I grab some chicken noodle soup in a cup, two bags of chips, a Gatorade, and some beef jerky. Then, I hop back in my car and drive the last few miles, over Meade Bridge, and onto Big Moon Drive.
When I pull up to Aunt Winnie’s, all the lights are out but one. It’s almost dark now, but when I get out, I hear the rhythmic sounds of something heavy crashing into something heavier over and over again.
When I walk around to the backyard, the last of the sunlight is bright on the water, making me shield my eyes.
And then I see him, wailing away at a piece of wood with an axe. He doesn’t look sick.
He sees me and does a double take. The axe slides down in his hand a bit. His shaggy hair is disheveled, and there’s sweat on his eyebrow even though it’s freezing outside.
His eyes widen a bit when he sees me, and he looks down at the ground in shame. He walks up the back hill toward me.
“Hey,” he says, looking at me with guilty eyes.
“Hi,” I say.
“So, I guess you can see I’m not really sick,” he says with a shrug. I nod slowly. He takes a breath and tosses the axe to the side. His eyes find mine again, and I see so much pain behind them that I almost can’t handle it. I take a step closer to him and stick my hand out. I don’t care why he didn’t come. I just know that he needs me right now. So, here is where I’m going to be.
He draws in a breath, takes my hand, and pulls me into him. He wraps his arms around me so tight, my head against his chest, and breathes me in, his lips pressed against my head.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth,” he whispers. I swallow and take a step backward.
“I know you must have had a good reason,” I tell him. He looks down at me and turns his head to the side, using a finger to brush a piece of hair behind my ear.
“How is it that of all the guys in the world, you picked me?” he whispers. My stomach flips, and I give him a nervous smile as I pluck a piece of hair to start twirling. Then, he pulls me into him again, and this time, his grasp is desperate, like he’s worried I’m going to run away. It lasts long, this embrace, but I don’t mind. It feels like every piece of my chaotic life is frozen in space right now. That none of it matters; it’s just white noise.
Until I feel his shoulders shuddering. And I realize my saving grace is standing here in my arms, sobbing.
“Hey, hey,” I whisper, trying to pull him back so I can see his eyes. At first, he doesn’t budge. Then, he sinks to the ground, and I follow suit.
For a minute, we sit there, his face pressed against my shoulder, his tears soaking through the fabric of my sweatshirt. Meade Lake winters are cold, and I had forgotten just how cold until we’re kneeling in the snow.
Finally, he looks up at me, his cheeks tear-stained, his emerald eyes bloodshot.
I cup his face in my hands and look into them.
“What is going on?” I ask him.
He hangs his head and drops back on his butt in the snow. He wipes his cheek on his sleeve and looks out across the frozen water.
“It’s my mom,” he finally says. I look at him.
“What about her?”
“She’s leaving,” he says. I’m confused. She leaves all the time.
“For how long?” I ask.
“For good,” he says. My heart is beating a million miles a minute.
“What? What do you mean for good?”
He shrugs and leans back on his arms.
“She called Aunt Winnie tonight. Said sh
e’s never felt more ‘at home’ than she does in San Diego. Met some guy,” he says. “So she’s staying.”
“But...what about you?” I ask. “Are you...are you going out there?” I know he needs me, but as humans typically do, I can’t help but think about me. About us. Am I losing him?
He lets out this little chuckle that’s oozing with irony.
“Nope,” he says. “It wasn’t even an option.”
“You mean...she didn’t ask?”
He shakes his head.
“Nope,” he says. “Asked Aunt Winnie if I could finish out my senior year here. Apparently, she feels that she hasn’t really ‘lived’ since she had me. She feels it’s time.”
Now my heart is breaking for him, splintering behind my rib cage.
My parents are a lot of things––manipulative, preoccupied, oblivious. But there’s not a bone in my body that doubts that either of them would give up their lives in less than a second for my brother or me.
I know they don’t want each other, but there’s not a doubt in my mind that they want me. I can’t imagine what that would feel like.
“Oh, Ryder,” I whisper, reaching out and putting my hand on top of his.
“I’ve always known that she would take off as soon as she could, as soon as she was ready,” he says. “I just never thought it would be before I was ready. But then, I guess, are you ever ready to feel unwanted?”
“Hey,” I say. I scoot across the snow, my extremities completely numb at this point. I reach out and cup his face in my hands again. He pushes back up onto his knees so that we’re facing each other again.
“As long as I’m here, you will be wanted for the rest of your life,” I tell him. And although I recognize those words carry a lot of weight for us being a couple of high schoolers, I know that there’s not a point in my life where I will think I didn’t mean them, even if it was just for this moment.
19
I pull his truck into the driveway of my house just as the last bit of daylight is fading away. I could tell he wasn’t really in a place to drive when we were at the top of the mountain. I turn the ignition off, but neither of us move. His head is against the headrest, and he’s staring blankly out the windshield.
“I don’t know how to do this,” he whispers, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. “God, Annabelle. If I don’t…”
I reach my hand out and take his in mine, interlocking our fingers.
“Annabelle is going to be fine. With her father,” I tell him. “Come inside. I texted Derrick, and they are covering for you at Lou’s. Alma is going to keep Annabelle tonight. You hungry?”
He turns his head to me, and after a second, a little smile tugs at his lips, and he nods. I can feel myself melting.
He follows me inside, and when he’s in, he stops and looks around. I realize he hasn’t been inside of this house since before everything happened. I pause to watch him, wondering what memories are crashing into him right now.
His eyes travel across the great room and up the big, A-frame windows.
“Memories, huh?” I ask him, leaning against the island. His eyes find me, and he nods.
“Uh, yeah,” he says, scratching the back of his head. I wave him into the kitchen and motion for him to take a seat at the island while I pull out ingredients for homemade pizza.
“Man,” he says, “speaking of memories. Glad to see your taste hasn’t changed too much, because I haven’t had a Walton pizza in way too long.”
I smile.
“They’ve gotten a little more gourmet over the years,” I say, rolling out the dough that I had in the fridge. He laughs.
“Beer?” I ask without thinking. Can cancer patients drink beer? I have no idea what the rules are. And that scares the shit out of me.
But he nods, so I reach back into the fridge, pop the top off, and slide it across the granite.
“So, your parents still rent this place out?” he asks. I nod.
“If it didn’t make so much money in rentals, he would have sold it long ago,” I say. “I think, originally, they thought they’d always have it in the family, ya know? Pass it down to Chase and me.”
Silence.
“Then, maybe one day, our kids. But seeing as how none of that can happen now, I imagine they will sell it one day when it’s too hard to manage.”
He cocks his head. I know he’s wondering why me not having kids is such a definite. I know he knows about my miscarriage. But he doesn’t know the rest. I wipe my hands off on a towel and walk toward the foyer. I reach into my bag on the front table and pull out my notebook. I flip to the next letter and tear it out. I walk it back to him slowly, my hand shaking. And I hand it over, quickly returning to the pizza while he reads.
Ryder,
Three miscarriages in, one with a full D&C, and today marks the official two-year anniversary of starting fertility treatments.
It’s funny. I remember when we were kids, talking about our first time, and how we considered using two condoms because we thought it would be double the protection. Come to find out, I couldn’t have gotten pregnant if I tried.
The doctors finally mentioned the “A” word today: adoption. They told me not to get down, and that pregnancy can still happen for me. But that we can “always consider adoption.” Yes, I know that. I just was hoping that my own fucking body would work the way it was designed to.
Luke’s so patient. He’s so kind. These hormones make me such a jackass, and combined with my stress levels, I don’t know how he’s surviving. But he is. He’s such a good man. He loves me so much.
But every time something like this happens, every time there’s more bad news, I can see it in his eyes how much he’s hurting. He wants to be a dad.
He deserves more.
Mila
There’s a long beat, the silence deafening while he reads. Then I hear the barstool he’s sitting on scoot across the hardwood, and I hear his footsteps coming up from behind. He gently places his hand on top of mine, stopping me from sprinkling the cheese. With his other hand, he grabs my wrist and spins me toward him. Slowly, I lift my eyes to him.
He leans forward, reaching a hand out to cup the side of my face. I swallow, the sensation of his skin on mine still sending off a fire through my veins.
“You are enough,” he says. “You are more than enough. And if ever there’s an idiot who tells you differently, you should run in the other direction.”
For the record, Luke never told me differently. He told me exactly what Ryder is telling me. But it felt a little different coming from him. It felt a little less true.
“And someday, somehow, you will be a mom, Mila. Because it’s what you were meant for,” he whispers. I don’t realize I’m tearing up until he slides his thumb up to swipe one away.
I wake up on the big couch in the great room, the sun streaming in through the big glass doors. There’s nothing but a few pieces of crust left on the pizza pan and a few empty beer bottles on the end table next to me. Across my lap is one of his long legs, hooked underneath mine. I look down and see that we’re holding hands, and my heart swells.
He starts to stir as I try—and fail—to sneak out from underneath him.
“Hey,” he says sleepily, stretching and pushing himself up off the couch.
“Hey yourself,” I say back. After the moment in the kitchen last night, we lightened the mood some by stuffing ourselves with food and beer, laughing and talking on the couch and out on the deck.
A few times, our hands touched, our shoulders skimmed one another.
But nothing else.
I don’t know when, or how, or if I should make another move. All I know is, I want to.
“Coffee?” I ask, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear nervously. He smiles as he pushes himself up. He doesn’t say anything to me; he just takes a few steps toward me. When he gets to me, he pushes another piece of hair back off my face.
“I always wanted to know what it would be l
ike to see you first thing in the morning,” he says, and my cheeks flush. I laugh nervously and hold my hand out.
“Well, now you know,” I say. “A rat’s nest on my head, smeared mascara, and probably drool stains.”
He smiles.
“Perfect,” he says.
“So, about that coffee,” I say, starting toward the kitchen. He follows me in with a handful of trash and all of our dishes from the night before.
“I actually need to get going. I gotta pick up my girl,” he says with a smile. “Are you still up for meeting her?”
I swallow and smile.
“Nothing else I want to do more,” I tell him. He smiles, and my legs become gelatin beneath me.
“Come around lunchtime?” he asks, headed for the door. I smile and nod.
After all that’s happened here the last month or so, my nerves have been on a roller coaster on the daily. But no encounter with Ryder measures up to the anxiety stirring inside of me thinking about meeting his four-year-old daughter.
I want her to like me.
I’m scared she won’t.
I want him to see that she likes me.
I’m scared he won’t.
But I don’t want to fall in love with this little girl who is half some wonderful unicorn of a woman I’ll never know, and half the person who has molded my world more than any other human.
I’m scared I will.
After cleaning up the kitchen for the second time and taking a shower, I realize I still don’t have a bathing suit. I’ve got a little less than an hour until I’m going to head over there, so I decide to head up to town to grab a suit from the shop and something from the market that a kid would like. Kids can be easily swayed with something sweet, and I’m not above some bribery.
I use my keys to get into the back door of the shop and head for the back storage room where I know we keep the extra swimsuits.
I find a rack of women’s suits and start spinning it around.
There are full wetsuits, one-pieces, a few things with frills, and some basic bikinis.
I find a navy bikini in my size and pull it off the rack. I strip down and try it on, tying it around my back and looking at myself in the long mirror that hangs on the back of the door. The bottoms are a little cheekier than I would like, but I’ve been working out a good amount, and I guess it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if a little more hung out.
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