Ryan
Granite Harbor, Maine
Present Day
It’s been two weeks since the pantry incident. Dubbs is still missing. This isn’t unlike him though. He did it a lot during my upbringing—if that’s what you’d call it. Besides, it was better when he was gone.
But what keeps the situation in the back of my mind is the guy who took Dubbs’s phone. Why? And why the hell can’t we find him?
After we left Dubbs’s place and when we got home, I tried a Google search with the uploaded grainy photo that I had taken with my phone with the word Maine. I’ve narrowed it down to three.
Luther Waker from Tyler, Texas. A black man.
Ronan Fields from Augusta, Maine. A white man.
Bruce Watts from Boston, Massachusetts. A white man.
Clearly, he’s not a black man, so I removed Luther from the list and had dispatch run a search on Ronan Fields and Bruce Watts. Watts has no priors but a creepy penchant for unicorns, according to his Facebook page, but nothing else is out of the ordinary. Fields, on the other hand, has a criminal history longer than the state of California. From drug trafficking to felony drug possession to money laundering. The list goes on.
What would Fields want with Dubbs? Did he owe money to Fields? Hell, I just gave Dubbs five grand. That should have fucking covered what he owed. But what if he owed more? What if it wasn’t enough? What the hell would a guy like Ronan Fields want with an old, drunk fisherman? Sure, he did drugs occasionally, definitely gambled, but not felony-level shit. He didn’t mess with the underworld. The fucking thieves that send the lower-level thieves to prison for the crimes that the big thieves committed. Was my dad working for one?
We’ve just finished at my last doctor’s appointment. The ribs are pretty much healed. My shoulder brace is off but not without physical therapy.
This also means that Merit has a decision to make. She can leave now. She’s free to do whatever the fuck she wants.
Go back to California.
Stay here with me.
I sure as hell don’t want to force her to do something she doesn’t want to do. I don’t want to bring it up right now, but I’m not sure I can help myself.
She finally stops laughing from a one-liner joke I told.
Merit sets down her Diet Coke.
Since that day in the pantry, we’ve done our best to avoid what’s clearly never left our minds. I think she thinks it went too far. I get it. It’s like after a night of drinking where you don’t remember much, only bits and pieces. Like coming out of a fog, scared to death that what you did will happen again, terrified and excited, all at the same time.
She’s distant with her body.
And I accept that—not always willingly, but I do.
I know she wants more, just like I do. I think, though, her guard has come down. I just hope she stays forever.
I take the straw wrapper and twist it around my finger. “What are you going to do now that I’m healed? Now that I can go back to work?”
Her smile slowly dies, but she tries to keep it light. She shrugs. “Guess I’ll go back to California and help save the otters.” She puts the straw to her lips again.
If that’s what she wants, I’ll pretend to be fucking happy, but I’m not.
I should ask her to stay.
No. No, I shouldn’t.
If I ask her to stay, that’s putting too much expectation on her. Maybe that will force her to make a decision she’s not ready to make. Not yet.
I nod.
“You booked your flight yet?” I’m trying to act casual, but my stomach is a big clusterfuck of knots right now.
“No.” She takes another sip of her Diet Coke. “I’ll do it tonight.” There’s a long pause. “When do you go back to work?”
“Tomorrow, I suppose. I’ll call HR.”
“You mean, Faynette?” She smiles and throws a sugar packet at me.
“Maybe I’ll luck out and get someone else in the office.” I lean forward on the table, staring her down.
Merit’s top dips down just before her milky-white breasts begin. It’s a white top with some sort of design on it. Her jean shorts are of respectable length. I can’t imagine that Brand or Eli would allow that to be any different even if she is a thirty-five-year-old woman. And a beautiful fucking woman at that.
She stands, and her legs go on forever. “Ready?”
“Uh, yeah.” I stand, not expecting to leave so quickly.
“Looks like there’s a summer storm coming through. The clouds are beginning to move and change, turning darker, more ominous.”
We make the drive back to Hallowell, my mind spinning in a million directions. I’m sure hers is, too.
I can’t let her leave this time without her knowing what she means to me.
You have to.
No. No, you don’t. You don’t have the right. You broke her heart. You made a choice. Lie in it. Don’t do that to her again.
Tell her.
No, don’t.
The rain starts to tap against the windshield. I’m driving this time, which is different. One hand on the wheel, I want to reach over and put my hand on her bare skin. Between her legs. Claim her without words.
Tell her.
“Mer, I can’t let you—”
Her phone rings.
Motherfucker.
“Hang on.” She puts the phone to her ear. “Hey, Abbey. Yeah.” She pauses and looks over at me. “He’s doing a lot better.” Pauses again. Listens. “Yeah. I’ll book a flight home when we get back to Ryan’s place.”
Ryan’s place. It sounds awful, coming from her mouth.
Home, not Ryan’s place. I want it to be her home. Our home. But we’re not the same people anymore. Not in the least. She’s got her home. I’ve got mine.
“I’ll send you my itinerary. Sounds good. Okay. You, too. Bye.” She hits End on her call.
My heart is slamming against my chest, like I’m running out of time. Like it’s the fourth quarter with thirty seconds on the clock, and I can’t quite pull out the win.
“Stay.” That’s how it comes out.
“What?” she asks.
“Stay. With me. Stay here.” I swallow the remnants of saliva.
Merit takes in a deep breath, looks down at her hands, and then out the window.
The rain pelts.
The truck hums.
And time lags.
Merit finally says, “I can’t, Ryan. You know that.” She’s still staring out the window.
“Yes, you can.” Thank God, for timing because we just pulled into the driveway of my place. This conversation needs both my eyes, both my hands.
“There’s too much water under the bridge,” Merit says, resting her elbow on the windowsill.
I turn off the truck and turn my body toward hers. I can’t breathe, and I struggle with the words that need to be said, knowing full well they need to be spoken and that I can’t hide behind the facade that we’ve created anymore.
“Let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about all the shit, Merit.” I explode inside.
Her head snaps back at me.
The rain pours.
Her look burns right through me. She’s fucking pissed.
Good.
Merit gets out of the truck, slams the door, and marches inside as the rain bounces off her skin.
I slam the door and follow her inside, just as mad. More mad at myself than anyone. Mad as fuck that I let this get so far into this hole of denial.
“Stop,” I command at the entryway. My voice is low and loud at the same time. “Don’t run away, Mer, not this time.”
Her wet shoes on the hardwood floor stop. She turns on her heel.
“Talk to me. Please.” I shut the door behind me.
“Fuck off, Ryan.”
“No.” I stalk toward her as she starts to move toward her bedroom. “Stop. You don’t get to run anymore!” I yell. “Just stop!” I take her shoulders in my hands.
Tears start to stream down her pale cheeks, and she wipes away the evidence. I try to touch her, but she pulls away, still standing, facing me, her arms wrapped around each other.
Dropping my arms at my sides, I try to act casual. But I can’t.
She comes at me full force and pissed, and I’m not sure what to do.
Punch me.
Kick me.
Do something.
Anything. Just stop pushing me out, I want to say.
She rips my shirt from my jeans and lifts it up, exposing my stomach and chest.
I’ve never seen Merit so alive, so angry, and so sad. She takes her finger and touches each cigarette scar. “I took care of these. Cleaned these. Made you better. Helped you heal,” she says through a clenched jaw. Her touches aren’t soft.
I close my eyes, remembering how we both spent my twelfth birthday. “I remem—”
“Shut up. I’m talking.” She pulls my shirt up over my head with my help.
Merit turns me around so that my back faces her. My head drops.
“And this scar. Remember that one, Ryan? When you asked my brother and me not to tell anyone while your dad hurt you?” Her finger runs the length of the scar. “And then, three months before I left for college, we slept together. Finally.” Merit’s voice is quivering now.
I want to turn around, take her inside my skin, melt into her. Allow her worries, her fears, to become mine. But I deserve this.
She continues, “These wounds, these scars, are marks of your resiliency, but sometimes, internal wounds take far longer to heal. I’m sure you know all too well about that.” Her voice ends abruptly.
I breathe.
It’s quiet.
“I watch you,” she starts. She clears her voice of pain.
I can’t see her, but maybe it’s better this way. My back to her allows her to speak her truth.
“I watch you with children, and I can’t help but wonder what our child would have been like. What type of dad you would have been.” She’s barely hanging on now.
Something inside me cracks. Maybe it is for the little boy I was. So fearful, yet not afraid at all. Because I had to make split decisions that would dictate whether I made it out alive or not. Fight or flight.
I try to turn around, but Merit’s hands stop me.
“I need you to hear this. I need you to hear me when I say you broke me, Ryan. You broke me when you asked if the baby was yours. You broke me when you asked me to make an appointment. And you put me over the edge when you walked out the door. You killed me that day.” Her voice is muffled and broken with tears. “You turned into someone else that day. You became someone entirely different, not the boy I had grown up with.”
Tears—fucking tears—start in my eyes. I feel every ounce of her hurt, if not more. Every fucking day, I’ve wanted to take back what I said. What I did after that. A rampage of women, filling my emptiness with sex. Something had to cure me. I was broken. Why would I sabotage Merit and take her down, too? Merit has been the only one to get through to me.
I allow her words to break my heart, just as she deserves.
“But you know what I did, Ryan. I carried that child to term. I left for college and carried the baby to term because this child deserved the best regardless of her parents’ situation.”
Slowly, I turn to face Merit. My stomach is somewhere in my throat, and I can’t breathe. Her eyes meet mine.
“I carried that baby to term,” she whispers, fidgeting with her fingers. “I fought through morning sickness, through early morning classes, surviving on saltines and any protein I could manage to choke down.” She laughs only a little, and then her face turns to heartbreak. “But there were other plans for Destiny.” Her voice breaks.
God, I want to hold her so bad. “Please, Mer, tell me what to do.”
I try to reach out to her, but she shakes her head.
“No, you need to see in my eyes the pain of the day Destiny was born. I want you to hear this.”
I stand, my body numb, listening.
“Destiny Rebecca Taylor died inside my body one day before I had to deliver her. The doctor recommended I deliver normally.” Merit nods and wipes her nose with the back of her hand.
You weren’t the boy she needed when she was eighteen, but you can be the man she needs right now.
“So, I did. I delivered our daughter on November 9, 2003” She pauses. “It’s weird. I was holding this beautiful baby girl, who just looked so peaceful, just like she was sleeping. So innocent. As if nothing was wrong and she was perfectly fine. But the problem was, deep down, I knew she wasn’t breathing. I knew, when I placed my hand on her tiny little chest, the heartbeat had left a day before.”
Tears start to fall against her pale cheeks and mine, too.
There aren’t any words to fill this void inside her.
Merit shakes her head and looks blindly out at the rain. “There are days when I can see her running in the sunshine. There are days when I can see her, feel her against my chest. I see rainbows a lot. I like to believe that’s Destiny. The day she was born, the rain on the ground sat for days prior. Pooled in parking lots. Sat in gutters. It rained a lot. I’d like to think that was God’s way of showing his sadness. I know I felt it.” She pauses again, looking down at her hands again. “I had her cremated. The day when I went to the mortuary to pick her up, the torrential four-day downpour just stopped the moment I had to get out of the car to go pick up our daughter for the last time, and a rainbow as big and as bright as Destiny was just appeared out of nowhere.” She nods again, now staring back out at the rain. “I like the rain, but I like the rainbows, too.”
My chest is heavy like cement. I feel nothing, and I feel everything. “Can we sit down on the couch?” I beg.
“Yeah.”
We move to the couch and sit down, numb. I look at Merit, a beautiful, strong woman who has managed to survive life. Who lost her mother. Raised her brother and me. Took care of her dad. Who lost our daughter. Alone. And scared to death.
Our backs resting against the back of the couch, I slowly reach over and slide my hand into hers, just like when we were kids. Merit was there. Every step of the way. Present for me. And, the one time she needed me, really needed me, because she walked through her mother’s death by herself, I wasn’t there.
“Mer, there aren’t enough words …” I take a minute because the tears start to come again. I will never tell her why I did what I did that day. Try to explain myself. Ever. Thinking of her going through the pregnancy alone, holding our dead child alone—these are wounds that don’t ever heal. “I’m sorry.” But I break down, and I don’t dare pull my hand from hers, so in the open, my tears fall.
We sit in silence and allow the weight of grief to pull us into oblivion.