Merit
Hallowell, Maine
Present Day
Ryan’s been crying intermittently for an hour or so. Never once in my life have I seen him cry. I’ve seen him walk through a lot, just stoic. Ryan’s gone into the kitchen to make some tea. I know he’s crying for me. He isn’t crying for Destiny. He didn’t know Destiny like I did. He didn’t feel her heartbeat from the inside. He didn’t feel her movements. Her kicks to the ribs at three in the morning. He didn’t feel the weight of her cheeks against my chest. He didn’t get any of that.
I’ve never talked to anyone about it. Ever. I’ve pushed it away to a place unseen, and let it sit there while I’ve tried to mask the pain. The heartache. The anguish of going home to the off-campus one-bedroom apartment to unworn baby clothes I’d purchased. Nobody knew. Eli didn’t know. Pop didn’t know. Ryan didn’t know. A crib I’d saved for. Books I’d bought. I’d planned to keep Destiny. I couldn’t not.
After college, I dived right into my work at Monterey Bay Aquarium. One night, Abbey and I got tipsy. I told her I’d lost a baby. But that was it. Grieving can be easier when you’re not alone. The doctor who had released me after post-baby care recommended a few counselors. But I’d been through grief before. I did manage to make a few trips to the psychiatrist, but that was it.
He walks back in with tea. He’s also not a tea drinker, which would explain the Gatorade in his hand, as he sits down next to me.
“I have to go back to California,” I say.
There’s a long breath. He doesn’t answer. He just sets his drink on the coffee table, leans back, and places his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling.
“Is that what you want?” he asks. “I’ll do whatever you want, Mer.”
What we want and what we need are two completely separate things.
“I want a cheeseburger every day. I don’t need one. I want a bigger car. A better house. I don’t need them. I want for Skittles to go back to their original taste. I don’t need it. Because I’ll survive without these things,” I say.
I want you. I don’t need you, Ryan. Besides, you’re not mine to keep.
But what if the want becomes a need? A need so deep that it shrouds my happiness, picking it apart piece by piece. A need like water. Air. Food.
I needed Destiny. I needed her, wanted her, like the air that I breathe. Because something inside me died when she did. Something so profound that it made me walk in my own depression for a few years. Passing classes only barely. Graduating by the skin of my teeth. I think Eddie hired me because of my summer internships, for my work ethic, because it most certainly wasn’t my grade point average.
“I need to book my flight,” I say casually.
I’ve had a lot of years to process this. Ryan’s only had an hour.
“Violet,” he whispers, sitting forward, pulling on my hand.
The remnants of our childhood pull at my heartstrings. I’m taken back to a space in time when the world was more alive, more full of color.
“Just hold still, Mer.” He pulled up my shirtsleeve. “It’s violet.” He stopped, stunned.
I rolled my eyes as he glanced back at my arm and then back to me.
Ryan was ten and I was eleven.
“It’s about perspective, Mer. It’s a bruise. It hurts, but the way you got—”
“It’s ugly.”
“Who would have thought you’d take a hit from Dubbs? He was so out of his mind. I’m sorry, Mer,” he whispered in the most apologetic way.
He’d meant to hit Ryan again. But I wasn’t having it, so I’d stepped in front of him and taken his punishment.
“Violet is an ugly color.” I tried to squirm from his grasp.
“Violet Ugly is a beautiful color, Mer. It’s you.”
I’m convinced that Ryan calls me Violet when he sees my courage, even when I can’t.
On that day, when Dubbs’s fist met my arm, I thought I’d die later; it hurt that bad. But it just made me madder. It made me think about every time Ryan had come to our house with a new bruise hidden under his clothing, a new burn. I felt his pain.
I feel his large hand over mine, which brings me back to the present moment.
“One last time,” is what I say.
I pull him from the couch. His tall, strong body unfolds and towers over mine. He’s persevered. Survived. I think my family was put in place to help Ryan. People make awful choices. They hurt others. They do bad things. But some things are just out of our control, and we’re left without power and with a whole lot of pain. What are we expected to do with all of it anyway?
Ryan’s eyes are still stained from tears and guilt. Gently, I take him by the hand and pull him to his bedroom. I close the door behind us. One last time, I’ll make love to Ryan. We’ll reacquaint ourselves with each other’s bodies as adults and not as kids.
We’ll make love against the world.
Against our differences.
Our similarities.
Our guilt.
Our sadness.
Our grief.
Against the people we once were.
We’ll make love for the last time. Because two people who once loved each other and experienced heartbreak at the level we did need two different, more solid people, in our lives to help us pick out the bones of our past.
Two broken puzzle pieces don’t match.
I take my top and slide it over my head, exposing my nude lace bra. I slip off my shorts.
I hear air escape through his mouth as his eyes take in my body.
He reaches up and pulls off his shirt, exposing his defined chest. I assist with his pants because the anticipation, though I need to take this slow, is sweltering through my body. I pull my hair from my ponytail, allowing it to fall against my back, shoulders.
A large green-and-blue bruise sits where his ribs took the hit from the steering wheel. The only remnants of the accident from just a month prior.
He puts me in control of us, of what we’re about to do. I know he’s being gentle with my heart, only doing what I’m ready for. But I can tell by his boxer briefs that he’s ready.
I push him to the bed, my hands on his hips, and look up into his dark blue irises. His long eyelashes are still a bit damp from the tears.
The backs of his knees meet the bed, and he sits.
“Are you all right?” I ask, but I’m not looking for an answer.
His answer will depend on my next move because hearts take longer to heal than flesh wounds ever will.
I slide myself on top of him and saddle him. I feel his length at my opening, the only thing separating us a thin piece of lace. He spreads my legs so that I’m flush against him.
“That’s it,” he says. Ryan is far more experienced in the sex department.
I gasp as I feel this large, hard bulge between my legs, and I start to move.
With one careful movement on his part, my breasts are out, in his face.
I’ve forgotten how good sex can be.
I’ve forgotten how good sex can be with Ryan.
He takes each breast in his mouth, carefully taking his time with his tongue.
Caresses.
Gives.
Tugs.
Ryan pulls my breast from his mouth, and then I rush his mouth with mine, taking my turn. My overdue turn. Ryan has always been magic with his tongue in the way that he kisses and the way that he moves it between my legs.
I want so badly to pull my panties to the side and allow him to feel my wetness, but I don’t. I’ll let the eagerness build as I move slow and steady against his hardness.
His tongue has become slower, softer, and he pulls back while his lips linger on mine, and I get drunk on this. Ryan’s arms move from my hips and wrap around my shoulders and back. My breasts push against his chest as his kiss deepens, growing again with urgency.
I thought I could help it, but I can’t. The ache has grown too much, so I slide my panties to the side and let him feel my wetness.
“Oh my God, Merit.” He ends my name with a pronounced T.
When these words reach his tongue, I drink them in, knowing I’m the only woman who can do this to him. I’m the one giving him this reaction right now.
I spread my legs further, trying to feel all of him as I slide myself up and down his shaft.
“Fuck,” he hisses in my ear as he stands.
Holding me in position, he turns and lays me down on the bed, pushing me up toward the headboard. He towers over me as he slowly slides my panties off.
I know he feels the ache the same way I do.
“What do you want me to do to you, Merit?”
My legs move to the sides, so I’m wide open for him, giving him a full view and full rein. “Start with your fingers.”
He falls to my side and looks at me with confidence. His hand slides over my erect nipples, and he takes one breast in his mouth, watching me, as I, too, wrap my hand around my breast. He tugs and flicks with his tongue. Over my stomach, his hand glides and then to the inside of my thighs, skipping the part I need most and building anticipation at the same time.
His hand makes his way to my middle, opening me up with his fingertips.
I watch as his face turns hot as he feels me, the wetness. He doesn’t have to say a word; we both know. Ryan takes his finger and gently pushes against my hot spot, and then he slides the same finger deep inside me.
He pulls out.
And pushes it back in.
I close my eyes and put my hand around his, as if I’m assisting with this matter, needing to feel what he’s doing to me.
His finger goes faster but not too fast. He pulls out and takes a second finger inside me, and I reach for his shaft and take him in my hand.
“Don’t touch. I’ll come,” he commands. “I just want to watch you, Violet.” He kisses my mouth again, his tongue stretching deep within me.
Between his tongue and his fingers, my hips start to move, a sign I need more, or I’ll explode. Ryan seems to know this because he pulls his fingers out and moves down to between my thighs. He pulls back the lips of my opening.
“Ryan, please,” I beg.
His tongue starts at the base of my hotness and moves upward, pushing toward my hot spot.
My legs begin to quiver.
“Oh, God, Ryan.” I grab the back of his head, pushing him deeper to me.
Ryan’s fingers hold my folds open, and he gives a few last licks before he climbs up my body and takes my mouth in his.
This time, I’m the forceful one. My nails dig into his back, and I pull my head from the pillow and cling to his body. I manage to shimmy out from underneath him, and he follows my lead. On my knees, I feel him flush against my backside, his hardness against my back and my bottom.
Chills reverberate throughout my entire body, and he grabs my breasts from behind, owning them, taking me and bending me forward, trailing kisses down my body.
I fall to all fours as Ryan’s shaft rubs against my backside.
“Take me right now, Ryan.” My words are forceful.
With that, he uses his fingers to find the warm spot from behind and guides himself to my ache.
“Fuck,” he says as I feel his dick at my opening. At first, he probes in and out and in and out, just barely entering me. “What about a condom?”
I shake my head. Ryan wouldn’t put me in a spot to get a disease, and I’m on the pill.
“Enter me now, Ryan.”
He plunges into me and lets out a loud groan from behind me.
“Oh my God,” I say as I feel him filling me. I spread my legs a bit more, so he has better access. “Are you watching?” I ask.
“All of it.”
He keeps one hand on my lower back and one hand on my hips.
But, in one pull, he flips me over like a rag doll so that I’m facing him. He’s on his knees over me.
“I can’t stand not being able to see your face.” He crawls on top of me and eases himself inside me. “I need to watch you.”
The walls of my heart begin to cave.
It makes it too hard, watching the man I love come undone, the man I need to leave.
Two broken puzzle pieces will never match. Remember that, Merit. Don’t forget.
But I’ll do it. I’ll look him in the eye, give him what he needs, and pay the consequences of heartbreak later. I’ll do it because that’s what we do for love. I’ll do it because that’s what I’ve always done for Ryan.
“I’m losing you, Mer.” His voice is vulnerable as his hand touches my chin.
I allow him to feel me just as I feel him.
His weaknesses. My weaknesses.
His heartache. My heartache.
His sadness. My sadness.
All the air leaves me, all the things I’ve tried to control over the last seventeen years. My feelings. My heart. My love. The preventative measures I’ve taken to protect my heart from this last twenty minutes have disappeared as I’ve taken him in once more.
But I’ll still have to leave, I think as I stare up at this man who I know loves me with every ounce of who he is.
The answer isn’t, I’ll stay and love you forever.
The answer isn’t, Don’t worry; I’m not going anywhere.
The answer isn’t, We will work it out.
My answer has to be, “Just make love to me, Ryan. One more time.”
I’ve never seen a more broken man than the one before me. After I speak these words, his actions do not match the terror in his eyes. They don’t match the heartache, the sadness, the grief I know too well.
But he makes love to me, scooping me up from the mattress and resting me on his lap, allowing my knees to fall on either side of his hips. I move on top of him, uncontrollably, unwavering. As tears slide down my cheeks, he watches them. Each one taking their position on my breasts, my stomach, his shoulders, his chest. With his arms around me, we move together.
Once, there was a boy I made love to, a caged boy who thought himself damaged.
Once, there was a man I made love to, and I left my heart at his feet as I walked away.