CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Ruby
I’m sitting in my car watching Morgan and Caleb eat through The Café window. This is what I’ve been reduced to. It’s been a week since the shooting, and so far, Caleb’s refused to see me. I went to see him the other night, and it was a bad scene.
“What are you doing here?” Caleb opens his door, arms crossed over his chest. “I figured me not answering any of your calls let you know I’m not up to talking to anyone right now. Including you.”
Not gonna lie, this hurts. Seeing him like this hurts, hearing him talk to me the way he is hurts. But I won’t give up on him. I promised Kelsea months ago that I would be here if he needed me, that I could handle whatever was thrown at me.
“You need me,” I talk against the tightness in my throat.
“I need to be left the fuck alone. You. Mom. Dad. You all need to leave me the fuck alone.”
“We won’t,” I shake my head standing my ground. “We won’t leave you alone to deal with this by yourself.”
“Fine, then if you won’t leave, I will.”
I watch helplessly as he puts his shoes on, grabs his wallet, and storms out. Once I’m there by myself, I clean up, making myself busy until I realize he’s not coming back. Finally I take myself to his bed, tuck his pillow under my chin, and cry it all out.
When I wake up alone the next morning, I know he hasn’t been back, and I know he won’t until I’m gone. It’s sobering, and it’s not the best feeling in the world. But he won’t push me away that easily.
That fear of rejection is still here, but I’ve finally decided that I don’t care. He’s sent every one of my calls to voicemail. Any text I’ve sent has gone unanswered, and I’m beyond frustrated.
I can’t understand why he’s pushing me away, when even sitting here like I am, staring at him from a distance, I can see he needs me. He and Morgan drove separately; I see both their vehicles. I plan on confronting him when he leaves – I’m beyond sick of being ignored.
Some may say I’m crazy, and maybe that’s a fact, but I know this man. I know him better than I know myself, and he needs me, I need him, and I’ve got to get him to see reason. Before we have nothing else to fight for.
Morgan gets up, throwing some money on the counter, before he walks out to his vehicle and leaves. He’s in his EMT uniform, so he must either be reporting for duty, or he’s got to be somewhere. Caleb is slower, and I can’t help but think maybe that’s a little help from the big guy upstairs, maybe he’s helping me get this man I care for so much alone.
As I see Caleb start to come outside, I get out of my car and go over to his driver’s side door, waiting patiently until he can see me.
“Red?”
The nickname slips from his lips, I can tell because it looks like he wants to put it back where it came from. But I don’t let him. “Yeah, it’s me. Ya know, the person who’s been by your side for the past few months. Ruby Red?”
A wall is erected between the two of us. He switches off his emotions, holding himself rigid as he looks at me. “We have nothing to talk about.”
“We have everything to talk about, starting with why you won’t see me, why you won’t talk to me, and what the fuck’s going on inside your head right now.”
“Nothing you want to get involved in.”
“How do you know, Caleb? You won’t tell me, you won’t talk to me. I have literally zero idea what’s going on there, and it’s all because you’ve decided I can’t handle it.”
“You can’t,” he yells. “Because I can’t.”
“Don’t decide what I can and can’t do. I don’t appreciate it.”
He fumes, I can tell by the way his face is red, the way his hands clench into fists at his sides. “I can’t live with myself, Ruby, how can I expect you to live with me?”
“What you need to do is realize this is when you need me, not when you need to push me away. Please Caleb,” I beg. I break down and beg, something I promised myself I wouldn’t do. “I don’t want to see you hurt like this, please just let me be there for you.”
“So people can talk about you behind your back? I know people are talking. Mom and Kelsea are upset about it. I don’t want you to be upset about it too. What if we had kids, Ruby? How would they handle it?” His voice is hoarse. “How would they be able to separate their dad from the man I was?”
“Easy! The same way you do. What the fuck is going on here?”
“I don’t know.” He puts his hands up to his forehead. “All I know is I can’t stand for you to look at me with that fucking pity in your eyes. It reminds me too much of how people looked at me when they realized I didn’t have a mom. I don’t want to be that poor, pitiful guy, twice in my life.”
“You aren’t, you idiot, and if you’d get your head out of your ass, you would see that.”
I’m losing the battle, I can tell. He’s retreating and there’s nothing I can do to bring him back. The Caleb I know isn’t there right now; he’s somewhere untouchable, and all I can hope for is that we can bring him back.
“I’ll wait for you,” I tell him. “Wait until you can figure out what’s going on in your head, wait until you see it’s all clear.”
“Don’t.” He holds up his hand, like he wants to run his thumb along my lip, the way he always used to. “Don’t wait for me.”
“Why can’t you touch me?” The tears pool and fall. I miss it, miss his touch, the easy way he had to be touching me all the time. I crave it, want it badly, can’t understand why he’s punishing both of us.
“Because I can’t touch you with this blood on my hands. Red, you’re everything good and pure. I’ll fuck you up too.”
“You’re not fucked up,” I argue. “You’re in shock over what you did, and you’re trying to process it. Stop pushing me away and let me help you.”
I reach out to grab his arm and he pulls it away, pushing me when I get too close. “Don’t push me away.”
“Don’t make me hurt you.” His voice is deep, dark, and full of something I’ve never heard before.
“You’re already hurting me.” I pull my arms around my waist. “I gave it all to you, Caleb, everything. The good, the bad, and the ugly. And you only want to give me the good, how is that fair?”
“Life isn’t fair, Ruby, and it’s better you learn that now, rather than five years from now when we’re married and you hate me enough to divorce me.”
“Where is this shit even coming from in your head?”
“I’ve seen it.”
“And you’ve also seen your parents have a great relationship. Don’t lump me in with people who can’t handle it. Do you not remember who I was the first night I met your dad? The person I was the night you almost didn’t get that guy cuffed.” I wipe the tears out of my eyes, wipe them off my face. “I understand that you’re drifting right now. You don’t have a job you can go to, you’re worried people are going to label you something you aren’t. I get that, but don’t you give up on me.”
“How can I not give up on you, when I’ve already given up on myself.”
That’s when he gets in his Jeep, leaving me there crying. Letting me watch the taillights in the darkness of the night as he drives out of my life. As I look at the people watching me, I feel like a freakshow. Like everyone knows something I don’t.
He’ll come back, he has to, because what we have is too good to throw away. He’ll see he’s a hero, he’ll believe it, and then he’ll realize just how much he needs me.
That’s what I keep telling myself as I walk to my car, compose myself, and drive away.
Cruise
It’s hard to explain to everyone who keeps asking what exactly is going on in my head. There are so many thoughts and emotions I have swimming through the noise. It reminds me how I felt when my friend died in high school, and I’m trying desperately not to let myself turn down that destructive path again. I’m feeling guilt for taking another man’s life. Pride for making sure my community is safe. Denial in what I did could have been prevented, and partially dirty at the blood on my hands.
I don’t want to corrupt Ruby or anyone else with what I’ve done, but it’s hard to live with. Knowing I ended another man’s life is inherently shocking, and while I wait for the internal review, I’m increasingly worried they’re going to say I had another option.
That’s what’s driving me right now. The fear that I did have another option.
The fear that I made the wrong decision.
The fear that I’m one of those cops who didn’t think about the consequences before he committed an action that can’t be reversed.
Until I know where I stand on what I’ve done, I can’t come to Ruby clean, I can’t be at peace with my decision, and I sure as fuck can’t be expected to go on with my day-to-day like nothing happened.
Because it did. A man is dead. I shot him.
And I still have no idea whether it was justifiable or not.
My career and life lay in the balance of what the internal investigators find. They hold my entire life in their hands, and I’m nervous as fuck that they won’t see it the way I did.
If they don’t, my life and career as I know it is over, and I definitely won’t be the man that Ruby thought I was. That’s possibly the hardest part I’ll ever have to come to terms with. So right now, it’s easier to think I’m a fucker, rather than letting her know I care way more than I should.