Mira
Two days after our big fight, I was still sleeping in the guest room and all this time we had barely said two words to each other. I had gone to the hospital on my own, and Ryan was nowhere in sight when I left. My heart hurt, and I found myself lying in bed at night missing having him close to me. The whole situation was just so frustrating. Things had been going so well and Evelyn’s request just changed everything in an instant.
I took a deep breath before I entered my mom’s hospital room, and smiled as I walked in. She waved at me, finishing a vitals check with the nurse. She was originally scheduled to be transferred to hospice, but since the surgery was just a couple of days away, they had kept her in place. She would be undergoing her last couple of dialysis treatments and getting prepped for the upcoming procedure. It was still on as far as I knew, and there hadn’t been any kind of word that Ryan had canceled.
Sitting down in the chair, I looked around the room at the flowers and cards my mother’s friends had sent her. In the corner was a large vase of tulips that I hadn’t seen yet. I stood up and hung my cardigan over the back of the chair and walked over to them, not finding a card.
“They’re from Ryan,” my mother said from behind me. “They were delivered yesterday after you left. He just wished me well in the card, nothing special. I assumed he would have told you.”
“If he was actually speaking to me,” I said, turning back around, my eyes burning with tears again. “We got an argument about feelings and we haven’t spoken to each other in days. He is the most stubborn man I have ever met.”
“Awe, honey,” my mother said, nodding at the nurse who smiled and walked out of the room.
I walked over to the bed and climbed in with her, putting my head on her chest and wrapping my arms around her waist. I had done that when I was a child, whenever I was scared or sorry, and I still did it as an adult. She knew how to calm me down, and sometimes all it took was a stroke of her hand through my hair.
“Do you think he’ll back out of the surgery now?” she asked.
“God, I don’t know,” I said, breaking down into tears. “I’m so sorry, Mom, this is all my fault. I should have just let things go, not pushed them, but you know me, I don’t like vague answers. We were both asked a question about our feelings, and he just refused to answer. I got irritated by it, then we started arguing and I should have just let it go for now. I should have just waited until after the surgery to talk to him about it. I got so angry with him, though. He really knows how to push my buttons. I’m so sorry, Mom, I didn’t think it through. Everything was fine and then he, I — oh I just might have ruined your chance and—”
“Shh,” she said, rubbing my head. “You didn’t ruin anything. If he decides to back out, that is on him, and it’s his choice. He has complete control over the decisions that he makes. That fight shouldn’t be enough to make him do that, but if it does, then so be it. He is the one who will have to make peace with that choice every day.”
“I want to shake him until his damn eyeballs rattle sometimes,” I said, wiping my nose. “He just is so frustrating.”
“What man isn’t frustrating,” she laughed. “Welcome to married life, where you want to kill your happily ever after with a hammer. It comes and goes, that’s for sure, but there are definitely times you want to kick their butts.”
“It’s partly my fault too,” I said, sitting up and wiping my eyes. “I mean, I’m all over the place on my feelings about this relationship, too. I am starting to have second thoughts about this marriage, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t. It’s like a freaking roller coaster with us. One minute we are getting along like two people out of a fairy tale, and then the next minute we’re fighting like rivals on the street. We were asked a very simple question, and he just refused to tell me how he really feels about me.”
“Did you tell him how you feel?” my mother asked.
“Well — no,” I said. “Things escalated before I could.”
“Why didn’t you tell him first?” she asked. “Maybe seeing you open up and be strong and honest would help him come forward about his feelings, too. Maybe he is embarrassed or afraid.”
“Or maybe he doesn’t have feelings for me,” I said.
“I see,” my mother smiled. “So, the real reason you didn’t come forward first was because you were afraid that he was going to reject you.”
“Maybe,” I grumped. “Why do you always have to be so right? I was enjoying being angry at him. I think I still can be, he just won’t open up to me in the least but expects me to be an open book. It’s confusing and scary.”
“So, what was the question that was asked?”
“If we love each other,” I mumbled.
“And do you?”
“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “I thought I was starting to know, but then everything happened, and it just turned me off to actually thinking about it. I am scared, but that doesn’t mean I am not open to discussing my feelings. Ryan is completely closed to the idea and seems to forget that we are in fact part of a show that we agreed to be open and transparent on. Hell, we should be open and transparent anyway, we are married for God’s sake. It shouldn’t be me pulling things out of him.”
“Well, honey, marriage can be very complicated, even more so than dating,” she said. “All the young people think they can get married and all the stress and worry will just vanquish. In reality, though, that is far from what really happens. Sure, dating pressure goes away, but then you open yourself up to a whole new level of stress. Marriages are going to have their ups and downs.”
“I just don’t even know if you can think of us as a real marriage,” I sighed.
“I do,” my mother said. “I see how you are together, and you are more of a couple in my eyes than many of the other couples I know. I just really hope that he will come around and start communicating with you, because I love you and I love my new son-in-law. Beyond the transplant, I want to see you happy and settled, and to be honest with you, I have never seen you so content then what you are when you are with Ryan. I can see that love in your eyes, even if you don’t want to admit it. Sometimes though it takes big things in life to make you realize that, and I don’t want either of you to wait too long to see it.”
“I’m too afraid to let this out,” I sighed. “I’m too afraid for him to turn back into that guy he was when Miles was here, the one who put him above me. The one who told me to just get over it without an explanation or anything. I don’t want to stare that man in the face as he tells me he never loved me, and he never will.”
“You don’t know that will happen,” my mother smiled. “And if you don’t find out, then you will always regret not asking. You will always wonder what things could have been like. Trust me, I’ve lived with questions like that about your father since you were born and that is not something you want following you around. At the same time though, you know you still have the ability to walk away from this. You can leave at any time, collect your money and move on with your life.”
“I know,” I sighed. “I just don’t think I could do that, not yet. I know, no matter how cold and closed off he gets, there is something in him that cares about me. If I just left, screwed him out of the money, and didn’t say goodbye, he would be very hurt by that. The last thing I want to do is hurt him, because beyond the stubbornness, he has been there for me when I needed someone the most. He was there before I even knew I was going to need someone.”
“That doesn’t sound like a man who has no feelings,” my mother smiled.
“No, it doesn’t, but he has surprised me before and I really hope he wouldn’t do it again,” I said. “He doesn’t seem like the kind of man who would ever do something deliberately to hurt someone, but if he really doesn’t have feelings for me, there is nothing stopping him from doing that same exact thing to me. I would hope that he wouldn’t be so selfish as to leave me, but with the change in mood I see in him almost every few weeks now, I’m just not certain.”
“I think that the part of him leaving that scares you the most has nothing to do with the money,” she pointed out. “I think somewhere in there you’re afraid he will leave you with a broken heart and no way to mend it. I think you love him, and that is the scariest thing out of all of this. That’s what is driving every emotion you have.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know about all that, Buddha,” I smiled, climbing out of the bed. “But I know that things will have to change for us to make it the next three months. I just hope you get that kidney you need so that no matter what happens, you are by my side for all of it.”
“I love you, baby girl,” my mom said, kissing my cheek.
“I love you too, Momma,” I said. “Now, you need to get some rest, take some medicine, and don’t give the nurses too much hell.”
“I make no promises in that regard,” she chuckled.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
“Yes ma’am,” she said.
I picked up my bag and waved to her as I left the room, walking down the quiet hall of the hospital thinking about all we had said. There was a ball in the pit of my stomach, something telling me that things weren’t quite right, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Maybe my mother was right, maybe I was scared to be heartbroken, but that didn’t mean I should just fall to his feet and hope for the best. He had to meet me halfway, he had to be a partner in the marriage, especially if he saw it going anywhere after our six months were up.
I made it to the car and headed back to the house, stopping at the gate to enter the code. When I pulled up, most of the lights in the house were off, but I figured Ryan was just relaxing in the living room or something.
Inside the house though, there wasn’t a sound, and I checked the kitchen and the living room for him. When I didn’t see him there I headed upstairs to the bedroom to see if maybe we could talk. That would be better than continuing to be angry at each other.
When I walked into the room though, I froze, staring around at the still made bed, the empty laundry hamper and a couple of his drawers hanging open with nothing inside. He was gone. He had left me, and he had done it without even a word.