Chapter Fourteen
Claire pitched herself over the top of the rock and lay panting at his feet. Her legs were trembling, her face was sweaty, and she was spewing a string of expletives he’d never heard come out of her mouth. But it was worth any amount of groveling he’d have to do to Eddie and the guys from Little White Lie to see the smile lighting up her face.
“I made it!” she cried.
“I knew you would.”
“That makes one of us.”
“Would I have let you down?”
There was a beat, and he thought maybe he shouldn’t have said that. But she was panting too hard to tell him if she still thought the answer to that was yes.
He helped her to her feet, bracing her as she half fell against him.
“Water,” he said, holding her steady as he got the bottle for her. “And chocolate.” He produced a bar from his backpack.
“There you go again with the bribery.”
He yanked it back. “You don’t want it?”
Claire grabbed it before he could pretend to put it away. “Don’t even think you can keep that from me.”
He laughed, relenting, and they sat on the ledge, legs dangling over the rock face, eating chocolate and nuts and apples and looking out at the trees all lit up in red and gold.
“You’re not mad I dragged you out here, are you?” he asked as the sun beat down on his face.
“Furious,” she said and laughed. “It’s funny.” She looked up at the sky wisped with clouds. “I moved here in part to do stuff like this. But then I just got busy, I guess.”
“You could take Maya climbing.”
She gave him a very Claire look. “She’s five, Ryan.”
“So? You start them young, and they’re so much less afraid than the old fogeys with their backaches and their muscle tears.”
“There’s such a thing as healthy fear. If you had it, you’d know to give that shoulder a rest.”
“It’s not so bad,” he said. But he couldn’t complain when she shifted so she was sitting behind him.
“Let me at least loosen it up while your muscles are warm.”
Her hands went to his shoulder, and he tried not to groan, which would only prove that she was right—it did hurt. But he couldn’t help relaxing into her touch, that perfect mixture of pressure and pain.
“You need to be careful,” she said as she worked.
“It’s better than sitting in a van for hours.”
“Still, you can’t just charge into this full speed until you’re healed.”
He smiled at her concern. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I’m serious, Ryan,” she said, pressing deeper. “I know what I’m talking about.”
He knew she was right. But she was being so rational. What about the times when thinking didn’t work?
“When you find something you love, it’s not so easy to stop. No matter if it’s good for you or not.”
The words just came out. He wasn’t even sure what he meant. Was he accusing her of having given up on him? Or was he reminding her that just because she’d left didn’t mean he’d been able to shut off his feelings?
Or maybe they really were just talking about rock climbing. Maybe there was nothing else here.
When she asked him how he got into the sport, he thought about making something up. He could say a buddy convinced him, or someone from Square One gave him a lesson. It didn’t have to be serious.
But he was trying to be honest. He was trying to show her who he really was.
“It was after rehab,” he admitted. “At first, my sponsor suggested I try running. Something to burn off excess energy, give me a goal—your typical self-help BS.”
He laughed at the memory of trying to eke out half a mile in the sub-zero Chicago winter and running straight into a Starbucks instead.
“Then I passed a climbing gym and decided to check it out. I realized I liked the focus, the strategy involved, the fact that it’s not the same monotonous routine.”
“And rehab? What made you finally do it?” Her voice was soft. Searching. Like maybe she didn’t really understand what had brought him there.
There were times when the truth was hard to hold. Finding the words, stringing them together, saying them out loud—it felt like being split open along a seam, and if he started with a small slit, it would keep growing, like a rip in his jeans, more and more of him unraveling. It was better to keep it patched up, keep the holes closed, keep his mouth shut.
But the answer to Claire’s question wasn’t some long explanation. It was one word and one word only, and he knew he could say it.
“You.”
Her hands froze on his shoulders. “What?”
“You left me.”
“I didn’t make you drink.” She said it with such sharpness, he wondered how many times she’d had to remind herself of that fact.
He turned on the rock so he could look into her eyes when he said, “Of course not.”
He used to blame everyone for his drinking. His band mates for encouraging it. His manager for telling him he was better on stage when he “loosened up.” His mom for turning a blind eye. His dad—well, just for being his dad.
And Claire, even Claire, for putting up with his bullshit for so many years.
“You’re making excuses again,” his sponsor would say, over and over until Ryan stopped finding people to blame and started looking squarely at the one person who was responsible. The person he’d had to finally start giving a shit about: himself.
“I drank for a lot of reasons,” he said slowly. “And for no reason at all, other than the fact that once I started, I couldn’t seem to stop. When you left me…” He ran his hand through his hair, trying to keep his shit together as he struggled to explain this. “I knew I’d fucked up, big time. But when I finally woke up that day, I just couldn’t piece it together.”
Claire looked at him, and he saw her eyes were rimmed with red. “But you didn’t even try to find out. I thought you were fine with letting me go. I thought you’d made your choice clear.”
“But I did try,” he said, confused. “I called your parents so much, I—”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
Did she not know?
“Your dad threatened to change the number if I didn’t stop.”
She shook her head vehemently. “That’s not true. My parents never heard from you. I was a mess those first few months, afraid I’d made the wrong decision, and they kept reminding me that you hadn’t even called them when, obviously, you must have figured out where I was.”
She looked at him like she wanted him to tell her something else, to admit that it was he and not her parents who’d lied. But he couldn’t do it, and in his silence, he watched the truth wash over her. And with it, a whole new kind of pain.
“They wanted you to stay away from me,” he said, his jaw clenching in anger, even though he wasn’t at all surprised.
She stood up quickly, pacing away from him and back again, as though she had to keep moving, to do something. But there was nothing to do anymore.
He went to reach for her, but at the same time, he knew that there were some things she had to face alone.
“I was such a wreck after that,” he said hoarsely. “When it was clear you weren’t coming back, I threw myself into the band, into work. I told myself I had everything I wanted. We’d just gotten signed, the venues we sold out were better than ever. The music was awesome. I even started making some money.” He tried to laugh, remembering what a big fucking deal it had been when he could finally afford to move out of that miserable basement apartment they’d shared.
She stopped pacing and dropped her hands by her side.
“But without you, things got worse. No, not things,” he corrected himself. “I got worse. Probably hard to imagine, but there you have it. Little White Lie broke up because no one could stand me. I wasn’t even doing any work anymore. I wasn’t writing, and I could barely perform. One day, I looked around and realized I’d pushed away everything that mattered. And that’s when I did it. Four of the most miserable months of my life.” He shook his head ruefully, remembering. “The worst part about rehab is that you just want to be drunk to get through it. The boredom. The pain. That moment of clarity when you’re finally stone cold sober and can actually look at your life and realize you hate what you see.”
“And now?” she asked, taking a step toward him again.
He faced her squarely. “And now I love what I’m looking at.”
She touched his arm. “I’m being serious.”
“I am, too.”
“So, you’re happy?”
“It’s still life, Claire. It has its ups and downs.”
“But Chicago?”
“Chicago is okay.”
Actually, it was pretty damn good to him these days, especially with Eddie working so tirelessly to resuscitate Little White Lie. But he didn’t want to say any of that. He didn’t want her to think about the world outside of here, the one where they weren’t the only two people under the sun, where they had too much history to be together.
He just wanted to reach for her, take her in his arms, and finally let himself kiss her.