Chapter 9
Rayne
I shift in the seat to try to keep the seat belt from rubbing against my freshly tattooed skin. The short ride home seems to take forever, but when I finally walk in the door, a tidal wave of emotions break the dam. My purse falls from my arm, and I scream into the empty room. I don’t even cry because there’s no point. Crying won’t bring him back, and crying won’t give me answers. I’m way past being sad. I’m even over being confused. Now, I’m just fucking pissed.
I’m pissed at Bryan for making me promise to stay faithful when he knew damn well there was a chance he wouldn’t come back. I’m pissed at the man who promised we’d have a life together and then fucking left me. I’m pissed at Vaughn for being so fucking perfect. I’m pissed that I’m questioning myself for holding on to something I should have let go of a long time ago.
It’s time . . . time to let him go.
With a jerky arm and angry steps, I get my phone from my bag and go to the couch. The past few weeks, I’ve been slowly realizing how miserable I am without Vaughn in my life. I feel even lonelier without seeing him every day as I’d gotten accustomed to.
Wanting Vaughn has nothing to do with Bryan. What I feel for Vaughn is. . . It’s more than I ever thought possible; it’s all consuming, and it’s what I’ve always wanted.
Sliding my finger across the screen to unlock it, I take a deep breath then dial Bryan’s number. It’s time to end it with him. “We’re sorry, but the person you are calling cannot be reached at this time. Please hang up and try again later.”
“What the hell?” I mumble to myself and then dial again.
“We’re sorry, but the person you are calling—”
“No.” I stand, tripping on my feet before regaining my balance. “No, this isn’t happening.”
I physically type in each individual number, stabbing my screen. “We’re sorry, but—” I have to make three attempts before I end the call. “Please, no. Not now.”
I grab my purse and run to my car. On the way to my destination, I continue dialing his number, only to get the same result. “No, no, no.”
I park crookedly in their driveway and run to the house, banging on the door. It’s pretty late, but I don’t care. “Kristen! Aaron! Open up! Are you home?”
The door whips open as I’m pounding, and I almost fall into the house. “Rayne, what’s the matter?” Bryan’s mom puts an arm around my shoulder and ushers me inside.
“His phone doesn’t work anymore. It says he’s not available.” Bryan’s dad, Aaron, walks into the room. “Why isn’t his phone working anymore? What happened?” I ask him.
He glances over at Kristen, and they share a look. Guilt.
“What happened? Did they find him?” My hopeful and naïve self asks the question I’m smart enough to know will never result in the answer I want or used to want.
“They didn’t find him, Rayne. He’s dead. Just like he’s been dead for years.”
“Aaron,” Kristen chastises.
“No. She needs to hear this. Again.” Aaron sits directly in front of me and grasps my hands. “Rayne. Bryan is dead. He’s not coming home. He’s never coming back, and he would want you to move on with your life.”
All the fortitude I’d mustered up over the last few weeks is immediately gone, vanished into thin air, just like my boyfriend. “That’s not true.”
“What part?”
“All of it. They never found his body. He could still be alive.”
“Really? Where would he be?” Aaron sits back and crosses his arms. “Living in a fucking cave?”
“Maybe some people took him or something?”
“Rayne, he didn’t go to a foreign country where rebels are going to capture someone. There are no pirates. He’s dead.”
I shake my head. “No.”
“I can’t do this, Kristy. I’m sorry, but I can’t deal with her anymore.” He stands and runs angry hands down his face. “I’ve been paying for his cell phone bill for years, Rayne. I’ve been erasing your voicemails, so there was room for you to leave more, but it’s been too long. Did you really think you could leave voicemails for two years? Dammit, I need to move on. We need to . . . You need to move on.” He walks away, and Kristen sniffles next to me.
“He’s right,” she says with a shaky smile. “It’s time to let him go, Rayne.”
“I . . . I thought I was going to. I was going to leave him a message and tell him. I was going to let him know how sorry I was for breaking my promise.” My throat burns and my chest tightens. “But how am I supposed to tell him goodbye when I can’t hear his voice one last time? When I can’t say the words out loud to him?”
“It wouldn’t matter anyway. He never heard your messages.”
“He did.”
“He didn’t, Rayne. He never did. Aaron and I kept it up for you, to give you peace of mind, but it’s just been too much for us. We can’t continue to pretend that our son is still alive. He died doing what he loved, and he’s never coming back. You need to move on.”
“But he made me promise him.” I pull out my rings and finger them on the chain. “He made me promise to wait for him to come back.”
She shakes her head. “He wasn’t serious.”
“I was.” I stand and walk to the door in sheer disbelief. “I was.” And I can’t believe I was willing to go back on it so easily.
A weird state of numbness rushes through my mind then hits me and flows through my veins. I slowly walk to my car in a trance. Kristen follows and tries to talk to me, but I only hear a muffled noise. After getting in my car, I go home on autopilot. The darkness of the night is worse when my eyes blur. When I make it inside, I drop my keys and purse on the floor then go straight to my bed. The pain from my tattoo is like a punishment for thinking I could be free; it’s my repercussion. I pull the covers over my head and shut the world out.
* * *
“She’s in here. I’ll text you in a few.” The covers are ripped from me, and the bright light burns my eyes, even though my lids are closed.
“Rainey girl, what the hell are you doing to yourself?” Kennedy lifts me up by my arms and makes me sit up, which forces my eyes to open.
I stare at him but can’t form a word to answer. I have never been more confused about anything in my life, and I don’t have the answers.
“Are you okay? Your mom called when you didn’t show up at work. Thought you were sick or something.”
Again, no answer.
“Rayne, talk to me.” He grips my face and forces me to look at him. “What happened?”
My body goes limp under his hand, and I fall back on the mattress. He takes the hint and stops pressing me, but I hear the click of a text message being sent.
His face hovers over mine, and he offers a sympathetic smile. “I won’t push you, but I need you to tell me if you’re hurt at all. Physically.”
I shake my head.
“Do you need anything?”
I answer the same way again.
“Okay. I’m going to go in the other room, but I’ll be checking on you later.”
He closes the door behind him, and I turn over to my side opposite my tattoo. The light behind my curtains begins to get darker as the hours go on, and my bladder is shouting at me to empty it. I haven’t moved since I came home last night, not because I didn’t want to, but because my body wouldn’t let me. It takes some effort, but I finally get up and drag my feet down the hall to the bathroom. When I’m pulling up my pants, I forget that Kenny is here, so when he gasps, it scares the shit out of me.
“What in the hell is that?” he shrieks.
“A tattoo.”
“Oh, Rayne. Have you been taking care of it?”
Amongst all the things assaulting my brain, taking care of my tattoo wasn’t one of them. “Shit,” I mutter. I peel the plastic off and cringe at the once bright and colorful tattoo whose colors seem blurred. “Did I fuck it up?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never had a tattoo.” He leans closer to it. “It looks mushy.”
“Fuck!”
“Since you’re talking again, why don’t you tell me what the fuck is up with you?”
I disregard his question because I’m not ready to answer. “Am I supposed to wash it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Fuck it. I’m sure I already ruined it. Just like everything else in my life.”
He sighs. “What happened?”
Kenny’s been my shoulder, my rock, my sounding board, and I need him now more than ever. I’m just afraid that he’s going to think I’m rotten. “I was going to leave him a message.” I look down at my feet. “I was going to tell him that I was moving on with my life. I dialed his number and had the words on the tip of my tongue. But I couldn’t because Bryan’s parents shut off his phone.” With burning eyes, I grab a tissue. “I went to their house, and it was just awful. Aaron yelled at me that he was dead and I needed to move on, and Kristen agreed with him and . . .” I laugh. “The irony of this is that I was going to tell him. But now that I can’t do that, I’m disappointed in myself for even thinking about going back on my word.”
A long stretch of silence fills my small bathroom before he speaks. “His parents are right.”
I bristle at his comment. “No, they’re not. He could still be alive somewhere, and I’m not—”
“You’re delusional! You’re ruining your life over a guy who is dead, Rayne. He’s dead, and he’s not coming back!”
“Don’t say that,” I cry.
“It’s the truth. I’m sick of walking on eggshells around you. I’m sorry, so sorry, but he’s dead. And you need to move on before you kill yourself from a broken damn heart from a guy who didn’t ever fucking deserve you!!”
My already fragile heart shatters a little more at the insulting words from my best friend. “Get out of my face, Kennedy.”
“No. Jesus Christ, Rayne. How long are you going to live in denial about this?”
“I’m not. He loved me.”
“Okay. Maybe he loved you, but he’s not coming back, and it’d be a shame to waste all the love you have to give on a man who can no longer receive it.”
When I swallow, it hurts my scratchy throat. Something about what Kenny just said resonates. I think that’s what, underneath all my feelings, is at the root of it all. I loved being someone’s everything. I loved loving. And although things went on behind closed doors that nobody knows about, I don’t want to feel like I’m giving up on Bryan. He needed me more than anyone knows, more than I’d ever admit. But he’s gone. “You’re right.”
His eyes widen. “I know I am; it’s not your responsibility to make someone else happy. You need to worry about you.”
It clicks. Like a missing piece to a puzzle, the edges align and snap together; except this is my life . . . it’s not a game. “It’s not about me waiting for Bryan. It never was. It’s the fact that I’m holding on to a feeling I was afraid I’d never find again.” Bryan needed me in a way that nobody else knew about, and I was so scared to fail at being what he needed.
“Exactly.”
The boulder that was pushing logic away in my brain for two years rolls down my spine and pushes against my lungs. “I need some time alone.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, then.” He hugs me, even though I don’t reciprocate, and leaves me alone.
As soon as the door closes, I lean against it and sag to the floor, letting the weight of this revelation pull me.
* * *
“Damn, baby. What did you do?” Vaughn’s voice stirs me, and when his arms slide beneath me, I grip his jacket. A satisfaction I haven’t felt in such a long time makes me feel weightless in his arms.
He deposits me on the bed and lifts my shirt, his gentle fingers skating around my side. Even through all the messed-up emotions, he manages to make my belly flutter. I hear him suck in a breath.
“Is it ruined?” Kennedy asks.
“Let me clean it off. Can you get me some warm water, a washcloth, and a dry towel?”
Kennedy doesn’t reply, but his footsteps fade, and Vaughn’s hands pull my yoga pants down a little. “I need you to lift up on the other side so I can get these down farther and clean you up.”
I roll over to my back and lift a little. He grabs the waistband and tugs until the entire tattoo is visible. When his fingers graze my skin again, my gaze shoots up to him. His eyes are like cocoa, so warm and inviting. He tempts me to curl up with him and let him take away the coldness I’ve been feeling. But I doubt he’d even be willing to anymore. Not after how I treated him.
“Here ya go.” Kenny’s voice snaps me out of my haze. “Do you need anything else?”
“Nah, man. This should be good.”
“I wish I could stay, but I’ve gotta get to work.” Kenny kisses me on the forehead and grasps Vaughn’s shoulder. “Let me know if you need anything. I can swing by later.”
“Sure, man.”
We both watch as he walks away, and when the door shuts, Vaughn gets to work peeling the rest of the gross plastic wrap off and cleaning the area with the washcloth. Willing him to look at me, I don’t take my gaze away from his face. His brows furrow and his jaw clenches every once in a while, and I try not to wince from the pain when he touches the sensitive skin.
I don’t know what to say to him. Do I apologize? Do I tell him about Bryan? “Did I ruin it?” I blurt, desperate to talk to him, even if it’s not what I really want to say.
“It should be okay. We’ve gotta get some air to it and let it scab over, but I think it’ll be all right.” He stands and tosses the dirty towels into the hamper then deposits the garbage into the can. “Do you need anything else?”
I need more. I need you. “Why are you so nice to me?”
“I don’t know.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I wish I had a reason other than the fact that—” The words die on his tongue, and he just shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
With a heavy sigh, he heads for the door. As his hand reaches the knob, the fear of losing him, too, makes the explanation just roll off my tongue. “They say he’s dead.”
His spine straightens, and Vaughn turns around, but I look past him at the door. I don’t want to see the pity on his face. I only want him looking at me with love and desire. I realize at this moment, in the three seconds it took for me to say those words to him, that I really can’t keep living like this. I can’t let a wonderful man, who has been more than patient with me, walk out of my life. I don’t care if it’s fast. It’s right . . . it feels right, and that’s all that matters.
He deserves an explanation. He deserves more than I’m capable of giving, but I’m going to try. I’m going to try with everything I have to stop loving an illusion and start loving the real live man in front of me.
“My boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend, I guess. They say he’s dead, and I don’t—no, I didn’t—want to believe them.” I grab the necklace and twirl the rings on it. “He went missing two years ago.”
Vaughn walks over to the bed and sits beside me. Immediately, the warmth from his body, even though he’s not touching me, calms my shaky nerves.
“He was an adrenaline junkie. If it was dangerous, he did it. He went on a road trip to do all sorts of stuff. Surf, scuba dive, hang-glide, hike . . . ski, BASE jump. He called me in the morning and told me he was going to check out Cape Disappointment.”
I smile as I reminisce about our last conversation.
I’ve seen some of the most beautiful things out here, but nothing compares to you, Rayne.
I miss you.
Wait for me. You know I need you when I get back.
“That was the last time anyone ever heard from him.”
Nobody knows how long he was missing, or if he was hanging on a rock waiting for someone to save him and his fingers gave out, and he fell into the ocean. It wasn’t until the next day that I finally called his parents. They didn’t seem worried, but I knew something was wrong. He always called me.
“I managed to get a hold of the Coast Guard station there and reported him missing.”
I’ll never forget how nice the guy who I talked to was. How he calmed me down when I was so frantic. Even though they didn’t have anything to report, Declan called me to give me as many updates as he could, even after they called off the search.
“They found his car in a parking lot, but that was it.”
Vaughn’s listening but hasn’t said anything. I understand, because if he was the one telling me this, I wouldn’t know what to say either. “And I swore to him that I’d wait for him to come back. But then you happened, and as much as I want to be angry with myself for betraying him, I finally realize I’m not restricted on what my heart wants anymore.”
“How have you betrayed him?”
“I fell in love with another man.”