In the Stillness

CHAPTER 13



I didn’t sleep at all last night. I sat cross-legged on my bed, waiting for Eric to come in and call my bluff. For him to fight. Something.

Shit.

Sneaking quietly past the boys’ room, I find Eric sleeping on the couch as I start the coffee.

“We need to talk about last night.” I jump at his voice. He clearly wasn’t sleeping.

“I don’t really know what there is to talk about.”

“Are you f*cking kidding me, Natalie?” Eric whispers as he walks toward me. He never swears.

“You’re an a*shole. I’ve been living in my own personal hell for the last six months, and the first time you notice anything is off you blame it on my ex-boyfriend? Not only do you accuse me of cheating, but you understand me so little that you think, somehow, he’s the reason I cut myself?”

Eric’s eyes fill with tears. “I love you, Natalie. I don’t want you hurting yourself-”

“And I don’t want to feel the way I’m feeling. I don’t want to live this life we’re living. Only one of us can win here, Eric.” I push the “start” button on the coffee maker. Eric wraps his arms around my waist; I wiggle free.

“What?” he asks.

“I don’t want you to touch me. A hug isn’t going to fix this. I don’t even know if I want it to be fixed.”

“What do you mean you don’t know if you want it fixed? You want to cut yourself?”

I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. I can’t believe I was so reckless as to let my husband find out I’ve been cutting. Shouldn’t I be more ashamed of the cutting than the fact that he found out?

I sigh. “No, Eric, I don’t want to keep cutting.” I force myself to say it, even though I don’t totally believe it. “What I’m not sure of,” I continue, “is us.”

Just then, the boys open their bedroom door and race down the hallway screaming “Daddy!” because he’s never home when they wake up these days.

“Hey guys!” Eric turns up his daddy-charm and sinks to the floor as the boys crash into his body. I’d be that cheerful with them, too, if I only saw them a few days a week. “Okay, monsters, why don’t you sit down in the chair and Daddy will turn on the TV. I’ve gotta talk to Mommy for a sec, okay?”

I’m already in the bedroom when Eric starts down the hall.

Crossing my arms defensively in front of me, I ask, “What?”

“Do you want to leave me, Natalie?” he whispers as he closes the door behind him.

“I don’t know.” I shrug, looking down at his bare feet. “It was an awful thing you said. About Ryker—”

His tone instantly fills with malice as he cuts me off, “You think you can use my children as a threat against me?”

“It’s not a threat, Eric.” I meet his eyes and refuse to look away. He doesn’t intimidate me, but I don’t like the seriousness in his eyes.

“Well,” he continues, “I’d like you to tell me what court in their right mind would give custody to an unemployed mother who cuts herself for fun.”

I know he regrets it as soon as he says it; his eyes give him away every single time. The fact that it was even in his heart to say it, though, is enough to send me into a blind rage. Rage and fear that I haven’t felt for a long time.

* * *

Lucas’s funeral was the worst thing I’ve ever been to in my life. Ryker was still in the hospital—supposed to be released soon—so Tosha went with me, and we stood with Ryker’s dad.

God, it was awful.

People my age were standing in sobbing clusters, and it was all I could do not to throw up. When the soldiers handed Lucas’s parents the flag from his coffin, I swear I thought I was going to pass out. My knees buckled a little, until I felt Ryker’s dad’s arm hook around my waist. He held me steady and kissed the top of my head. I felt sick and relieved at the same time. Ryker was going to come home. It wasn’t his funeral. But, it was his best friend’s and he was missing it. He saw him die.

It was a fight to get my parents to “let” me go to Lucas’s funeral in the first place. The semester was over and I was taking finals. My mom thought that going to a funeral would ruin my semester. Well, it was already ruined, given that someone I considered a friend was sent home from the war in pieces. And, screw her. The bigger fight, however, came a week after the funeral, when they called to discuss what day they’d help me move my stuff home.

“I’m staying here this summer,” I balked petulantly.

“I don’t think so, young lady,” my dad answered. I could tell I was on speakerphone because I heard my mom start talking in the background.

“I stayed here last summer, Dad. I took classes and did an internship to help build my student portfolio. I’ll be doing the same thing this summer.” Panic started to rise through my body.

“Natalie, this year has been an emotional one for you. You need to come home this summer to regroup.”

“Ryker will be home soon!” I shouted. “I’m not leaving until I see him. Dad. He was shot, his best friend died, and I’m not going to have him come home and me not be here!” My voice shrieked into a cry that I no longer tried to conceal.

Tosha walked in the room and mouthed “Ryker?” when she saw me crying. I shook my head and mouthed “parents” back.

“Here’s the deal, Natalie,” my mother piped in, “either you come home at the end of the semester, or your father and I will stop paying for your education. We will not send our money only to have you blow it on a relationship with this Ryker boy.” The ice cubes from her voice froze my tears in place and traveled down my spine.

“That’s fine. Don’t pay for school anymore. But you forget, I’m twenty years old and have no legal obligation to return to your home under any circumstances.” Tosha threw her fists into the air and, I think, said “hallelujah.”

My parents sat in what I assume was stunned silence on the other end. I’d called their bluff. They had nothing else up their sleeves.

“Hello?” I prompted.

My dad cleared his throat. “I’ll call you later, Natalie.” He hung up.

I won that round. Now, I just needed Ryker to come home. Fast.

* * *

Little fists bang on the door, interrupting my stare-down with Eric.

“The only reason,” I purr venomously, “that I’m unemployed is because you begged me not to have an abortion. Then, you continued on your merry way to your Ph.D. while I became a stay-at-home mom because we couldn’t afford for me to continue school, and we didn’t want our kids in daycare for the hours that I’d have to work at the job I already had.”

He swallows hard as I step slowly toward him.

“As for the cutting? If you think it has nothing to do with you, then you’re as sick as I am.” I push past him and open the bedroom door, addressing my boys, “Guys go sit back down please, Mommy’s coming out to make you breakfast.”

They turn and scramble back toward the TV as Eric stops me. “What do you mean it has to do with me?”

“It’s us, Eric. I’ve been horribly unhappy for months, trying to deal with being basically a single mom while you were at the lab—”

“Getting my doctorate, Natalie. It’s not like I was screwing off.”

“I know!” I huff. “But three seconds after you get a job you’re talking about buying a house and knocking me up again. What about my plans?” My strained whisper is starting to turn into a yell.

Eric’s eyes burn through me. “It’s not just about you anymore, when will you accept that?”

“Never, because it wasn’t about me when this happened, either. I never wanted any of this, and I refuse to serve a life-long sentence because of it.”

Eric shakes his head rapidly in frustration. “Look,” he whispers, “that’s not how this started.” He grabs my arm, pointing to the nearly faded marks. “This is how it started. It stops. Today.” He squeezes my arm a little before throwing it down to my side.

We stare at each other in a silent standoff. I’ve threatened to take his kids and he’s threatened to tell my mother about the cutting—which would ruin things even more than they already are.

Shit.

Placing a smile on my face, I walk to the kitchen and proceed to make my children breakfast. Eric kisses the boys on the head before he leaves for work, but says nothing to me. I need to keep my shit together long enough to make a plan, so I silently resolve not to cut until after his graduation. I’ll have to wear a fancy summer dress, anyway.