In the Stillness

CHAPTER 21



“Eric’s not working today?” Tosha asks as we eat lunch at Judie’s.

“Apparently not. Graduation’s next week, I had lots of shit to get straightened out with The Clarke School today . . .”

“How’s everyone adjusting to the news? I’m really sorry, Nat . . .” She reaches across the table and takes my hand.

I give her a gentle squeeze. “It’s going to be okay. We’re trying not to get all hyper about it around him right now because we don’t want to scare him. We’re going to get all his supports lined up and talk to him slowly about it. I don’t know how, though.” Tears form at the thought of trying to explain, in words, to my almost-five-year-old, that he won’t be able to hear any of us soon.

“How’s Eric handling the news?” Tosha knows all too well how perfect Eric likes things to be. Hence, the marriage while I was pregnant with the twins.

I roll my eyes. “He got annoyed at the prospect of learning sign language. I know he’s overwhelmed but—”

“No,” Tosha cuts me off, “f*ck that. He doesn’t get to pick and choose which ugly comes into his life. None of us do.”

“Ha, no shit,” I snort as I pick at the remains of my salad.

We pay the bill, and Tosha suggests we take a drive over to Atkins Market to take advantage of the fresh, local produce. I’m a willing hostage, given how much I was able to get done this morning without eighty pounds of children hanging off of my body.

* * *

I still remember cutting after I got home from Ryker’s house the night he pushed me. I was suffocating under the fear and guilt that breaking up with him had pushed him over an edge I didn’t realize he was standing so close to. I stormed through our door, and Tosha was startled at my appearance, I’m sure. My butt was dirty and the backs of my legs were scratched from my skid-landing across Ryker’s driveway, and I was sobbing uncontrollably. I didn’t look at her as I headed straight for the bathroom.

Turning on the sink, I readied the blade and started slowly drawing straight lines across my forearms. I hadn’t cut there in a long time, but it was easily accessible and gave the biggest rush. After several minutes of careful marking, my head started to spin as my stomach churned. I didn’t think I’d cut that much, but as soon as I looked at my arms—rivers of red pouring across them—I collapsed to my knees and started heaving into the toilet.

“Natalie?” Tosha started banging on the door as I heaved, and cried, and bled. “Natalie! Open this door or I’m going to have to break it down.”

It was an empty threat, but I unlocked the door anyway. The noise that came from her throat when she walked in is something I’ll never forget. Within seconds, she had me over at the shower, washing my arms in a panic. It turns out I didn’t cut that deep, but there were a lot of cuts that made it look worse than it was.

“Damn it, Natalie, what the f*ck happened?”

I don’t know if she meant at Ryker’s or with me, but I sat on the bathroom floor and she cried with me as I told her absolutely everything.

It wasn’t easy convincing Tosha to leave my parents out of the situation with Ryker at his house, or with my cutting, but I managed to do so. She’d only met my parents a few times, but knew well enough that my mother wouldn’t hesitate to push legal action on Ryker, and probably take me out of school if she knew about the cutting. I promised Tosha I wouldn’t cut anymore—that I’d make it to Thanksgiving Break—and then be able to get my shit together when I went home for a few days.

I’d ignored all calls and texts from Ryker. They were apologetic and self-deprecating. He said how sorry he was, asked if I was hurt, and went on about what a fool he’d been. It was hard ignoring him. I knew he probably was sorry, but I didn’t know how long that would last, and I couldn’t focus on how to construct a safe environment for us to have a conversation with so many papers due before Thanksgiving break.

It had been a few days of silence from Ryker, and the soreness in my tailbone had mostly subsided, when Bill called. My sigh put Tosha on alert.

“Is it him again?”

I shook my head. “It’s Bill.” I closed my notebook and sat cross-legged on my bed.

“Hey, Bill . . .”

Instead of Bill’s voice of assurance, I was met with Ryker’s strung-out voice.

“Natalie.”

No. No. No.

Before I could think of doing anything else, I slammed my flip-phone shut and threw it on the bed.

“What?” Tosha asked, walking toward me.

“That was Ryker, from his dad’s phone. He sounded awful.” I looked to her as my chin started to quiver.

Tosha looked around the room for a minute before picking up her car keys. “Come on, let’s go.”

“What?”

“We’ve got to get out of here. You’ve done nothing but mope around for weeks, and the last few days have been like some episode of “My So-Called Life.” We’ve gotta go drink, and dance, and act like college students for five seconds.”

She was right. Despite my encouraging otherwise, Tosha spent most of her time with me, when she wasn’t with Liz. She said she loved me too much to let me suffer alone.

“Fine, let me change,” I conceded before heading to my closet.

My phone rang with Bill’s number three more times before we agreed to leave our cells in our room and enjoy the night interruption-free.

“We’ll go to Liz’s first to pick her up, I texted her while you were changing.” Tosha and I bounded down the stairs.

“Perfect, let’s go somewhere new.” I smiled at the thought of just going out with friends. I hadn’t done that since Ryker had been home.

As we reached the entryway, I cursed under my breath.

“What?” Tosha stopped with her hand on the door.

“I forgot my damn debit card. I’ll meet you at your car, be right back.” I raced up the stairs, fumbled through my desk and found my card.

Turning to leave my room I was nearly knocked over when I ran right into someone in my doorway.

“Ryker!” I squealed as he stood solid, unmoved by the collision.

I still don’t know how he got into the building, but that doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is that my shock instantly singed into fear as I looked him over. He was pale, sweating, and vacant-looking.

“Natalie, I need you to listen to me . . .” I didn’t smell alcohol on his breath, but something was off. He was swaying like he’d just gotten off a ride at the fair, and he was wearing shorts and a t-shirt despite it being November.

“Are you okay, Ry?” I asked, stepping aside as he entered the room. I turned so my back was to the door, but I could still get out if I needed to.

He shook his head as he plunked down on Tosha’s bed. “I’m sorry if I hurt you the other night.”

“I’m fine, I—”

“No!” he shouted, “It’s not fine! I’m such a f*cking mess, Natalie . . .”

And then, he started to cry. I’d never seen him cry, not even when we went to Lucas’s grave. He shook with frightening force as he dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. Deep breaths leading the way. I walked over and sat down next to him.

“Ry,” I whispered, setting my hand on his shoulder.

He jerked anyway, despite my gentle touch, and an empty prescription bottle fell out of his cargo pocket and landed on the floor. I picked it up before he knew it was missing.

“What’s this?” I rolled the label over and saw they were Oxycontin. The date was recent. “How’d you get these?”

Ryker snatched the bottle from my hand. “Remember? I got shot?” he spewed.

“Yes,” I stood slowly and walked back toward the door, wondering how long it would take Tosha to come check on what was taking me so long, “but you’re done with therapy and that’s a new prescription.”

“It still hurts.” Ryker picked his head up, and I noticed his lips were pale and his pupils looked kind of funny.

“What hurts?” I knew he wasn’t just talking about his shoulder.

“Everything. Luke, you . . .”

“Ryker, when did you pick up that prescription?” I anchored my heels in the doorway, hoping to catch someone as they walked by.

“Huh?” Ryker shook his head as he seemed to try to understand me.

My chest heaved under my erratic breaths. “Ryker, how many of those pills did you take today?”

He chuckled, followed by a low growl, “All of them.” Ryker looked up and must have seen the fear on my face because he leapt to his feet and met me at the door. “Shh,” he whispered, putting his finger to my lips, “you can’t say anything. I’ll get in so much trouble, Nat . . .”

Taking a step back, I scavenged through my brain to remember the quickest way outside, as our room was almost in the middle of the hallway.

I swallowed hard. “Did you take all of them at once?” The realization nearly crushed me.

He nodded, “Mmhmm, and pretty soon I’ll fall asleep, and this will have all just been a bad dream . . .” He stumbled backward for a second and that’s when I made my break for it.

“Help!” I screamed as I ran down the hallway. It didn’t take long for Ryker to chase after me, though his steps were clumsy. I was afraid he was going to drop dead right in the hallway.

“Natalie, stop!” Ryker caught up to me by the time I reached the stairwell. No one had come out of their rooms, and I made a mental note to bitch-slap every single one of them.

“Ryker, I’m going downstairs and I’m calling the police. You swallowed a bottle of pills!”

He grabbed my arm and twisted it so hard that I couldn’t move it if I tried. “Don’t. Don’t do that. I’ll be fine. I’ve been swallowing these like candy for months, they’re useless . . .”

Then, it all became clear. The mood swings, the memory loss, the odd behavior. Not only did he have PTSD, he was also self-medicating with painkillers.

“Ryker, you’ve never taken a whole bottle at once. You’re going to die!” My voice came out in shrieks from a combination of fear and pain.

“If you call the police, Natalie, I’ll be f*cking screwed. Don’t do that to me!” he growled. “What the f*ck is this?” He suddenly focused on my arm, all my cuts bared for him to see.

“Nothing. Ryker, please let go—”

He squeezed harder as he spoke. “Did you do this? Did you do this to yourself?”

Instinct took over and I drove my knee upward into his groin. Instantly, he released my arm and bent over at the waist, a string of curses spilling from his lips. I ran. I made it down a flight and a half of stairs before I heard him trail behind me, and I knew I had to do something. I wasn’t going to make it to a phone in time, so I pulled the nearest fire alarm I came across.

“You bitch!” Ryker yelled as he caught up to me, grabbing me again, ten steps from the main floor.

“Let go of me!” I screamed above the blaring alarm.

“Do you have any idea what you just did?” Ryker was nearly nose-to-nose with me, pulling me back as I was trying to get away. I’ve never been so scared in all my life.

Finally, I tugged hard enough. Too hard. My arm slipped out of Ryker’s sweaty grip with the force of my pull behind it, and I went into a free-fall backward down the stairs. I remember hitting the ground, but I don’t remember if it hurt because I blacked out, only to wake up in the hospital a few hours later.

* * *

“Hey, where’d you go?” Tosha asks as we pull into Atkins’ parking lot.

An involuntary chill spreads over my body. “I was just thinking about the night Ryker almost OD’d. God, that was f*cking scary . . .”

Tosha puts her car in park. “Yeah, that was bad. Interesting, though, that that’s how you refer to that night and not, say, the night you almost busted your skull and I didn’t see you again for like eight months.” She doesn’t seem to know what else to say. What is there, really?

“I don’t love him, Tosha.”

“Who?”

“Eric. I don’t love him and I told him so.” I rest my head against the window.

“What’d he say?”

I shrug. “Nothing.”

She reaches across and places her hand on my knee. “Guess that says more than if he’d fought, huh?”

“Mmhmm.” I nod.

“So what do you want to do?”

I pick up my head and give her a tired chuckle. “Let’s go get some f*cking squash and strawberries.”