In the Stillness

CHAPTER 32



“Is he always that confrontational with you?” Ryker watches as I dry my tears. He let me cry for a good half-hour, leading me over to the couch after a few minutes and letting me cry all over his clothes.

“No,” I shake my head, “but I’ve never caught him cheating or left him before. Thanks for not punching him,” I snicker, staring at my skirt, “I don’t mean to imply that you wanted to, but—”

“Oh, I wanted to,” he chuckles as he stretches his arms across the back of the couch, “I wanted to tear his goddamn throat out, to be honest. But, that wouldn’t have really helped either one of us, now would it?” He smiles that sexy, confident smile that lured me to him on the Amherst common twelve years ago.

I can’t believe I don’t feel like cutting right now. I know I’m going to want to, probably as soon as he leaves, but I don’t want to right now. Maybe that’s why I’m not ready for him to go just yet; I don’t want to want to cut. I just know that it’s going to be there, waiting like a rusted-out truck sitting at the end of someone’s driveway.

“It was an accident,” I start without his prompting. “My last year of grad school and I get f*cking pregnant . . .”

Ryker gets up and walks to the fridge, grabs two beers, and sits back down, handing me one.

“Thanks,” I laugh. “Anyway, yeah . . . just imagine for a moment, if you will, the look on my mother’s face.” He laughs a little, and so do I. “I wanted an abortion. Immediately.”

Ryker picks at his beer label then looks at me. “You did?”

“I did. It wasn’t really even a thought to do anything else. Eric lost his shit, though. Not in the way you witnessed this evening . . . just . . .” I swallow hard.

“It’s okay, Nat.”

“Max and Oliver are their names. They’ll be five next month and are starting kindergarten in the fall.” After a few seconds of silence, I move on. “I was going to leave him, before the affair . . . Tosha has told me forever that I could stay here.”

Ryker sets his beer on the coffee table. “She doesn’t like him?”

“No. Never really has. Thinks he’s pretentious.” That makes Ryker laugh.

I spend the next few minutes telling Ryker about Eric’s borderline insistence that we get married before the babies were born, and my concession for everyone’s sake but my own. He looks extra uncomfortable during the discussion about me leaving my Ph.D. program, because he’s a human being and knows how hard it was for me to do that.

“I honestly could probably move on from the affair, if that was all it was. That’s a lie,” I admit in the next breath. “Anyway, my resentment and pure contempt for him and everything he represents runs so deep, there’s just no recovering. The affair just . . .”

“Compounds it,” Ryker finishes, looking down at the table.

“Yeah. And with Ollie going deaf, I—”

“What?”

“Oh,” I sigh, “I didn’t get there yet, I guess. He has a degenerative nerve thing that’s going to make him deaf, slowly. We found out about that like two weeks ago.”

“Shit, Nat . . . I’m so sorry.” Ryker holds out his hand and I tuck mine into his. After a quick squeeze, we separate them.

I explain to Ryker all I know about Oliver’s condition and our plans for him to go to the Clarke School.

“Anyway, to actually answer your question from a few hours ago, I started cutting again a few weeks ago. I was just in this pressure cooker. I thought about the first time I’d cut, then started thinking about you for the first time in a long time . . . and everything with Eric . . .” Needing to change the subject, I shift and look at him in the eyes. “So, why’d you stay in Wyoming for so long?”

Ryker lets out a huge breath, puffing out both his cheeks. “Well, I did well for a while. I made it through probation and through seeing you at your graduation without any major f*ck-ups.” He squirms a little and moves to put his elbows on his thighs. “Then, I slipped back into painkillers.” My heart hurts as I watch his face pinch at the memory. “The alcohol hadn’t really ever stopped, I just got good at controlling it when I needed to. I’d been working at an adventure camp that my sister started when she got back from Africa, and couldn’t drink while the kids were there. But I made sure to make up for it during the down times.”

“Did you get arrested again?” I ask, praying for a “no.”

“No, luckily. It got really bad, though, Nat. I lost a shitload of weight, slept or drank whenever I wasn’t working. I’m f*ckin’ lucky I didn’t kill myself or someone else.” He picks at his thumbnail as he talks.

“Wait, back up a minute. Did you ever even try to reenlist after your drunk driving arrest?”

He laughs sarcastically. “I was f*cked up, Nat, not stupid. Somehow I pulled it together to leave well enough alone. My discharge status was fine, I don’t know if I could have screwed it up by causing a scene, but that’s all I would have accomplished—a scene. I struggled with that the most, after the arrest. I felt like I’d let Luke down.”

Here it is, the first time we’re talking about Lucas.

“You know that’s not true.” I rub my hand on his knee for a second before pulling it away.

“I know that now.” His gorgeous blue eyes travel somewhere else, somewhere I’m not sure I’m ready to go. “Anyway,” he continues, “my mom found out about the pills and gave me an ultimatum. She said she’d kick me out if I didn’t go to rehab. And, Wyoming’s not really a place you want to wander around alone. Outside of the Park, it’s an incredibly depressing place with nothing going on.”

“So you went to rehab?”

“Yep. Outpatient. I got to deal with all kinds of fun things, like guilt, anger, my PTSD . . .”

“Ah, yes,” sighing, I kick my heels up and rest them on the coffee table, “good ‘ole PTSD.” It’s incredibly absurd that we’re talking about PTSD like it’s a great-uncle we haven’t seen in a while, but . . . whatever.

“I’m sorry, Natalie—”

Putting my hand up, I stop him. “Don’t, it’s fine. It wasn’t your fault—”

“I have to tell you, let me finish,” he cuts in. “I’ve waited a long time to tell you how sorry I am. I know most of it was the PTSD screwing up my brain, but, you deserved better, Nat.” I reach for his hand as he continues. “You deserved to have me telling you the truth when I told you I was getting help. You deserved someone who was willing to get better for you, someone who wasn’t going to push you around . . .” He hangs his head in apparent defeat. From the inside.

“Ryker,” I breathe, rubbing his back softly. It’s the first time I’ve seen what long-time guilt looks like from the outside, while it tears up someone’s insides.

“Thank you for staying with me as long as you did.” He reaches for my hand, interlacing his fingers with mine, still looking down.

Something like a chirp escapes my throat as I nod, tears pouring down my face.

Seriously, how much can one person cry in their lifetime?

“Also, thank you for pulling the fire alarm that night. It saved us both.” When his blue eyes, ones I once called my own, reach mine, I can’t take it anymore.

Instantly I release his hand and stand, pacing behind the couch with my hands knotted through my hair, trying to fight off a panic attack. Ryker’s brow furrows for a second before he heads to the kitchen and fills a glass with water, handing it to me calmly.

“Thanks.”

“It’s okay, Natalie. We’re not back there . . .” His eyes scroll across my face.

“I am. I have been. I never f*cking left.” Pressing my palm into my forehead, I continue, “I need to get help, I can’t do this anymore. My boys need someone stronger than whatever this is . . .”

Ryker’s eyes close as relief seems to calm his face. Without hesitation, he reaches his hands up and touches my face. “You are strong, Natalie. After everything I already knew, and what you’ve told me tonight, you’re f*cking amazing. But, you’re right, you do need help. We all do sometimes.”

It feels so good to have said it out loud—that I need help. I run my thumb over Ryker’s hand as he drops them from my face. “Thank you. Shit,” I say, looking at the clock, “it’s nearly midnight. I’m sorry I’ve kept you here for so long.”

“Are you going to be okay if I go?” He runs his hands down my shoulders on purpose. He wants to make sure I’m not going to cut myself all night.

“I am.” I believe my own words for the first time in years.

Ryker walks over to the counter, where my cell phone and our cold pizza sit. “Here’s my number,” he says as he taps it into my phone, “please, any time . . .”

I nod as I hear his phone ring.

“I have yours, now, too,” he smiles playfully.

“Great. Thanks for the last two nights, Ryker. I’ve got a busy week ahead of me, what with settling help for my son and, now, me.” When I laugh this time, I catch his eyes, and he smiles back.

“You’ll be good. I know you.” With a shoulder squeeze, he’s heading to the door.

“Thanks again, Ry.” I follow him, opening the door.

“Thank you, Nat.” A suspended moment of uncertainty vanishes as he presses his soft lips to my forehead. My scalp tingles when he pulls away. “Goodnight.”

“Night,” I whisper as he heads down the stairs, hands in his pockets.

I don’t know if we’ll ever scroll to each other’s names to call each other, but I know one thing. I don’t want to cut right now. That has to be a good start.