In the Stillness

CHAPTER 39



“I really thought you were attempting suicide.” I swallow a huge amount of wine as I finish what I remember from that night. “You were so pale, and sweaty, and your eyes—they were just blue, your pupils were so constricted. I pulled that fire alarm because I knew, even if we made it to the front of my dorm, I was going to have a battle on my hands to get you to the hospital.”

“And you were scared of what I might do to you.” Ryker leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and looks me straight in the eyes. This isn’t a question. Still, I falter. “Come on, Nat . . .”

He needs me to be honest.

“Yeah, I was scared.” This time, I can’t look away from him.

“Do you remember falling?” Tosha asks.

“I do.” Answering Tosha’s question, I keep looking at Ryker. “I remember you’d grabbed my wrist again, pissed that I’d pulled the fire alarm. You looked angry . . . and scared. Your palms were all sweaty and I pulled back really hard, trying to get away and just slipped right out of your hold. I remember thinking, shit, as I was falling, but that’s the last thing.”

“Okay,” Ryker turns to Tosha without missing a beat, “what happened next?”

On cue, Tosha lights a cigarette and looks out into the tree line.

“When the girls were coming out after the fire alarm was pulled, they told me Natalie was passed out on the stairs, and her boyfriend was screaming at her to get up. They kept saying he pushed her, he pushed her. So, I ran in.” Far be it from Tosha to be afraid to take on Ryker. “I reached the main doors at the same time you did, Ryker. You were holding Nat like this,” she pauses to hold out her arms, indicating the fireman-like hold, “and her limbs and head were completely limp. I thought you’d killed her . . . I really did. Then you started screaming at everyone to get out of the way.” Tosha’s nose turns bright red as she begins wiping tears away from her face.

I chance a glance at Ryker, whose head is down and eyes are tightly closed. Tosha looks at me as she starts speaking again. “I’ve never told you this part, Nat . . .”

Oh, good . . .

“What?”

Tosha holds out her pack of cigarettes, and I take one. Ryker silently snatches one as the pack drifts by his face. Liz looks thoroughly uncomfortable sitting next to Tosha—like she’s peeking through a church window—but she doesn’t say a word. After we’re all sufficiently prepared, Tosha resumes.

“There was pure horror in your voice, Ryker. I’d never heard anything like it in my life, and never want to again. You kept putting your cheek near her mouth, checking to see if she was breathing.” I’ve never seen Tosha this shaken up before, and it’s hard to watch. “The campus police and the fire department were already there, but the ambulance was just pulling up when you got over to the grass. “

Ryker takes a long drag. He looks a little uncomfortable about it, which tells me he doesn’t usually smoke. “Then what’d I do?” he asks on his exhale.

“By then I could tell you were out of it. You looked awful. I knew from what Natalie had been telling me that you weren’t doing well. You laid her on the grass as the EMTs were running over, and just kept screaming, Nat, wake up, please, please wake up. Jesus.” Tosha wipes more tears away and leans back. “As soon as you set her down, I saw blood all over your arm from where her head had been resting. You saw it, too . . . You just started screaming, No! No! over and over again until they got her loaded in the ambulance. You were banging on the door of the ambulance, begging to be let in and saying how sorry you were. I assumed you’d pushed her because you kept saying sorry.”

Locked on Tosha’s face, I’m startled to feel Ryker’s hand on mine. Looking at my hand, I see it’s in a tight fist, and I finally feel my nails digging into my palm. As I open it, Ryker interlaces his fingers with mine and rubs his thumb along my knuckles.

“You fought with the cops for a long time—you were screaming that you tried, and you were sorry . . . I have no idea what the hell you were talking about . . . it took three of them to wrestle you to the ground. When they tried to usher the students away, I told them I was your friend and Natalie’s roommate and I needed to get to the hospital. I rode in the cruiser that followed your ambulance. They called it once they got you to the ground and you started throwing up . . .” Tosha sits back and lights another cigarette, signaling the end of her story.

Ryker releases my hand and runs his over his head a few times before standing up. He walks over to the edge of the patio and stands, silently. Liz wraps her arm around Tosha, kissing her softly on the forehead before taking her hand.

“Thank you, Tosha,” Ryker says, without turning around.

“Yeah,” I clear my throat to stop the ever-present tears, “thanks.”

A minute of heavy silence later, I know what I need to do. I look to Tosha and Liz.

“Can you guys, um . . . I want to talk to Ryker for a while.”

Tosha stands. “Will you guys be okay?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Ryker nod once—his back still to us—as I reply, “Yes.”

We make our way inside, leaving Ryker to think, or breathe, or whatever it is he’s doing.

“Thanks for telling us, Tosh.” I pull her into a hug.

“Of course. You sure you’re okay?” She’s still wiping tears from her eyes, concerned for me.

“I am.”

Ryker walks through the sliding door and right over to Tosha, where he hugs her tightly. She’s so petite, and he’s so tall and broad, the sight makes me grin. Liz grins, too.

“Thank you, Tosha. It helped hearing it. I never knew more than what the cops told me, and they just said I ran out with her and yelled at everyone.” He shakes his head. “Anyway, thank you.”

Closing the door once they leave, I turn to find Ryker standing right behind me, with his hands in his pockets. Without thinking, I wrap my arms around his neck and bury my face into his chest, and begin to cry a little. A second later, I feel his chest shaking under his own cries as he squeezes me back.

“Did she fill in the blanks for you?” I pull away and walk to the couch. I still don’t know why he needed the details.

He nods, sitting next to me.

“You said you know it wasn’t just because of the drugs that you didn’t remember,” I prompt.

“After our session with your therapist, I called mine. For ten years I’ve been trying to remember, on my own, what happened that night and . . . I just can’t. My shrink said, based on parts of the story I knew from the reports, that it was likely a casualty of my PTSD. It was a high-risk, high-intensity situation and I just reacted, and my brain flushed the memory away.”

It dawns on me ten years too late.

“Is this about Lucas?” My blink is a beat longer than usual, as I take a nervous breath.

“I tried, Natalie. I tried to save him, and I couldn’t,” Ryker begins without preparation. He sounds shocked, like it’s just happened. I guess it must feel like that most days.

I don’t know if I’m prepared for this. Ten years ago, all I wanted was for Ryker to talk to me about Lucas, and he never would. Now, it’s clear I won’t be able to stop him even if I wanted to.

“What happened?”

He turns toward me, barely able to look me in the eyes. “What do you know?”

“Just what your mom told me over the phone.” I shrug. “That his Humvee was blown up, you pulled him out, then got shot.”

Ryker nods for a second. “His vehicle was right in front of mine. I didn’t know at the time if it was shot at, or if it was a roadside bomb . . . but it was in flames in a second. I was in the second of four Humvees. It was so loud, Natalie . . . all the guys started hollering, and shooting, and all I could think of was shooting my way to Lucas. That was my first thought— get us out of here. I thought about his family, my mom, my dad, and you. Jesus, I was so scared.”

Wrapping my arms around my waist, I groan a little. It feels like I’ll never stop crying at this point.

“I did, Natalie, I saw your face, and heard your laugh, and . . . I ran for Lucas. He was on the ground, screaming, when I got to his Humvee. The fire was spreading so I dragged him a few feet away before trying to treat him. I didn’t see his injuries right away, but I felt blood pouring down my arms.”

I think I might be sick, but Ryker stays in the story.

“I knew no matter where it was coming from, it was bad. There was just a lot of it. I kept telling him it was going to be okay and I’d get him help. He yelled at me to go get the other guys.” Ryker’s voice pinches, “He knew . . .” Ryker stands and laces his fingers behind his head.

“When did you get shot?” I have no idea why I’m asking questions.

“About a second after I told Luke I wasn’t going to leave him. I think I might have screamed once, but I kept just trying to stabilize him. My back hurt like hell. I didn’t know where exactly I got shot, or how much blood I was losing, so I worked as fast as I could. When the medic got over to us, I looked down at Luke and said, he’s here, man.” Ryker sits back down on the couch and buries his face in his hands. “He was gone, Nat. Just like that, in my arms in the middle of f*cking nowhere, he was gone.”

Disregarding old instincts that would tell me to keep my distance, I slide over to Ryker and rest my head on his shoulder. He puts his arm around me, drawing me closer.

“I was yelling his name and . . . there was just so much blood everywhere, Natalie. I honestly forgot that I’d been shot until I started to get dizzy, and one of the medics behind me spotted the wound. He just . . . died. My best f*cking friend, who wanted nothing more than to be a lifelong soldier, died, and I couldn’t stop it. That’s why I lost it the way I did that night in your dorm. I know it is. God, I must have been a sight.”

“I’m so sorry, Ryker,” I wail, causing both of us to lean back into the couch and give in.

All it takes is a second for me to really get why Ryker felt like he wanted to reenlist, why he never wanted to talk about Lucas, and what a complete bastard PTSD is.

“It’s okay, Nat,” Ryker whispers into my hair, “I just . . . I know how I must have looked and sounded that night in the field with Luke and . . . if you saw even a piece of that from me, ever . . . I’m sorry.”

“It’s over now, Ryker.” I pull my tear-streaked face from his shoulder and place my hands on his cheeks.

He wraps his hands gently around my wrist and locks his blue eyes with mine. Eyes that have seen more darkness than I ever wanted to admit existed in the world. “That’s the thing, Natalie . . . it’s never really over.”

“You’re right,” I sigh, sliding my hands down his face to his shoulders, “it never really is.”

We’ve run out of words and tears as I turn to the side, resting my head on Ryker’s chest as he leans back on the arm of my couch. He’s in no apparent rush to leave, and I don’t want him to. Not yet.