He nodded, his jaw tight. “You think I’m trying to take over?”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to do, Ryan, but whatever it is, don’t. I don’t need you coming here and thinking you have to take care of me because Jake died. Don’t think that you owe it to him.”
Ryan’s eyes flashed angrily at her words. “That’s not why I’m here.”
“Then why are you here?” she shouted.
A beat of silence passed as his eyes locked on hers.
He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
Fin’s heart tugged painfully. “I don’t need you, Ryan,” she said wearily. “And I don’t want you here. You should leave.”
He stood there, clenching and unclenching his fists. “You want me to leave?”
Damn you, Ryan. I’d take you, Army and all, even knowing you might not come back just like Jake, but you won’t let me have you, so yes, I want you to leave.
But she didn’t say any of that. She couldn’t choke the words out. Instead, she nodded wordlessly.
He turned around and strode back out the door, slamming it hard behind him. She flinched, and soon after Fin heard the deep rumble of his car start up. Eventually the noise faded, replaced with a silence that had her ears ringing and the red haze of anger lifting.
What did she just do?
Stupid girl!
She rushed to her room, scrambling for her phone on the bedside table. With frantic fingers, she fumbled over the keypad until she found Ryan’s name. As the phone rang, she started pacing, one hand pressed to her forehead.
It rang endlessly until his voicemail answered.
Dialling, she tried again.
“No,” she whispered, her stomach rolling when it rang out again.
The beep came through loud and clear to leave a message.
“Ryan? I didn’t mean it,” she choked out. “I’m sorry.” She sank to the floor. “I don’t know why I’m so angry. Please come back,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’m sorry.”
She sat on the couch in the living room all day long, but he never returned her call, and he didn’t come back.
Rachael dragged Fin out of the dressing room and stood her before the mirror. Fin swept her eyes over her reflection as techno music pounded heavily through the store. The short gold skirt, the slinky black top cut so low there was no way a bra could be worn—it wasn’t her.
“It’s not me,” she announced, tugging the top up to cover a bit more of her chest.
Rachael tweaked it so it fell back down and looked at her in the mirror. “Stop fussing with it. Double sided tape will hold it in place. And exactly. It’s not you. That’s the point. You’re living in a bubble of grief. Tonight you can be someone else. You need that, Fin.”
She needed Ryan. Nothing else. Just him, but two weeks and she’d heard nothing. It didn’t surprise her. He’d told her he’d always wanted her, that he would never stop wanting her, and the next morning she’d thrown it in his face because for one blinding moment she thought he was there as an obligation to Jake, and it had hurt. Who could blame him for staying away?
“I’m not sure I can go out tonight, Rach.”
Rachael stood in front of Fin, blocking her view of the flimsy outfit as she took hold of her hands. “Jake would be furious with you right now,” she said with tears filling her eyes. Blinking them away, she straightened her shoulders. “I’m furious with you right now. This is not living, Fin. You’re just existing inside a vacuum and you can’t go on like this forever.”
“Yes I can.”
Rachael let go of her hands and fussed with the gold skirt. “No. You can’t.”
Frowning, Fin batted her hands away and tugged the skirt down. She sighed when her hipbones came into view. “Send out a search party, Rach. The rest of the skirt is missing.”
Rachael folded her arms in reply.
“Fine.” She threw up her hands. “Whatever.” Shifting backwards, she sat down on the little button leather couch in the dressing room area. “I have all this anger inside me and it keeps spewing out everywhere. I keep hurting people with it.”
Rachael paused and looked at her. “You mean you hurt Ryan with it.”
“Ryan’s hurting enough as it is. He was the one that was there. He was the one that saw… th-that saw…” Her fists clenched. “Fuck.”
Standing up, Fin strode back to the dressing room, shut the door, and took the clothes off. In just her underwear, she eyed her body critically. She’d always been slender like her mother, but her bones were sharp now, and prominent. Ryan was right. She needed to eat. Jake would hate seeing her this way.
“Fin?” A light tap came at the door as Fin held her jeans out, ready to slip them back on. “Are you okay? You know it’s okay to be angry. You have to let it all out.”
Her hands went slack as she slumped against the dressing room wall. “I know.”
“You’re angry because you know he’s going back, and that scares you. You and Ryan—you’re both like one half of each other. Neither of you will ever really be complete without the other.”