“Hey,” I say, and get some water to boiling for my tea and oatmeal. “You coming tonight?”
All I get in response is a non-committal grunt.
Whatever.
Turning around I grab a spoon and bowl out of the drawer.
“You still doing it tonight?”
Licking my lips, I roll my shoulders. “Told you I was.”
“Yeah.” Standing, he scrapes the chair across the floor and dumps his cereal into the sink, then leaves without saying another word.
The kettle whistles before I move. Ripping the oatmeal package open, I dump it into my bowl and pour water over it. Taking my tea and oatmeal to the table I sit in silence, chewing, swallowing, chewing, swallowing.
A bad feeling lingers in the back of my throat, tickling like fingers with claws.
At this point I know she knows, know she’s pieced the pieces of the puzzle together. So why do I have to verbally tell her? What’s the difference?
Chew.
Swallow.
But her eyes, they don’t look at me the same. My gut clenches. I don’t want to tell her. Don’t want to confess every single gory, detail.
But the nights are getting worse.
As if my brain and body are telling me, forcing me to choose. I’m hitting a crossroads, an intersection with two arrows pointing in opposite direction.
Salvation.
And Death.
Swishing the tea around my mouth before swallowing, I get up, place my dishes into the sink and grabbing my bag, head to the arena.
Tonight my life is going to change.
I’m going to win, put that money toward a down payment for a house. It won’t be a huge amount, but enough to take care of her and Javi.
Walking to the car, I get in and drive off, pressing my foot on the gas, trying in vain to outrun the fear taunting through my ears that I’ve made the wrong choice.
Stopping at a red light, I suddenly know.
I am wrong.
Alex is right.
Lili does have to know and I will tell her. After we marry, once I’ve got the ring on her and know she won’t leave. I’ll tell her, I’ll tell her everything then. Every dirty, shameful secret, I’ll trust her with my life and soul, but not until she says ‘I do’.
Chapter 25
Liliana
The crowd is amped, the smell of sweat and beer fills the stands. Music pulses and throbs through the amphitheater, in the center a ring shields the fighters. This must be what a Gladiator match looked like. Men dressed in barely anything, muscles bulging as they move and prowl, looking for the perfect opportunity, that split second to strike and end it all.
I chew on the corner of my lip. Ryan is going to be the next fight.
He’d been fidgety before the fight, hopping around on his toes, trying to keep his body warm. His trainer had been there, eyeing me with a look that clearly said I didn’t belong in the waiting room.
But he’d asked me to come back, so I’d come.
Taking a quick water break, he’d taken me outside and hugged me. So hard I’d felt my bones rub.
“I love you, Lili. No matter what,” he’d said and I think somewhere in his heart he knows what I’m feeling.
Or at least he senses it.
Tonight is it.
There’s a choice to be made.
I can’t lie to myself anymore. I’ve tried, tried to pretend that night didn’t happen. But as the days roll by and I see that he has zero intentions of telling me what’s going on, I realize this is all it’s ever going to be for us-- me worrying to death, him shutting me out. And there’s just too much on my plate to deal with that anymore.
My mom is dying, my world’s already splintering, I can’t take anymore secrets or lies, or whatever the hell he’s doing. I just can’t. He either tells me everything, or I’m walking and that was the hardest decision I’ve ever made in my life.
Watching my dad leave had been so much easier. I hadn’t needed him to survive. But I need Ryan, he’s in under my skin, in my soul. I’ll never be okay again. Ryan is my world, my life and my heart, but I’m not going to just stand around and watch the man I love kill himself slowly either.
Suddenly music I recognize slips through the thoughts in my head. Silver Springs comes on haunting and melodic through the speakers, filling the arena.
Ryan walks out a side tunnel with a black robe on and a towel over his head.
I smile through the pain.
No, I’ll never be the same.
Getting up to the cage, he starts hopping around, eyes scanning the crowd and I know he’s looking for me.
But before he spots me, different music takes over the speakers and his opponent comes out, waving around a Mexican flag. Mariachi music blares annoyingly loud.
Beside me, someone high fives and starts chanting Ryan’s name.
My heart swells, filled with so much love I feel like it’s breaking me. Ripping me in two, turning me into pieces, fragments of someone I don’t recognize anymore.
“In the far corner…” the announcer roars, stirring up the crowd, screams and high pitched yelps buzz through my ears.
I don’t tear my eyes from him.
He’s so beautiful and he’s smiling and I have a feeling that tonight I’m going to strip that look from his eyes forever.
Am I making the right decision?
The pain in my heart says no, but when I think of Javi living with a man who tucks himself into a ball in the bathroom, throwing up and trembling under a shower spray for hours… I don’t want my baby to ever witness that.
I could help Ryan, I know I can.
But only if he’ll let me.
Clasping my hands together, I pray throughout the fight. “Please let me help, please, Ryan, please…”
Ryan wins with a quick uppercut in the second round, knocking his opponent to the ground with a dazed and confused look.
He pumps his fists as he runs around the ring, again looking through the crowd. His left cheek is bruised an awful purplish color, a crack split’s his lip, but to me he’s never looked more gorgeous.
The announcer goes up to him and presents him the mic, all he says is, “This was for you, Lili. I love you, baby.”
Somehow, through the stupor and tears, I find my way to his waiting room. I’d waited for the crowd to start thinning, waited until I knew his trainer and most of the staff would be shuffling off, until I knew it would be just he and I.
His name is written on a piece of paper, tapped to the door. I run my fingers along it, tracing each bold, black letter, working up the nerve to knock.
But like I’ve done him so many times, the door flies open. He’s gripping a corner of his glove between his teeth, head down while he ties a knot in the strings at his pants.
“Lili,” he smiles, the one that melts me, makes me forget so much.
Snatching the gloves out of his mouth, he yanks me inside and swings the door closed, molding his body tight to mine. A hot shiver skates down my spine at the heated look he’s giving me. His lip curls, exposing the dimple I never can stop myself from tracing.
My fingers shake.
“Did you see me, baby? I felt invincible tonight, on top of it.” He pecks my nose and then steps back to finish stowing away his gear.
I don’t move from where he’d pinned me, heart fluttering as the phantom sensation of his body still impresses itself upon my own.
“He was fast though, damn I saw stars when he nailed me at the end of round one. But…” he continues to chatter.
His hair is freshly washed, the muscles in his back rippling as he grabs and stuffs. He smells so good. Like woodsy cologne and shampoo, a combination uniquely his, one that teases my senses, makes me crazy.
I love this man.
Maybe I shouldn’t do this. Maybe he is getting better and I just have to wait a few more months.
Maybe…
He turns on his heel, one look at my face and he stops everything, standing slowly, head cocking and I bite my lip. If he’d only waited to look back another minute, I would have been able to smile, would have been able to clear the questions from my face. But he didn’t give me another minute.
“Lili? What’s going on? Is it Mama?”
My jaw trembles. “No.”
Eyes narrowing. “Javi?”
“No,” the word drops like a cannon ball, filling every inch of the locker room.
Blue eyes frantically search mine, and I spot the exact moment the truth dawns on him. His eyes get hooded; a dead look crosses his face, and then a tight swallow.
He’s so still. Not blinking, not twitching, as if the life has already slipped out of him and I let the tears come.
“I didn’t come here to break up with you,” I start.
Jaw clenching, he says, “Then what did you come here to do?”
I want to take it all back, want to restart this, knock on the door, hug him and tell him how awesome he’d done. How much I adore him, how proud I am… but it’s too late and now everything I’ve bottled up for months comes pouring out like a break in a dam running out of control.
“I need to know, Ryan. The truth.”
Nostrils flaring, he turns and walks to the table he’d sat on before the show as the trainers had worked his muscles loose, gripping it so tight the metal whines.
“Liliana, I love you. Why isn’t that enough? Why do you need to know this? Can’t you just accept me, and leave all that shit alone?”
Wiping my arm roughly across my face, I shake my head. “I could, yes, if it stayed away. If it didn’t touch our lives, but it is, Ryan. I can’t do this anymore.”
He twirls. “What the hell does that mean?”
Touching the tip of my finger between my brows, I press down hard, trying to figure out how to do this. How to not to devastate someone I love with the words I’m about to speak.
“It means, I need to know everything. I need to know, it’s the only way I can help you. What is going on with you, baby?”
Breath sawing through him, he starts pacing. “Why are you doing this, Lili? Why here? Why now?”
Why am I doing this? Because I love him so much it’s physically killing me. Because I can’t just stand by anymore and watch this happen, because if he doesn’t trust me enough to share his pain, than this relationship can never go further than it is right now.
“Because I need all of you. The Good, the bad, and the ugly. I need it.” I pound my fist, barely seeing him through the heavy fall of tears staining my cheeks. “Because I love you. I freaking love you, Ryan, and I can’t deal with what I saw the other night. Do you have any idea the thoughts that are floating in my head? The truth can’t be worse than that.”
Nostrils flaring, fists clenching, he marches to the large metal lockers at the back of the room and rearing back, throws a haymaker at it-- putting a huge dent in its face.
I jump, and cover my mouth.
I know he won’t hurt me, would never turn that on me, but it doesn’t mean it makes this any easier.
He twirls, and his face scrunches into an awful mask of fury, pain, and held back tears. “Don’t do this to me, Lili. To us, please…”
Soundless sobs shake my chest, heat fills my nose as the snot starts to run freely. I’m an awful mess. “Ryan, I love you,” my voice cracks. “I need you so bad. I want you, don’t you understand, I just want to know you trust me. That you can share it with me, because all the what ifs are haunting me.”
Grabbing fistfuls of hair, he yanks. “Haunting you? You! Do you have any fucking idea how hard I work each and every damn day to keep this away from you? I don’t want you to see this, Lili. I never did, I don’t want you to know what a nasty piece of shit I really am. Because if you know, you will leave.”