It’s a blow to my chest.
Not that I should be surprised, I shouldn’t. That was Ryan’s M.O. Never talk about the things that hurt the most. Ignore it, pretend it doesn’t exist and move on.
But I hate that he’s doing that with me. I hate myself for doing that to him.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, empty static fills the line. I don’t know what else to say, but I’m also not ready to hang up. Alex is my tether to him, the connection between us. Like as long as I have him on the phone, Ryan isn’t all that far away.
“Is he…” I stutter, taking a deep calming breath, I just blurt it out, “is he with someone else?”
Ryan is quiet so long that I can’t help it, I wail. Because the silence is deafening and tells me everything I need to know. It’s a horrible sound, full of hurt and raw agony and I can’t breathe.
“Lili, stop,” he hisses, “he’s not seeing someone else. Look, Ryan’s breathing, okay. But he’s not good.”
I shove a fist in my mouth, hiccupping around the lump in my throat. The relief that floods through me makes my legs weak. But nipping on the heels of that relief are Alex’s words.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he’s getting into fights. A lot of them.”
“He’s beating people up?” I ask, remembering the day I’d seen him brutalize Olivio.
“No,” I can almost picture him shaking his head, “no, I mean he’s antagonizing and picking at guys until they come at him, he just stand’s there, Lili, lets them just kick the shit out of him. Fucking drives me nuts. He laughs with each blow. Guys at the gym think he’s sick, or twisted, or some shit.”
I drop my head. “I didn’t mean to do this to him, I swear, Alex. I just wanted him to tell me, to share with me…”
“I know. Truthfully, I told him to tell you all this months ago.”
“You did?” My mouth goes dry.
“Lili, I’m a just a dude. But I love him, Ryan… he went through shit. Shit that changes a man. I’ll never leave him alone, he’s my responsibility to take care, but I hoped… hoped you were the one to fix him. I think you might have been, if he’d trusted you enough, if he’d just been willing… you know he was going to propose to you that night?”
The words fly at me like bullets, crashing into me, ripping me apart from the inside out. My body goes cold and I blink.
“What?”
“Yeah,” his voice sounds strained, tired, “he bought the ring the day we went shopping.”
Looking back, I remembered his excitement that day. How he’d worshipped my body that night, whispered over and over he loved me, it would be all right. We would be all right.
I had a heart palpitation. Not a hard one, but powerful enough to drive the breath from my lungs. I’d suffered with them my whole life, during times of high stress. When I was pregnant, when Mama got diagnosed, the day Papa left… the night I’d walked out on Ryan.
“Lili, you still there?”
I think I said yes, but I’m really not sure.
“I’m sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have told you that.”
“It’s almost Valentine’s Day,” I whisper, “next week.”
The line goes still, so quiet I thought he’d hung up. “I know.”
“Are you going to another bar?”
“Not if I have anything to say about it. I’m going to put a pad lock on his door.”
“Alex?”
“Yeah?”
I close my eyes, heart still pounding too hard. “If he does something…”
“I’ll call you.”
We hang up then and I stare at the phone like maybe there’s some way to reach inside and yank him out. Pull Ryan back to me.
The digital screen turns black and I throw it to carpet.
Getting up, I walk across the hall, quickly glancing into Javi’s room. His hands are tucked underneath his cheek. Opening Mama’s door, I walk inside.
She doesn’t move, doesn’t even open her eyes. Just lays there and the only color on her is the moon spilling across her frail, thin frame. Ade sits up from her pallet beside Mama, rubbing her eyes.
“Liliana?” she mumbles.
Smiling through the tears, I press a finger to my lips and then crawl into Mama’s bed, and hug her, wrap my arms and legs around her and cry into her dress, staining the mauve cloth. Grabbing her hand, I rub it across my shoulder and pretend it’s her, pretend she’s holding me back, telling me everything will be okay. That in the end, love always conquers all, that I’m not alone… never have been.
Finally, I fall asleep.
***
Ryan
Heading into the kitchen, I grab the kettle and put some water to boil. Alex is staring at me. Just staring, with determined eyes.
I hate that look.
“What?” I snarl and scratch my back. “You’re looking.”
“I’m thinking.”
“About what?” I snap, grabbing a bowl and mug out of the cabinet.
“It’s Valentine’s Day next week,” he finally says.
Pouring my cereal, and grabbing a chamomile bag, I shrug. “So?”
“So what’s the plan?”
Slamming a hand down on the counter-top, I take a deep breath. “Stop trying to always save me, Ryan. I’m going out. Same thing I do every year.”
“Aren’t you tired of this? Sick of it. Look at you, man? Have you even looked at yourself in the mirror for a while? You look like shit, like you’ve gone a hundred rounds and you still don’t quit. Why won’t you stop? Fuck man, I’m exhausted.”
I do look at myself.
All the time.
My face is always swollen and black and blue. It isn’t pretty, but I don’t want to be. I don’t want any other woman to look at me the way she had. I don’t want to feel what I had. I want to be numb, and I am.
During the day.
Nights are another matter.
My dreams are a frightening amalgam of Valentine’s Day mixed in with Christmas. His eyes in her face.
“I’m not gonna off myself, okay. So just chill. I’m done playing the martyr. I’m done caring, this is my life, I’ve accepted it, why can’t you?” I stalk to the opposite end of the table and dump my bowl on it, not caring that most of the food winds up on the table instead.
“Because I love you, man.” Alex shakes his head with a look of sheer exasperation on it.
Digging into the dregs of my oatmeal, I snort. “Then stop. Loving me is a cancer. Haven’t you learned that by now?”
“Have you talked to anyone?”
Lifting a brow, I shovel a spoonful into my mouth. “Yeah, I talk to the heavy bag, and my training partner’s face.”
“I’m serious!” He slams his fist on the table. “I told myself the day you left, the day you went away, that if you ever came back I’d stick by your side. I’d do whatever it took to make you human again, whole again, and I meant it. I still do.”
Rolling my eyes, I swallow my tea. “Shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep. You can’t fix someone that doesn’t want to be fixed, Lili, learned that. She left.”
First time I’ve talked about her since that night, it was still hard to think about. I missed her every day, craved her touch like a junkie with his hit. But she isn’t coming back.
“Maybe take a page out of her book, better for everyone that way.”
“She called last night.”
The spoon hovers over my lips as I swallow hard. She called? Him? Her voice was in this house?
My lashes flutter.
“What did she say?” I ask, glad I sound calm.
Drumming his fingers on the table, his look is hard, cold. “She asked me about you. She still loves you, man.”
“She told you that?” I hate that my words sound so rushed and breathless, that hope stirs. Sitting the spoon down, I clamp my jaw together, forcing myself to breathe in and out.
“She doesn’t have to. I hear it all over her voice. She was crying man, a wreck.” He closes his eyes.
“What did you tell her, Alex?” My voice goes dangerously low as adrenaline buzzes hot and liquid through my brain.
“The truth,” he glowers, “that you’ve turned into a dick and I can barely stand you.”
I can’t help chuckling, he’s right, I keep hoping that maybe he’ll get a clue. But the sick bastard refuses to leave.
I wanted to ask more, everything, for him to give me a play by play, in graphic detail. What her voice sounded like, what her questions were. But she’d called him, not me.
I would have picked up, I would have talked, I would have… Squeezing my eyes shut, I get up and walk the bowl to the sink. “I’m going to the gym.”
“Fine, what the hell? You go do that, tell the next guy to take out your tongue this time. Or maybe,” he pops his knuckles, “you’d like to just throw down here, let me kick your ass for once. It’d be real satisfying.”
Flicking the peace sign at him, I walk to the door, grab my keys and bag and slam the door shut behind me.
I’m so ready to just run back to her, ready to beg her forgiveness to tell her anything she wants, and it makes me sick.
Because I know Alex is lying.
Know he’s baiting me, trying to get me to think there’s hope when there isn’t any. Lili had always been honest with me, if she’d really wanted me back, she’d have called me. She’d have told me.
So I go to the gym, and I drown her out. I fight until I can’t stand anymore, can’t think, can’t see her smiling face haunting my dreams.
Chapter 27
Liliana
It’s Valentine’s Day and I’m sitting in a bar. The Pink Lady, in the same booth I’d first met him, I’m watching
Asia
dance, swish her hips around and making all the men fall for her, but all I can do is blink and wonder.
Where is he?
I knew it was a long shot that he’d return to this bar.
Monique comes up to me, sliding into the seat beside me. Her brown eyes are quick to take in my appearance.
“You look like hell.”
I snort. “I feel like hell.”
“You want another drink?” She touches my empty glass of scotch.
I’d needed something hard tonight. I just hadn’t wanted to think too much. Hadn’t wanted to remember too clearly what I’d seen, the things I’d done. But I’d needed him so bad, needed to feel his presence and I’d hoped when I walked inside, it would all come back.
But it hadn’t.
Because nothing was the same anymore. This was just a place, full of people I don’t know, with a woman dancing on the stage and it’s all wrong. I could have called Alex, found out where he was going, made sure to follow, keep my distance. Anything to just catch a glimpse, but it’d seemed beyond pathetic and I was no stalker.
Besides, I was the one that’d walked away, not him.
“No,” I shake my head and point with the knife in my hand at the half eaten strip steak on my plate, “I’m good.”
“You sure? Because, girl, you look hella bad.” Her lips purse into a straight line, hugging me, she wiggles out of the booth. “You just let me know if you need anything, okay?”
“Yeah.” I don’t look back at her.
***
Ryan
“No, you’re not coming with me.” I shake my head at Alex who’s glowering behind me in the mirror. “I told you, I’m going out by myself tonight. You’re right, Alex, I’m done dragging everybody into my shit hole. I’m dealing with this on my own terms, you got it?”
Yanking his ball cap off his head, he snarls, exposing his teeth. “You can’t do this, man. You can’t just go. It’s not good, not right--”