by Bourne, Lena
I shrug. “That kinda information is way over my head. I’m just the errand boy, but Butch will probably take you along tomorrow, so you’ll find out sooner than me.”
“You won’t be there?”
“I doubt it,” I say and mount my bike. He pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, takes one out and puts it in his mouth. I watch it happen as though in slow motion, because this is my cue and I know it. Blood or loyalty? I gotta decide right now.
Why the fuck do I always get stuck with these big fucking decisions that I’m not even remotely fit to be making? I always go for the most dare-devil option and predictably, it rarely works out well.
All I wanted was a peaceful life of freedom on the road with Julie. She’s always been able to temper my worst impulses, just like I’m the only one who can show her what an adventure life actually is. We make such a perfect team. She’d know exactly what I should do right now.
But the bad choices I made have led me to where I have to ignore her. And also to being stuck in the middle of three MCs with a gun aimed at my head.
My brother’s having a hard time finding his lighter, which I suppose is another sign from the universe. That’s kinda what my decision making process has come down to—signs from the universe, or God, or whatever is out there watching over us.
“Here, take these,” I say and toss him the packet of matches with the message.
He catches it, and I ride off before he opens the flap.
Blood is blood, and my brother has always, always had my back. So in the end, the decision to warn him about the Sinners was simple to make and easy too. But maybe it just seems that way, because I’m so damn good at making bad choices.
* * *
Julie
I came home in a daze, and I don’t remember a single step or action that led me to sit on the sofa in my condo. Don’t remember reaching the entrance, unlocking the door, closing and locking it, or putting my purse on the table by the door, before coming to sit on the sofa.
But it’s been awhile since I did it all, I do know that.
My phone’s in my purse, and it hasn’t rang or beeped with a text since I got home. I know that clearly too. I still also know another thing. I have to end it. I have to cut Ink lose because otherwise I won’t live.
Any fears that something happened to him, or that he was somehow being prevented from calling me disappeared when I saw him tonight. A part of me already knew he was fine, because I know I would’ve felt it if he was gone from this world. That’s the nature of our bond. No. That’s the nature of my bond to him. There’s no bond from him to me. I know that now too.
Love makes you blind. I heard that so many times, in movies, in conversations, in my parents’ and my friends’ words when they first told me I shouldn’t get involved with Ink, and then about forgetting him after he left me. I finally know exactly what those words mean. But I was always sure—certain without a shred of doubt—that the love me and Ink had for each other went beyond the ordinary, was stronger than the universe itself. I was also certain it was mutual.
Now I know different. It was just me, just my side of things. I wanted him to feel the same way, but clearly he never did.
I do feel every step I take to get my phone, my mind clear and present the way it hasn’t been for days, maybe years. The way it hasn’t been since before I met him, I think.
My phone’s heavy and cold in my hands as I bring it back to the sofa with me.
Breaking up with someone over text is a coward’s way out, just a step above ghosting them. But in reality, ghosting is what he’s doing to me, what he did to me a year ago, and even if I did call, he wouldn’t pick up. So I don’t even try to call him one last time, and it’s not hard to compose the text either. As I start typing, I realize I’ve been composing this message for awhile now, maybe even since before he came back.
Ink, I’m through waiting. I thought the love we shared was mutual, but I was wrong and I am ready to put it behind me. I love you and I believed you loved me, but I don’t think you were ever honest when you said you did. I am done wondering and hoping and waiting for you to love me enough to stay with me. It’s over between us. Don’t come back asking for more chances, because there are no more chances left. I wish things went differently for us, and I wish I understood why they didn’t, and how I could’ve been so fooled by something that was never real, but don’t call me and don’t come to see me. I don’t want an explanation, I just want peace. It’s over between us.
~ Julie
I read and reread it a couple of times, debated whether to sign it at all or not, fussed with commas and wondered if it needed emojis. Then I realized all I was doing was postponing hitting the Send button.
After I did press it, the fog that’s been clouding my brain for the last week lifted, and I was the woman I had been before he came back to me. Lonely and kind of lost, but firmly present in reality and not losing my mind.
Sleep came easily after that.
21
Ink
I hoped they’d let me keep my phone and already had about a hundred apologies to Julie lined up and ready to go by the time I returned to the bunker, but Hawk took the phone back as soon as he saw me. I told Cross where my uncle wanted to meet and when. He wasn’t too thrilled that it was at noon, but he seemed pleased with me, so I guess that’s one kind of a win.
I couldn’t sleep. My broom closet-sized room in the basement of the bunker was too hot and stuffy to sleep in, but the main reason for my sleeplessness were my racing thoughts of Julie. I spent the night embellishing every one of those apologies I practiced on my way here to the point of making them poetry. But then a particularly cold wind rose while I was outside smoking a cigarette, and after that I couldn’t shake the feeling that all those apologies—poetic or otherwise—won’t fix jack shit. She’ll never forgive me for leaving and ignoring her again, I’ll have to spend the rest of my life without her, there will be no more chances. I knew that was the truth of it. In my heart I knew it, and the only way to escape it was to close it all off and block it from my mind.
I’ve always been prone to overthinking and focusing on the negative, but, somehow, I could let that knowing go very easily after it popped into my brain. Which worried me too.
Hawk woke me up the next morning, shaking me roughly then tossing my phone on the bed beside me.
“We’re leaving for that meeting with your uncle now,” he says. “You can have your phone back, but, for the love of God, don’t use it to do anything stupid.”
“Alright, I’ll get dressed,” I mumble and start extricating myself from the blanket. It can’t be almost noon, I feel like I haven’t gone to sleep yet.
He chuckles. “Take it easy, Ink. You’re not coming with us. You can have the day to yourself. Go where you like, but be back here before midnight. Is that clear?”
I nod, glancing from my phone to him, all those apologies to Julie I constructed last night springing up in my mind again, but not a single one of them seems adequate now that I have the means and the opportunity to deliver them.
He’s at the door, but he turns back to me before exiting, “There was a text late last night.”
I bet there were a lot of texts. Being ignored was always a huge pet-peeve for Julie. But something in his voice tells me this text is special and different from the rest.
The screen on this damn burner phone sucks, and words were cut in weird places, but I still understood every fucking word she wrote perfectly the first time I read her text. I only reread it the ten times after that, because I didn’t want to believe I got it right the first time.
I still didn’t want to believe it after she didn’t answer any one of my ten calls, while I was getting dressed and riding to meet her. She didn’t answer my knocks on her condo door either. I made so much noise that about half of her neighbors came out to check what was going on, but she didn’t. I only left her building after the neighbors started threatening to call the cops.
> She’s at work, where else?
But me showing up there and running into her father would open up a whole new front that I don’t want to touch, not with all the other shit that’s currently going on.
So I sat down in the shade at the edge of the parking lot of her condo, and did what I always did when she was ignoring me. I called and called, texted and left voicemails, and texted some more, delivering all the fucking apologies I came up with last night, and adding a couple more I came up with on the spot, even though I knew none of them would be enough. I told her I was aware of that too, since at this point, I have nothing else to lose.
Stop calling me. It’s over, she finally texted back two hours later.
But it’s not over. It can’t be.
No. Meet me. I’ll explain everything, I text back.
I get more silence for the next half an hour of my texting and calling.
Alright, at my house. Now, she finally writes.
I’m already here.
I could always get her attention this way, so I’m not surprised it once again worked. But did it actually work?
I’m paralyzed with the fear that she won’t forgive me this time. That text of hers was so damn cold. Worlds colder than anything she’s ever said or written to me before. Her words felt like the end, and I don’t think I have any counter words for it. I’m afraid words like that don’t exist.
* * *
Julie
I had no idea he’d react to the text by calling and calling and texting and filling up my voicemail with longwinded speeches. Especially not after there was no reply to my break-up text when I woke up this morning.
I figured he’d just keep his silence like he’d been doing until now, and I was satisfied with that, since the break-up text was more for me than him. It was a way to finally completely sever my obsessive attachment to him, which makes it impossible for me to live a normal life without him. It kinda worked. I got a good night’s sleep after I sent it, and my mind stayed clear all morning. Then calls and texts started coming, and they drained almost all of my phone’s battery before I realized he wouldn’t stop until I stopped him. He’s done this before to get my attention, and it never ended until I replied, so I really had no choice but to do it.
He’s sitting on the curb next to his bike in the shade of a palm tree when I pull into the parking lot of my condo. He stands up, as I exit my car and walk to him. Something very soft and very familiar enveloped me as his eyes recognized me, and it’s getting stronger and more comforting with every step I take towards him. I can’t fight it, I never could. It starts in his eyes and it’s just for me. I know it well, but for the first time since I met him, I know it’s just in my imagination. It’s not the product of what he feels for me, it’s just something I see and feel because of how much I love him.
He reaches for me once I’m near enough, but I step back before he can touch me. I won’t let him touch me. It’s hard enough keeping my resolve that this is the absolute last conversation we’re ever having without that.
“You wanted to talk, so talk,” I say coldly.
“I thought we’d go up to your place first,” he says, smiling at me in a serene and open, and kind of sad way—the way he always does when we’ve been apart for a while.
“Right here is fine, Ink,” I counter, wrapping my arms tight over my chest, bracing against the pull that starts in his eyes. The pull that translates into a dizzying wish to be in his arms, each and every time. That is not happening today.
“I’m sorry, Julie,” he says. “I know I’ve been saying that a lot, and if I could take it all back and start from the beginning, I would. But you gotta believe me, the only thing I wanted to do for the last three days, for the last year, hell, since the day I first saw you, is be by your side. But this time, I couldn’t. It was out of my hands.”
“Yeah, sure Ink. I read all the texts and heard the voicemails, and I remember all the things you told me before you left me a second time,” I say firmly. “But it seemed to me like you were free to talk to me last night, and you chose not to.”
“I couldn’t. It was a test—” he interjects, but I talk right over him, because I am so fucking done falling for his excuses.
“You talk so much and you say such great things that are always so full of feeling and perfect, but it’s all just empty words, isn’t it? You can turn all this unending love you claim to have for me off, and go on living your life without me for a year or more whenever you want, can’t you? And then you come back and give me a week, give me just long enough to pull me back into this fairytale, into this imaginary love story that you can convince me we have so well, and then disappear again and ignore me completely.”
“That’s not what I wanted—”
“Sure, yeah, is this the point where I forgive you and let you sweep me off my feet again? For how long this time, Ink? A week? A month? A year? And for how many years are you going to disappear after that?” I’m completely breathless by the time I ask all this, but I have a lot more to say.
That’s a very pained expression in his eyes, and I only notice it after I stop ranting. I stay silent, because I’m suddenly sure I said as much as I wanted to say. I asked a lot of questions, but I don’t really want answers. Not that he’s trying to give me any. He’s not saying anything. That’s never been a good sign with him. Not that it matters now. I’m done with this conversation, and I’m done with him.
“We’re through, Ink,” I tell him coolly. “I won’t spend another minute waiting for you or crying over you. I see you for who you are. A liar. A golden tongued liar. It’s over. I’m tired of your poetic excuses, and I’m sick of being hurt by you.”
He grimaces and nods slowly. “I wish I could go back in time and change all the shit that led us here, but I can’t. You know that. You know I love you. You know how much I love you. You gotta know it.”
He sounds desperate, but I’m well past caring.
“Do I? Do I know that?” I say, feeling my blood start to boil again.
There’s a nice breeze here in the shade, coming in straight from the ocean, reminding me of better times, of times when not a single part of my mind or my heart doubted the endless depth of his love for me. But doubt is all that’s left now, and memories of a different time, a better time, aren’t helping, not even a little bit.
“From where I’m standing, it looks like everything you’ve ever told me was a lie. I spoke to my dad, he says your mom sold him the land willingly, he says he never messed with your family, and your mom didn’t exactly contradict him when I went to see her. So your excuses for leaving were just lies, weren’t they? Admit it. You wanted your freedom, so you left me. Then you wanted me back, so you fed me a bunch of lies and then you disappeared again when those lies grew over your head. And now you’re back and you’re still lying to me. I won’t fall for your lies again, and I don’t believe you ever loved me.”
His hand twitches towards me again, and I know how much he wants to hold me, I can feel it right in my core and it comes from his eyes, but I step away from him.
“I love you more than anything or anyone in this world, Julie,” he says hoarsely and with so much emotion it hits me like a strong gust of wind, making me sway. It’s strong enough to blow away all my doubts of him, if I let it. I can’t let it.
“I know you’re mad at me. You have every right to be,” he continues. “But I never lied to you. You know that. I know you do. All I ever wanted, and all I still want is to spend the rest of my life with you. I’ll gladly spend all that time making up for this mess I’ve made for us. It wasn’t by choice that I didn’t answer your calls after I went back to the Devils. They locked me up, accused me of being a snitch and almost fucking put a bullet in my brain right then and there. I was sure they would, and even though they haven’t yet, I think it could still happen. So I’m walking a very thin line here, and there are no good choices anywhere I look. And there’s only one good outcome I can think of. That I get to live o
ut the rest of my life by your side, and we get that future we dreamed about. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the only thing worth living for. Don’t you want that too?”
I’m stiff, my skin prickling from the force of the raw and pure emotion behind his words, and I have no idea what to say. More lies, more empty excuses, more pain! That’s what my brain is shouting at me. But a very tiny, yet invasive part of me believes him, weeps for what he’s faced and wants exactly what he wants. The two of us together. Forever.
He took something out of his pocket and is holding it out for me.
I know what it is before he even opens the little velvet-lined box. “I want you to be my wife, Julie.”
He opens the box, and inside is the ring he gave me years ago, on my twenty-first birthday, and all the happiness I felt then, all the joy at the idea of becoming his wife floods me like no time and no pain separates us from that moment. But there is pain, so much of it, I can hardly breathe.
I shake my head and clutch my chest tighter. “No, Ryan. I can’t do this anymore. It’s over.”
“It can’t be,” he says harshly, his hand holding the ring shaking a little.
“It is,” I say through gritted teeth. “Goodbye, Ryan.”
Then I turn and run back to my car.
He called my name, but he didn’t run after me. Nor did he follow me as I drove off.
I’m shaking now, but I know I did the right thing. I did the only sensible thing. And yet I feel more rotten and hurt than I ever have in my entire life. Ever. But it’ll pass and then I’ll never hurt like this again.
* * *
Ink
Fuck. I knew I messed up bad this time, but she’s never been this cold to me. Not ever.
What’s worse, I believe what she told me. She doesn’t want anything more to do with me, and nothing I do or say will change that. Her sending me away has always been my worst fear. It was my worst fear while I waited for her in front of her high school on the day we met. I was sure she’d just ignore me, I was terrified she would, but I went anyway. I couldn’t believe my luck when she went for a drink with me instead, just as I couldn’t believe my luck that she fell in love with me, and stayed with me, and said she would become my wife. A part of me always thought I didn’t deserve her.