by Claire Raye
It was hard to sit there and listen to him talk about me like that, as though reaffirming that my brain really is a fucked up mess and it made me do stupid shit like beat the crap out of someone in a blind rage. If he and my therapist could see that, what the fuck would the cops investigating this case think? Or the judge or anyone else sitting in that courtroom?
What does Ruby really think?
As soon as my thoughts go to Ruby though, my anger is replaced with an overwhelming sense of guilt. Guilt at the lie I’d told her last night, at the way I’d spoken to her when she called me out on it.
Guilt at the way I couldn’t even keep my promise to her about being honest about my feelings for more than a few days. Guilt at the way I’d left this morning, shutting her out when she asked if she could come along to this meeting.
It’s like I was giving her an excuse to break up with me. And even though that’s the last thing I want to happen, in that moment I still felt like I needed to give her that opportunity. Give her an out in case that’s what she was looking for.
My phone chimes out with a text message as I’m making my way to her car, which of course she’d lent me even though I was a total dick to her this morning about not coming with me to see Ed.
God, I really do not deserve this woman.
I pull my phone from my pocket as I unlock the car and slide into the driver’s seat.
Ruby: I hope the meeting went well…I’m sorry about this morning, about just expecting I would come along.
My heart twists inside my chest at her words, at the way she’s apologizing to me when really it should be me groveling to her. Kissing her ass even and begging her to forgive me for everything. Just as I’m about to type out an apology of my own, another text comes through.
Ruby: Also…I love you.
Her words just about break my heart and as much as I can sit here and tell myself I don’t deserve her or anything she offers me, I also know I’m too fucking selfish to give her up. Taking a deep breath, I type out a response to her.
Me: Have lunch with me? I’ll fill you in.
Me: And Ruby, I’m the one who’s sorry. I was dick...again and I shouldn’t have done that.
Me: I love you too.
I exhale, waiting for her reply, the phone in my hands as I stare at the screen and the floating bubbles that tell me she’s typing out a message.
Ruby: How about the place we went on our first date? 20 mins?
Me: Thank you. See you soon.
I spend the drive over there rehearsing the apology I know I need to give her in my head. By the time I park, my anxiety has been replaced by nerves, my head a jumbled mess of all the things I know I need to say to her. Locking the car, I wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans and walk slowly toward the restaurant, tucked down the alleyway.
Ruby is waiting out the front for me and when she turns to me, I open my mouth to speak first, “Ruby, I’m—”
My words are cut off by Ruby as she wraps her arms around my neck and pulls my mouth to hers, kissing me deeply. I let out a groan, slipping my arms around her waist and pulling her even closer, my whole body finally relaxing.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” I whisper, pulling back as I lean my forehead against hers. I feel like I’m going to spend the rest of my life apologizing to this woman.
She smiles up at me, her eyes meeting mine. “So am I.”
“You don’t have anything to apologize for.”
“I do, Caleb,” she says, brushing a hand against my cheek, as she pulls back a little more. “I know I can be a pain in the ass about this, but—”
“I know you only mean well,” I say, cutting her off.
Ruby smiles up at me. “I do, but I also have to remember that the way I deal with something is not the way you deal with it.”
“I’m really not trying to be a dick,” I admit. “I know that’s exactly what I am, but I’m not actually…” I trail off, not sure what the fuck I’m even trying to say anymore.
Ruby brushes her lips against mine in a soft kiss. “I know this is hard for you,” she whispers against my lips. “Just remember, I’m on your side and I’m not going anywhere. No matter how hard you try to push me away.”
I exhale, burying my face in her neck as I pull her against me. “I don’t deserve you,” I mumble into her skin.
Ruby’s hand moves to the back of my neck, squeezing gently. “Yes, you do.”
Chapter Fifteen
Ruby
New Year’s Eve is usually a time when I’m home with Mila and the two of us are off getting drunk in tiny sequined dresses and too tall shoes. It’s not like I miss that, but things just feel weird and different. I miss my parents and the quiet comfort of their house. I miss Mila’s loudness, something I thought I’d never say, along with her ability to just be there with me. She may be my opposite, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t somehow exactly what I need at times.
I wonder what she’s doing tonight? If she bought the tiny dress and high heels and if she wore it out to a party? I wonder if my dad looked at her like she was crazy and made some snide comment about putting on a coat? I wonder if my mom shooed him away and told Mila to go, slipping her extra cash and a reminder to call if she needed anything?
All of these things seem so far away, and in a way, so childish when I think about what Caleb is dealing with. I have no right to sulk in my own sadness or want things I know if I really wanted, I could have. But still my chest tightens and I feel my eyes begin to sting with tears.
There’s more here than just missing my family and the stupid sequin dress. I feel alone because I’ve put so much into helping Caleb that I’ve forgotten how to take care of myself. I feel worn out and spread thin, and at times I feel like the world won’t cut him or our relationship a break.
He met with his lawyer the other day and whatever happened there made him rethink the way things have played out between us over the last week. He came home and apologized to me, which is a huge step, but still fraught with holes, because today he’s still in bed at noon.
I walk on eggshells, my mind a swirling mess of questions I replay over and over, trying to find the right answer.
Should I wake him up?
What if he’s angry when I do?
Do I walk away and let him cool down?
Should I just let him sleep?
Is he avoiding me? Avoiding life?
I walk over to the bedroom door and stop. The door is closed, the room silent, and I listen for sounds, any sounds, but even as I will them to happen, they don’t. If I heard him moving around, maybe I’d be okay with opening the door. If he were talking on the phone, maybe he’d see the value in getting up and interacting with people.
I tell myself this is what it’s like, but it won’t be like this forever. This is what we’ll work through together and when it’s all over, we’ll look back on it and realize how much closer together it brought us. But right now, standing here in the present, feeling the weight of its severity, feeling the pressure of decisions and loneliness and loss, I struggle.
He struggles.
We struggle, together, but not really together. More like side by side. And that’s when the tears begin to pool in my eyes, despite my best attempts to stop them.
I place my hand on the doorknob, my fingers holding it softly in case I lose my nerve and don’t open it. I don’t want him to hear me. I don’t want him to think I’m checking on him, even if that’s exactly what I’m doing.
“Just go in,” Reid’s voice whispers from behind me and I gasp out loud, jumping away from the door.
“Shit, you scared the hell out of me,” I whisper-shout, slapping at his chest with my palm. “I thought you and Sie left for the store.”
“We did, but we forgot the reusable bags and you know how she is. Not a chance in hell she’s paying for plastic bags.”
“The bags are in the mudroom,” I prompt, looking at him, my head to the side, questioning his need to come all the way into the house.
“Yeah, I know, but the house was really quiet and I…”
“Came to check on Caleb?” I ask, attempting to finish his thought.
“I came to check on you.”
“Why?”
“Because no one has bothered to ask if you’re okay and that’s shitty of us.” He changes direction as his eyes scan my face. “You’ve been crying,” he states, but there’s nothing accusatory in what he says.
I swipe at my eyes, not wanting Reid to see I’m falling apart, too.
He moves his head in the direction of our kitchen as he begins to walk toward it and away from the closed bedroom door. By the time we reach the kitchen, only about twenty feet from the bedroom, I’ve started crying again. No sobs or heaving chest, just tears running down my cheeks.
“Ruby, what’s wrong?” he asks, slinging an arm around my shoulders and easing me against him. My head falls to his shoulder as I try to find the words to explain myself.
“I don’t know. I just feel exhausted by it all, but then I feel guilty for even feeling that way. My life is perfect in comparison…”
I stop talking, my voice growing higher as I speak and I don’t want Caleb to hear me out here whining about shit.
“You’re allowed to feel this way. I think we all do. Sie and I have learned to deal with this shit, but it’s new to you.” His arm tightens around me, creating a comfort but also sending a shock to my body as I grasp for something to hold me together. “You aren’t getting the support you need from the person who’s support you want. He doesn’t realize you feel this way though. He isn’t insensitive, if anything he’s far more sensitive than Sie or me, but right now he can’t see past himself.”
I shake my head, it brushing along Reid’s chin. I have no idea how to navigate any of this.
“I think you should try to talk to him,” Reid says, but his words are overlapped by Caleb’s as he asks, “Tell him what?”
We both turn to find him standing behind us. He’s disheveled, his hair messy and his face creased from the bed sheets. He doesn’t look like he’s at all open to having a discussion about my feelings, but his eyes find my face and the way he’s looking at me changes.
The defensiveness that was written in his furrowed brow and narrowed eyes has now developed into a wash of concern as the corners of his eyes tip down and his lips pull together.
“I gotta go,” Reid says, a bit of sympathy lingering in his voice. “Sie’s waiting in the car.” And with that, he leaves Caleb and me to decide how this is going to go.
The door closes and I now turn to Caleb.
“What’s going on?” he asks, a legitimate question without the casualness that normally accompanies it.
“Nothing,” I immediately respond, despite the air of tension that builds with Reid’s absence. I have no idea why I told him nothing. It’s obvious it’s something and by denying it, I’m just being selfish. My brain is sparing with itself as to how to handle this. Not talking about it keeps the peace, but not the peace within me, just between us. Talking now walks that fine line of where we could be brought closer together or argue with each other until one of us storms away.
I want to support him. I told him I’d never leave and I have no intention of doing that, but we have to find a way for this to work for both of us.
“I lied to you,” I now say, my eyes instantly shooting down to my feet.
“When? About what?”
“Just now when I told you nothing was going on,” I openly admit. There’s no going back now. “I’m having a hard time.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, the tears start, something I didn’t want to happen. I wanted to have a composed conversation with him, but here am blubbering like a baby, anything but composed.
He comes right to me, holding me to him and just letting me cry. My tears soak his t-shirt and he kisses the top of my head, his lips resting there as he gives me a soft shushing sound.
“You can talk to me, Ruby,” he now says and as much as I want to believe him, can I talk to him? Doesn’t he have enough to worry about?
“I don’t think I can. Sometimes…” I start, the courage lost almost immediately.
“Ruby, this isn’t just about me. Even my therapist told me that. If we want this thing between us to work, we have to talk to each other.”
It’s hard to control the sarcasm I feel stirring in my brain. The irony of this conversation skates dangerously close to an argument. These things have all been said between us before, but Caleb usually retreats to the bedroom and hides away from anything that delves too deep.
But I can’t be defensive or argumentative. I have to be open to what he’s offering in the moment. I know this and with my head still resting against his chest, I resolve to be honest with him.
“I’m having a hard time coping with being alone.” The words finally make their way out of my mouth, the relief almost instant, but then it’s replaced by the guilt that I should’ve never even said the words.
“You aren’t alone,” Caleb says, either missing what I’m saying or trying to deny he’s the source of my loneliness.
“But I am. When you sleep all day and when you ignore me by sitting on your phone. When a night goes by and we’re sitting on the couch and you don’t speak for hours. We’re trying to get away from these things, but they resurface constantly.”
I sound so accusatory and I know it can’t be good for his recovery and I also know he isn’t doing it to hurt me. It’s part of having PTSD.
“I’m sorry,” he immediately says, but nothing more comes after it. He is sorry. This isn’t a lie. I can hear it in his voice, his broken, fragile words and my heart beats harder, feeling like it’s breaking all over again for him.
“I know you are. And I’m sorry too. I know you can’t control what’s happening or how you’re feeling. I just miss you at times.”
“I miss you too. I miss myself and the person I am when I’m with you.”
“We aren’t good at schedules,” I say, joking a little at our big plan to “fix” him with a routine.
“You’re great at schedules. It’s me who can’t keep them. It gets tiring and hard for me and I quit before I even give it a chance. But I want to do things that help both of us and I never want you to feel lonely.” Caleb moves me away from him. His hands cupping my face now and tilting it so I’m looking at him. “It breaks my heart when you say you’re lonely because all I want is to be everything you need and right now, I’m failing.”
“You aren’t failing,” I respond, pushing his messy hair back. “We’re just navigating this without a map.”
“How did this go from being about you to you comforting me?” he asks, looking down with a little bit of a smirk on his face.
“I don’t know, but I feel better, so I guess it worked.”
“Tell me when you’re lonely, Ruby. Tell me when you need me. Pull me away from my own darkness. Being with you is the only thing I have that makes me feel normal. Being with you rescues me.”
“Caleb,” I murmur, pressing up to kiss him.
An hour later, Reid and Sienna are back from the store with a bunch of crap to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Carrying in bags of party hats, noisemakers, plastic beaded necklaces, sparklers and tons of candy. She’s been all about celebrating now that she has Reid and Caleb back in her life and everyone she loves is together.
“Who’s ready for a party?” she announces, pulling the New Year’s Eve hats from one of the bags and passing them out to us.
“Um, Sie,” Caleb says, looking down at the hat, his nose wrinkled up. “The year is wrong on the hats.”
“Ugh, stop ruining my fun. Yeah, I know. I waited too long and I had to beg the store clerk to look to see if they had anymore. Turns out they had a ton, but they have last year’s year on them. No biggie. Grab a marker and cross it out.”
“Oh my god, Sienna,” Caleb and I both say at the same time, while Reid shrugs his shoulders, a silly grin on his face.
But
we go along with her, because her excitement is contagious and because we all could use something fun.
“Let’s party!” I call out and Sie shrieks, launching herself into my arms.
Tonight will be another good night.
Chapter Sixteen
Caleb
Despite the fact that I felt like complete and utter shit because of the things Ruby had admitted to me, the idea that she’s lonely and struggling as I attempt to battle demons I have no idea how to fight, New Year’s Eve was actually fun in the end.
We didn’t do anything more than stay at home, the four of us laughing and drinking as we celebrated a new year with the previous year’s decorations thanks to our last minute plans. And when the clock had struck midnight and I’d pulled Ruby into my arms, she’d smiled up at me, kissing me once as she whispered, “To a new year.”
Smiling, I’d kissed her again before repeating the words back to her, relieved to finally see a smile on her face. Glad that yet another one of my attempts to sabotage what we had together, hadn’t worked.
“You’re back working again today, right?” she now mumbles, rolling into my side.
I pull her closer, enjoying the warmth of her skin against mine. My eyes are still closed, my head a little fuzzy from the alcohol and late night, but it doesn’t stop me from silently begging for today to be a good day.
“Yeah,” I say kissing the top of her head as her hand slides across my stomach. Her touch feels electric against my skin, my stomach muscles tensing beneath her fingers as they move across it.
“How are you feeling about that?” she asks, her mouth at my shoulder, her lips brushing against my skin.
I slide my hand down to her hip and over her ass, pressing her against me. “I don’t know, maybe a little nervous?”
It feels weird to admit that out loud and I expect Ruby to stop what she’s doing, pull back and ask me about it. But she doesn’t, instead, rolling her body so she’s half lying on top of me.