“You know, I might hate my parents, but they knew each other two weeks and have been together almost fifty years. Lili and I have been together six months. I’m ready. I love her. There’s nothing else to think about.”
Looking through the glass display cases, I try to imagine which one would look best on her. I don’t have a lot of money, only what I’ve managed to save up from my fights. About three thousand, give or take.
Is that enough for a ring?
Palms damp, I rub them down my jeans.
“Six months,” he scoffs. “Brilliant. And in all that time, how much have you told her about yourself?”
I shouldn’t have told him.
I don’t even understand his reasoning. Why is he so angry? Shouldn’t he be happy for me? Rooting me on, excited that I’d found my girl?
“Enough,” I grumble, still pressing my nose to the glass case.
Lili hardly ever wears jewelry. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen her wear anything other than the rocks in her ears. And they aren’t crazy large like I’ve seen most girls wear.
Lili’s understated elegance, from the way she dresses to the way she moves. I scratch my head, trying to think through Alex’s noise.
“What if she’s not the one? What if this is just a fad for you? You thought about that one? You’re only twenty-five, still a baby.”
I snort. “That coming from the mouth of a twenty-one-year-old.”
“Hey.” He pounds his chest. “At least I’ll admit I’m too damn young to think about this.”
A large lady dressed in a flower-printed dress sails toward us on a vanilla-scented cloud. I wrinkle my nose, fighting the sneeze of too much perfume.
“Could I help ya?” she asks in a thick Texas twang.
She wears too much makeup—it’s coated on her like clown makeup. Thick and bold, her eyes are painted a robin’s-egg blue and her lips are a bloody red. Thick folds jiggle under her jaw as she speaks.
“I’m looking for a ring for my girlfriend.”
Alex snorts and I fix a hard smile on my face, keeping my back to him.
Frowning, she looks between the two of us. “O…okay. Do you know what she likes?”
Tapping the glass, I grimace. “Not really.”
A bitter laugh rings in my ears.
Taking a deep breath, forcing the fury down into a safe and quiet place, I remind myself that he doesn’t know anything.
Doesn’t know anything about Liliana, me, us.
This isn’t a fling.
Or an itch that I’m scratching.
Never in a million years did I think I’d ever propose to a woman with a kid from another man. Always thinking I couldn’t do it, couldn’t look at that child and see him as mine.
But Javier is mine.
And so is Lili.
That’s my family.
And I’m going to do everything in my power to let the world know it too.
She pats my hand with a bejeweled one. Large rocks wink back at me from each of her digits. “Not to worry. You’re not the first guy, or the last, I’d imagine who didn’t know something like that. Thankfully, I’m here to help out. Now…” She breathes in, puffing her chest out with pride. “Tell me what she doesn’t like and we’ll work from there.”
A few months ago, a girlfriend of Lili’s had approached us on the campus, squealing and flashing her hand in our faces, saying her boyfriend had finally proposed.
Lili’s eyes had grown wide as she’d grabbed her friend’s hand. Green eyes had sparkled brighter than that diamond, and I’d wondered why.
Looking at the ring, I hadn’t thought it big.
But her pretty mouth had curved into a tiny o. That night over dinner she commented that if she got married, she hoped her guy knew her as well as her friend’s fiancée. Which put a very nasty, sick knot in the pit of my stomach.
“She doesn’t want anything big.”
“You sure? ’Cause all the girls I know, the bigger the better,” Alex says, leaning against the counter with arms crossed.
The attendant nods her head as if to agree.
Going with my gut, because that’s the only thing I have, I shake my head. “Nothing enormous.”
Sighing, the lady walks over to the final display case. “Like this size?”
Heart punching through my chest, I look at the case and then back at the ones I’d been staring at. The other ones are bigger, making the small ones seem ridiculously tiny now.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Lili doesn’t wear more because she can’t afford it?
“But,” the woman says, smiling, “half a carat is still a really nice size.”
Holding up a finger, Alex puts on the charm. “Can I talk to my buddy for a second?”
She looks at me.
Sighing, I nod.
“What, Alex? What? You’re just wasting your breath. I’m going to buy this ring,” I say the minute we’re out of earshot.
Gripping my arm, he drags me away from the cases to a more private section. Somewhere between tank tops and socks.
“Can I ask you one thing?”
I lift a brow.
“Do you remember what happened the other night?”
Face deadpan, I don’t nod.
He knows I remember. He’d found me, not like I can deny it.
“When she called me, man…” He flicks at his thumbnail. “Her voice. If you could have heard her voice. I’m begging you, dude, begging, and for me… Shit.” He rubs the back of his head. “I wouldn’t do this to anyone else. Buy your goddamn ring if you want, but tell her. Tell her before you give it to her.”
“Why do you care so much? I’ve got this under control. It’s getting better…”
“The hell it is,” he hisses, looking over his shoulder. The ring lady is unabashedly staring at us.
My nostrils flare.
“The hell it is,” he whispers harshly. “You think you bent over, puking everywhere, and scarring your hands even more is getting better?”
I barely even think about my hands. Yes, they’re yellow and purple, but they’re almost always like that. I’m a fighter, and Lili never seems to mind.
“Look.” I shake my head. “If it bothered her, she’d be doing to me what you are, but you know what? She’s not. She accepts me just the way I am.”
Alex takes a step back, eyes wide like I’d slapped him.
“Dude, you’re fucking blind. She’s crazy worried. I see it when she looks at you. I’m not saying you shouldn’t marry her. If that’s what she wants, then I’m for it. But I’m telling you to be honest for once in you miserable life. Be honest with somebody.”
Tugging at my hair, I blink hard, fighting my instinct, my need to destroy. “What makes you the goddamned authority on a relationship, anyway? You have sex. Meaningless fucking sex. A revolving door of women. What the hell do you know about it?”
Muscle tightening in his cheek, he says, “I know what a secret becomes. The cancer it turns into. I know what it does to a person because I live with it each damn day. I could have stopped it, could have changed your entire life if I’d just opened my mouth and told them the truth. I live with this guilt every miserable freaking day. And I see what’s happening to you. Every year you’ve gotten worse.”
I shake my head, vision going hazy and spotted, so angry I don’t trust myself to even open my mouth.
Mouth filling up with spit, I try to breathe through the battering ram his words have become.
“I hate that you know what you do about me. Every day I wake up and I wish I hadn’t made that sound, wish you’d never seen what you’d seen. Do you like this? Flinging this shit in my face all the time? Does it give you some sort of sick pleasure?”
“Fuck you,” Alex growls. “I do it because I’m the only one that can. You realize it’s almost December? Two and a half more months, Ryan, and the demons will come flying back, stronger and faster and surer than ever and what are you going to do this time, huh? What if she’s not with
you, you gonna do it this time? Make sure you slice deep enough that it’s done? You can’t escape it; you can only turn and face it and conquer it. It won’t let you run away—it’ll haunt your every step, breathe down your neck, and live in your dreams. If you don’t fight, it wins. He wins.”
Nostrils flaring, chest heaving, we stare at each other. If emotions were fire, we’d burn the store down in a raging inferno.
Throwing a hand out in disgust, Alex turns and walks out the store.
Standing there, I wonder why we even still live together.
His dad may have stolen my innocence, but he steals my sanity. Alex is always reminding me, always snapping a finger under my nose, grinding my face into the mud and making me smell it.
Why can’t he just be happy for me?
Why can’t he just act like another dude?
Why the hell is he always acting like my mom?
I don’t need another one. I had one, and she was no good. A rotten egg.
But no matter how angry I was, how angry he makes me, I know one thing… he does love me. Why? Hell if I know.
Guys, we don’t do emotions. Not with each other. We swear, burp, and fart and do all sorts of nasty shit because that’s our way of showing our feelings, but Alex is different. Always has been.
Alex tells me, makes sure I know it.
Licking my teeth, I walk back to the counter; I’m determined to get this ring today. The lady jerks, pretending she’d been dusting the display cases the entire time.
I know she didn’t hear anything, we’d been far enough back, but I know she’s wondering.
Screwing my face into what I hope is a friendly expression and not glaring, I walk to the final row of rings.
“I want to see those.”
“Sure, sure.” She wiggles the key off the chain on her wrist and slides open the door, bringing them out.
“What size is she?”
“Ah, dammit.” I pinch my nose. “I don’t know, I didn’t ask.”
Her smile is tight. “No worries, we can just get it resized later. Is she like my size?” She flashes her hand and I notice that while the rest of her is fleshy, her hand is surprisingly delicate.
I grab her ring finger, sliding mine up it.
She yelps, cheeks turning crimson.
“She’s a little smaller,” I say and drop her hand.
Patting her chest, she flits her fingers across the rings. “Well, I’m a seven, so she’s probably a five or six. Let’s go six, just in case. What about this one? It’s a princess cut, really pretty.”
It’s boxy and ugly as hell. The stone is bright, but I’m not sure she’d like it.
“No.”
“Okay, don’t worry, we’re just getting started. What about this one? Pear cut?”
It looks weird, reminding me of the fruit it’s named after. The thin, delicate gold band is pretty, though.
Taking it out of her hand, I stare at it. “No.”
“Okay,” she says, still just as perky. “What do you think she would like?”
Bending over, I lean my face as close to the glass as I can without actually touching it. I’d had no idea coming in here that there were so many different kinds of rings. I’d just thought you’d walk in, pick between five or so, and walk out.
This was a lot harder than I’d first imagined.
Walking down the row, I come upon a box of rings that have gemstones in them. Some of them are really pretty, and one in particular draws my eye immediately—emeralds as green as Lili’s eyes are surrounded by a cluster of diamonds. “That.” I tap the glass. “I want that.”
“Umm…” She opens the display. “These are bands. Not the actual ring.”
“What’s the difference?” I sigh.
“Well, the band is what you slip the ring into. And the band you’re pointing at is designed for a marquise.”
“Which one is that?”
Grabbing the other stack of rings she’d shown me before, she pulls out a ring with a more diamond shape to it and pops it onto the band. “This.” She hands it to me.
The moment it settles into my palm I know this is the one.
My heart worms its way up my throat as what I’m doing, what I’m seriously contemplating, finally settles in.
Hands shaking a little, I give it back to her. “How much?”
“The band is a thousand and the ring another thousand.”
“I’ll take it.”
I walk out of that store feeling like I have shackles around my legs and neck. The small box resting in my pocket feels like it weighs a thousand pounds.
Lili calls me almost the moment I’m out of the store—she’s ready to go.
We meet at the car; Alex is already there, leaning against it, refusing to look at me.
Ignoring him, I kiss her cheek, a little stunned that she doesn’t seem to know what I’ve been up to. For me, it feels like I’ve got a giant crimson A stitched to my shirt.
I drive back to her house in silence, happily listening to her chatter away about the deals she scored.
But the whole time I feel Alex’s eyes drilling into the back of my skull.
Lili decides to stay at my house tonight. She brings Javi and Alex makes himself scarce. Watching him walk out the door, she frowns.
“What’s up with Alex? He’s been quiet ever since we got back.”
The lights are off, and the TV is on some old black-and-white movie. I’d muted the sound earlier. Because I know Alex won’t be back the rest of the night, we tuck Javier into his bed. The house is ours and it’s nice to just chill.
I play with the ends of her hair. “He’s tired. Don’t worry about it.”
Nibbling on a corner of her lip, she seems to not hear me.
“Angel, c’mon. Let’s go to bed.” I click the remote off and, standing, hold out my hand for hers.
Sighing, she stretches and then grabs on, hopping up.
“I’m not really that tired.” Her smile is sultry and fills me with an immediate ache to hold her.
“Neither am I.”
Twirling, she runs for my room and I follow, hot on her heels.
Earlier I’d placed the ring in my dresser, tucked under a pile of socks. As I pass by, I can’t help glancing, wondering how she still doesn’t know.
I know when I’m going to ask. Christmas.
I’ve got a fight scheduled that night. A paying one, and I know I’ll win. I’m twice the fighter he is, better at wrestling and takedowns. I’ll get him, end it with a quick tap out, and right after, I’ll ask her.
It will be perfect, another memory for her to store away in her memory bank. A night she’ll never forget.
That night, after we make love, the dream comes back. And it’s a bad one.
Chapter Twenty Four
Liliana
I’m floating on a cloud, a foggy, hazy one, somewhere between dreaming and wakefulness. Thinking about all the things I bought. I’m wondering if Ryan will like the Mark Twain collection I bought him when I hear him grunt.
It starts out low, like it has every other night, but this time he’s trembling.
His body is coated in sweat and he’s panting hard.
Instantly awake, I shake him. “Baby, wake up.”
“No!” he roars, flailing his arms.
I have to duck to avoid his fist. He got so close my skin tingles at the disturbance of displaced air shivering across my face.
Heart pounding, I grab his hand, grunting with the effort to keep him still. “Ryan, wake up. Honey, wake up.”
His eyes snap open and he grabs his head, then his stomach, shoving the sheets down his lap. His abs flex hard and furious as he struggles to regulate his breathing.
“Did I hurt you?” He peeks through his fingers.
I shake my head. My pulse is beating so hard I feel it through the tips of my fingers. “You were dreaming.”
Grimacing, he drops his head. His hair shields his face from my view.
“I’m o
kay,” he whispers, grabbing his hair. “I’m okay.”
I’m not really sure he’s saying that for my benefit and when I rub his back, his muscles are snapping like a Mexican jumping bean.
I know what that is, I’ve studied it in class. A strange phenomenon associated with adrenaline runoff and high trauma.
Swallowing hard, I tuck my legs under my butt and crawl closer, rubbing his shoulders.
“Honey, what happened?”
“Lili, please.” His voice cracks with strain.
“Talking helps.”
Jerking out of my grip, he gets up and holds up a hand.
I drop mine slowly to my side, hurt, confused, and scared out of my head. I only want to help him, want to be there for him, to tell him this is okay, that he isn’t alone… but he looks like a cornered rabbit, terrified by the hot breath of the big bad wolf right at his neck and I don’t know what to do.
He closes his eyes, tossing on some pants for Javi’s benefit. “I’m fine. Really. Just a dream. Go back to sleep, okay? Please.”
Pausing to stroke the cleft in my chin with his thumb, he heads to the door.
“Are you leaving again?”
Hesitating with one foot outside, he shakes his head and then walks out. The bathroom door closes a second later and then the sound of the shower echoes through our room.
I wrap the sheets around myself, just in case Javi’s heard and comes looking, then clamp my teeth down on my fist. But the distraction doesn’t work, the tears fall hard. Plopping, great big drops off the tip of my nose.
He’s shutting me out again.
Jaw trembling, I try to tell myself it doesn’t really hurt. That I’m overreacting. All the things I’ve told myself before, but I’m not buying any of it anymore.
Running a hand over my face, I look at the door.
At my house, sometimes I’d catch him singing in the shower. Those were the good days, the days I knew his ghosts were leaving him alone. But when I didn’t hear the noise, when all I heard was the vast silence, I knew it was bad.
Those are the nights I dread.
I could have heard a pin drop.
I know he doesn’t want me to see.
The first few times he’d showered at my place I’d been jumpy, always putting my ear to the door to make sure he was still moving, still breathing, and warm and alive. I haven’t felt this level of anxiety for a while.
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