The snow had stopped sometime in the night, and the plows had been out. The roads were easily passable in the darkness before early dawn. Raven didn’t say anything, just wrung her hands and toyed with the zipper on her coat while we drove.
When we got to the hospital, there was a guy standing out front. He wore a Carhartt coat over a thick flannel shirt, jeans, and heavy boots. His ball cap was pulled low over his eyes. As we pulled into a parking spot, he took a couple hesitant steps forward.
“Is that your uncle?” I asked.
Raven nodded slowly. She had pulled her hair back into a messy ponytail, but still wore remnants of makeup from earlier in the night. In her rush to leave, she’d pulled on some faded jeans and a hoodie, grabbing her jacket and a hair tie on her way out the door. She was a harried reflection of the Raven I usually saw. This vulnerability made me reach out, to set my hand on her knee across the bench seat of the truck. Raven looked down at it, then up into my eyes.
“I don’t want to know what happened,” she whispered.
“But you need to,” I replied. “I'll be right beside you… every step.”
Her eyes filled with tears and closed. She inhaled sharply through her nose, then let it out long and slow and a little bit shaky. With a nod, she opened the pickup door.
I climbed out quickly and met her on the passenger side, slipping my arm around her back and slowly urging her to the entrance… and her uncle.
Joe appeared broken. His shoulders slumped and his eyes told us what we really already knew before he could find the words. His gaze flicked to me for a moment, somewhat questioning at my appearance with her in the middle of the night. However, it wasn’t the time or place for that discussion.
Raven and I stopped about a foot away, our stilted breaths visible in the cold darkness.
Joe shook his head in solemn wonder. “She’s gone.”
Raven took another step forward, wrapping her arms around his middle, and hugged him tight. Her face planted against his chest, her voice was barely audible.
“What happened?”
“She managed to rip off some strips of bedding, tied them around her neck.” Joe’s voice was flat, and emotionless. Shocked. “She was on suicide watch, so they were checking her every fifteen minutes, but she must have done it immediately when the tech left the room. They tried to revive her… and couldn’t.” He shook his head helplessly, and his hands came to rest on her shoulders. “I don’t know if you wanted to see her. She’s in her room still, just in case.”
Raven nodded faintly. “I think so.” She released him and took a step back, back to me. “Um, this is Drew. He’s, um…" Her jaw worked like she was trying to get something out, but couldn’t, so she just faded off, gesturing towards her uncle. “Drew, this is my Uncle Joe.”
I reached out and shook his hand. “I’m sorry.” What else could I really say just then?
Joe swallowed hard and looked down at Raven with a sad smile, then glanced back up at me. “Thank you for coming with her. The situation could be better, but I’m glad you’re here.”
Raven shivered slightly, so I pulled her close and placed a kiss on the top of her head. “Me, too,” I replied.
We signed in and got our visitor passes. The hospital had been kind of cold and sterile before, but now there was a deserted air about it. A quiet stillness that made it all seem so eerie. We were led through the corridors to a small room. Simple and plain. Safe. In the bed lay Margot. She wore a soft blue robe and her hair had been combed smooth. She looked like she was sleeping, but for an unnatural stillness and gray coloring. In spite of her pallor, she looked decades younger than she had the last time I saw her. Relaxed. As though death had given her new life.
Raven hesitated in the doorway, staring at her mother in sad wonder. Her hand dropped to where mine rested at her hip, and her fingers curved around mine, tangling their way into my grasp. I tightened my hold momentarily, then slowly urged her a little farther into the room.
Joe paused at the door behind us. “I'll give you a few minutes to say goodbye, if you want.”
“Thank you,” Raven whispered without looking away from her mother’s lifeless body.
He stepped out of the room and pulled the door mostly closed behind him.
“Rave,” I murmured from behind her, “do you want me to go, too? Do you want a few minutes alone?”
“No,” she quickly replied, and her eyes darted up to meet mine. “I, um… I’d like…" Her voice faltered.
I brushed my hand along her jaw. “Okay,” I said softly. “It’s okay. I'll stay.”
She leaned into me with a broken breath, and I wrapped both arms around her, holding her close. Bracing her, comforting her. Trying to absorb some of her tumultuous grief.
Finally, she turned back to her mom’s bed, watching her for a moment before she pulled away and sat in a chair alongside. Gingerly, she reached out and stroked her fingers down her mother’s forearm, her breath hitching at the first touch.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a barely audible voice. “I’m sorry I was never what you wanted. I’m sorry you were never what I needed. I’m sorry we hurt each other.” She choked a little before inhaling a long shaky breath. “And even though everything was such a mess, I’m sorry you’re gone. In spite of all the awful things we did and said, you were still my mom, and I’m sorry that I don’t get to tell you I did love you.”
She sat there a bit longer, waiting for some unknown cue, before she looked up at me. Her eyes were bright with tears, but none fell.
“I feel so stupid for that, you know.”
I stepped closer and crouched down to her level.
“For what?”
“All of it. For being so rebellious. For being sad now.” She shook her head slowly. “For caring when she didn’t.”
“You shouldn’t. She had to have cared about you, too. In some little way, even though she couldn’t show it. As much as she was still your mom, you were still her little girl.”
Raven’s lip began to tremble and the wetness in her eyes pooled and spilled over to trail down her cheeks. I pulled her towards me and she slid from the chair into my arms. We sat on the floor beside her mother’s deathbed, and I held her as she cried against my chest, brushing back the fine hairs that had escaped her ponytail while the old, putrid bitterness seeped out of her. She allowed the grief to wash through her, to slowly replace the hardened antipathy with forgiveness. A heart like Raven’s couldn’t do anything else. No matter how she tried to hide it, she was simply too soft deep down inside.
After some time had passed and her tears began to fade, there came a soft knock at the door. We looked up to see Joe in the doorway. Untangling ourselves, we slowly rose. Raven looked once more down at her mother.
“Bye, mama,” she whispered.
“I tried calling your sister while you were in there,” Joe said as we headed back outside.
The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon, and the winter sky began to glow with a vibrant golden pink. All around, the world was blanketed with heavy snow, leaving it looking fresh and new.
Joe continued to talk, his hands in his pockets and his feet shuffling along in the ice-melt that had been scattered along the sidewalk.
“I wasn’t sure if she’d call back, so I did tell her in the voicemail. I'll give your father a call in a bit, too, if you want.”
“I'll do it,” Raven offered in a solemn voice. “I know you don’t really like the guy.”
He gave her a sad smile. “I mostly didn’t like how they treated you.”
“They sent me here. That was the best thing they ever did for me.”
Joe reached out and pulled her to him, giving her a long bear hug. “You’re a good kid,” he murmured into her hair, then released her. “I'll call him. The last thing you need is his shit right now. I'll also let you know what the plans are once I talk to the funeral home.”
“Let me know if you need me to do anything,” Raven nodded.
<
br /> He looked back up at me, seeming a bit grizzled, but there was a definite warmth in his eyes that clearly reflected his feelings for her.
“Thank you again for coming with her,” he said sincerely.
“I’m glad I was around to,” I replied.
There was some kind of interchange that passed between him and me. In spite of his appreciation that I was there when she needed me, it also felt like he was warning me not to hurt her.
And a little like he wasn’t thrilled with the knowledge that I was with Raven in the middle of the night when she got his call.
“Well,” he said as he stepped back towards his pickup, “better get home and get to work on some of this.”
“Later, Joe,” Raven said with a small wave.
I opened up the driver side of the truck, and Raven climbed in to sit in the middle of the bench seat.
“Drew,” Joe said once Raven had buckled up in my truck. I took a step towards him, and he leaned in and spoke with a low sincerity. “Take care of her. There aren’t many people she allows to get close.”
I met his gaze and saw the concern in his eyes. Raven was like a daughter to him… and he wasn’t fucking around with this request.
And it pulled words out of me that I didn’t even know were true until I said them.
“I’d do anything for her.”
Raven didn’t say much of anything on the way back to Ophir. Neither did I. We just sat lost in our thoughts as we traveled through the crisp, winter morning back to her apartment.
When we got there, I got out of the truck and waited as Raven slid out on my side. I followed her inside her little place, unsure what to do, but wanting to do something to ease the shock and despondency that enveloped her. She set her purse on the counter and began to pull off her coat.
“You don’t have to stay.” Her voice was emotionless. Flat and empty.
“It’s okay. I can.”
“It’s Monday. You’ve probably got appointments.”
“I'll call Neil, let him know I'll reschedule. I'll tell him the same for you.”
A wry, sour twist touched her lips. “Because I’m sleeping with the boss. He'll love that.”
“I really don’t think he cares, but neither one of us should be working today after the night we’ve had. Especially you.”
“I'll be okay,” she shrugged. “It’s not like my mom and I were close. I just need some sleep.”
Something about her stance, about the cool remoteness of her voice, touched a nerve in me. She was clearly trying to get rid of me, and that knowledge squeezed in my chest, making it hard to breathe.
“You want me to go.” It was more of a question even if it sounded like a statement.
“I want to be alone,” Raven replied.
Her curt words cut into my lungs. I knew she was hurting, but the lack of emotion made me want to say something bitter. Something to shake her out of this stony-eyed demeanor. I’d just spent the night comforting her. She’d been sobbing on my shoulder, allowing me to shelter her vulnerability and give her my strength.
And now, she was telling me to leave.
Rejected again.
I nodded and turned back to the door without a word. I took one last look at her, but she didn’t move. She didn’t speak. She just stood there frozen and empty.
So I did what she told me to. I left.
I went back outside and got it my truck. I started it up, revving the engine a time or two in my frustration. I stared at her little apartment built onto the end of the garage and let the dejected anger course through my veins. I put my truck in gear and started backing out.
As I turned the steering wheel, I saw just the faintest hint of the tat on my forearm. The tat I’d started and she’d finished. I pushed up my sleeve.
Love heals.
Fuck.
All at once, it occurred to me that this little act was just exactly that… an act. A front Raven threw up to keep people at arm’s length. A way to protect herself from rejection and betrayal and heartache. Maybe a test, even.
A test I almost failed.
I was being a dick.
So instead of peeling out in the alley, of romping on the gas to express my annoyance, I pulled back into the parking space. I turned off the truck and sent a text to Neil, telling him some bad shit had gone down, so Raven and I wouldn’t be in that day.
Then I went back to her door. I didn’t knock. I simply walked in to see she hadn’t even moved. She still stood there with her zipper halfway down on her coat, frozen in place.
But she had tears streaming down her cheeks.
I walked over to stand in front of her. She kept her eyes tightly closed, unsuccessfully fighting back the tears.
“You don’t always have to be so strong,” I said softly.
She kept her eyes closed, and her voice was so faint I could barely hear it, even standing as close as I was. “I can’t just fall apart. There’s nobody to catch me.”
“What about me?”
“You’ve got your own issues to deal with. You don’t need mine, too.”
I reached out to cup her cheek and leaned in. Her body trembled, stiff and rife with tension.
“Let me be strong for you, Rave.”
For a moment, I thought she would push me away.
But cautiously wrapping her in my arms, I absorbed the pent up emotion vibrating through her body. She finally released a broken sob and melted into my chest. She internally fought it. She struggled against it, but she did it all the same. Her face dipped into my dress coat and fingers clutched at the lapels while she cried, and I just held her.
I tried to give her some of the strength and comfort she’d always given me.
And she let me.
She looked up after some time had passed. The remnants of her wedding makeup still shadowed dark around her eyes. Through the sex and the sleep and the tears. Her lashes were spiky, and her face was slightly blotchy in its paleness.
But she was so incredibly lovely to me.
She started to pull away, but took hold of my hand, leading me to her bedroom where I pulled off her coat and we kicked off our shoes. Where we lay down on her bed, still fully clothed but wrapped tightly in each other’s arms, and we just… were.
As I held her, she whispered quietly.
“Drew?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for coming back.” Her voice was incredibly fragile, and I pulled her just a little closer, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “I'm really glad you're here.”
“There's no place else I'd rather be, Rave. No place in the world.”
I woke up what felt like hours later. Like I’d slept the day away. Glancing off to the side, I saw a clock. It was almost noon.
Very little light came through the dark plum-colored curtains, but just enough to see. Clothes were strewn about, tossed over a chair, hanging on hooks, and spilling out of built-in drawers alongside the closet. A stand-up oval mirror sat in one corner, and a bunch of necklaces and scarves were draped over the sides. The room was tiny. The bed was pushed into a corner, up against the wall on one side, and the only other furniture was a small bedside table with the alarm clock and a lamp. Her bedding consisted of a thick, warm quilt in various shades of purple and blue over dark plaid flannel sheets. The mattress was firm, yet incredibly cushiony. It was by far the most comfortable bed I’d ever slept on in my life. I didn’t ever want to get up.
But I was in Raven’s room, and Raven was nowhere to be seen. At first, I panicked a little. I wondered if she’d taken off, but then realized I could smell the faint scent of her shampoo and slight humidity in the air, as though she’d recently showered. It mingled with the rich aroma of coffee brewing in the small kitchenette area of the main room.
So I pulled myself out of the warmth of the flannel sheets and instantly felt the chill in the air. I still wore the black shirt and jeans from the wedding. The jacket lay on the floor by the bed, and I hadn’t the foggiest idea w
hat had become of the tie at this point.
I stepped through Raven’s bedroom door to see a small bathroom across the narrow hallway, so I stopped there to take a piss and wash up a little, using a dab of toothpaste on my finger to get the taste of sleep out of my mouth. I still looked pretty rough, but I didn’t really care much. Plus, I really needed to get out to the living room to gauge what Raven I’d be dealing with today.
I saw her the second I came down the hall, leaning up against the kitchen counter.
“Do you want some coffee?” she asked quietly.
But I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t talk.
Because here in front of me stood Raven, a whole new one that I had never seen before.
No makeup. No dramatic steampunk outfit. She wore only a thin-strapped camisole and a pair of boy shorts, and her damp hair fell around her shoulders like deep purple silk.
And her eyes were hazel.
Raven without her mask.
Holy hell.
My heart beat wildly in my chest as I took a few steps towards her, studying her closely, awed by the natural beauty of her features. She was always stunning, but always a little too perfect. Too secure in appearance. This Raven looked slightly delicate. This Raven seemed just a touch out of control. Her stance, the look in her eyes, it all drew me to her. I suddenly only wanted to hold her.
My fingers cupped her jaw, and her breath caught. I felt a tremor run through her, making her seem so fragile. So real and emotional and… right.
With my free hand, I took the coffee she had offered and set it on the counter behind her. Then I cradled her face in my palms and studied her intently. I watched as her eyes dilated slightly. Her skin shivered under my touch. Her lips fell open to release the faintest gasp.
“Raven,” I whispered, and she trembled. “You’re not wearing your mask.”
She began to tip her head down, her eyes fluttering closed, but I caught her movements and held her still.
“You’re beautiful,” I continued.
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