“How much did it go for?”
“$850 million.”
“Dayamn. You complaining?” Ayrton asked. “I know you're not complaining. This one shakes you because Diana was the one who really pushed you to do this. She was the one who supported it and encouraged you to be great with it. So now, all those memories are coming back. As tough as things were with Diana, she was special to you. Yeah man, I know what it's all about. You're never going to lose those memories.”
“Diana was so... Different. She was so special. I mean, she made me want to punch holes in walls, no doubt. But there was magic in that girl,” I told him.
“Yeah, but man, that relationship was built on lies and deception. There may have been magic in her, but your angel is sitting at your house waiting for you. Diana was never going to be your angel. She was never going to be good enough. But Mary-Margaret – She's good enough. She is perfect.”
“I know. It doesn't make it hurt any less. Another chapter is gone. Every page that turns, it burns a little deeper,” I told him as we were interrupted by another car showing up. We both glanced over a shoulder to see the car... It was Diana.
“I'm going to leave you to it. Don't do anything stupid, okay? Go get your angel. She wants you and only you. There ain't no confusion there, no questions. She won't let anyone talk her out of it,” Ayrton said as he left. I knew what he was getting at. Diana always let her family and friends have a say in our relationship. Rule number one of relationships... Keep the family and friends the hell out of it. Diana broke that rule from day one.
Diana approached soon after Ayrton left. “Hi,” she said. I didn't respond. “So I heard you sold it, this. The company.”
All I could do was nod. This girl who destroyed me in 2004, the girl who lied and hid things from me, the girl who manipulated and controlled me... The girl who inexplicably I loved more than I probably should have despite all of her faults... The girl who went from loving me one day to hating me the next morning and never turning back from it... She was here, and she was being kind. And I didn't know why.
“I heard you got your girl. Mary-Margaret, right? You ended up with the girl I always said you would,” she continued.
“When I was with you, the only girl I wanted to be with was you. But you never believed me. You never thought I loved you. You just spent the entire time blaming me for every problem in your life and then heartlessly breaking up with me and hurting me as much as you possibly could. Why should I pay you any mind right now?” I flamed back at her.
“Five years passed and you still haven't forgiven me?”
“Five years passed and you've never given me a reason to forgive you. This is the first time I've heard from you in four years. I've never been so hurt. One day, we have great love. The next day, you hate me. No explanation. No apologies. Just hate and blame. And you never cared what it did to me.”
“What does it matter, Ryan? You were with someone less than a month later!”
“Only after putting everything together and realizing that I deserved better than someone who lied to and manipulated me from the first day we were together.”
“I'm sorry, didn't I hear that's what Maddie did to you as well?” she snapped.
“She showed contrition. She showed care. She gave a shit about me! She made her mistakes, yes, but unlike you, she didn't blame everything on me and make a bunch of false claims about what kind of person I am.”
“Right, she just lied about her entire history when I lied about one guy.”
“You lied about all of them, in case your memory is kinda foggy. Why the hell am I arguing with you?” I was growing exasperated.
“Because it's what we always did, and still we were great together,” she said with a smirk.
“Yeah. And then you walked away. And now you have no place in my life, Diana. I'm so sorry I was ever kind to you. I should have known such a wretched soul could never be touched. Seriously, what are you doing here? Really? What do you want?” I asked her. I could see tears welling up in her eyes. It tugged at my heart to see her cry, but I couldn't do anything to help.
“I thought maybe you still loved me. I thought maybe you could forgive the past and we could talk this out.”
“Those days have passed, Diana. You had plenty of time to come back...”
“Ryan, you were always dating someone else!”
“I am not arguing with you anymore. I'm going to get back to my girlfriend now. Best of luck to you in the future, Diana.”
And with that, I climbed in my F50 and left. It was the last time I ever spoke to Diana. I still held a special place for her in my heart. No doubt, she was different. She was so different from any other girl I'd ever dated. She had more of an effect on me than most of my girlfriends. But she was never who I wanted.
About twenty minutes later, I arrived home. I entered a dark house, turned on a light and there was my princess, my true angel. And she was very not happy. She was curled in a ball in a living room chair.
“So, are you getting back together with her?” Mary-Margaret asked me.
“Oh hell no. Why would you ever think that?” I asked her. I approached the chair she was in and knelt down before her.
“She was different. You always said it. The two of you had something you'd never experienced before. And now she's in town to get you back. You were always supposed to end up with a blonde.” Rarely did I see such weakness in Mary-Margaret, but it always made me love her more knowing that she was willing to show me this side of her.
“I ended up with the perfect girl. Honest, strong, beautiful, supporting... Diana never stood a chance against you. Nobody did.”
“What happened?”
“The usual Diana, she wanted to fight and then turn it into happiness. But I'm done fighting with her. She's not worth fighting for. But more importantly, she was never worth fighting with,” I told Mary-Margaret. Many years ago, I told her what my father had told me about the right person being worth fighting with, I wasn't sure if she remembered it though.
“Am I worth fighting with?” she asked with a cynical half chuckle.
I picked up one of her hands and kissed it. “You will always be worth fighting with.” And with that, I picked Mary-Margaret up and carried her to bed. And that was the end of Diana.
The next day, Chase flew in and met with Ayrton and me at the local Skyline Restaurant. We needed a game plan. The conversation I had with Mary-Margaret the night before was an interesting coincidence. She thought that I was leaving her, when in fact the second order of business while in Columbus was to find a way commit myself to her for the rest of my life. We needed to come up with a plan for how I was going to propose to her.
“I mean, what you did for Maddie... You're not going to top that, dude. That was all time,” Chase said.
“Chase, you're doing a really shitty job putting me at ease about this,” I responded.
“I just don't want to lie about it. The way you proposed to Maddie was epic.”
“We can't forget about Maddie, but we gotta figure out something good for Mary-Margaret. She deserves that,” Ayrton chimed in.
“Okay okay, what do you have for a ring?” Chase asked.
I got the ring out of my pocket and showed it to them.
“Holy shit,” Ayrton said.
“It's sapphires. I got it from Philipsburg back in Montana,” I told them.
“How much did that set you back?” Chase asked.
“Almost ten grand,” I replied.
We went on for hours discussing plans. We ended up settling on a fairly simple concept, but an effective one. The after party was more of the real surprise.
Then came Christmas Day.
It was snowing in Baltimore. Imagine that. Mary-Margaret and I were spending time at our team compound there in the Inner Harbor and the snow followed us. Mary-Margaret was always fascinated by snow. She admitted to me years ago that she had never seen snow in person until I took her to Montana.
&nb
sp; So here was the scenario. I had business to tend to on the morning of the 25th. Actually I didn't, but that's what we made Mary-Margaret think. We had her believing without a doubt I had business to do on Christmas. She was none too happy about it. I was “meeting” with Ronnie Dennis to discuss the 2010 year with McLaren and the Formula World Championship circuit. That wasn't what this day was about. This was Mary-Margaret's day. I had ducked out of the flat at around 10 AM. By Noon, I could only imagine how ticked off she would have been. I called her just after the clock tolled one.
“Hey sweetie, you remember that strip mall right at the end of the Inner Harbor? Meet me there, I got them to open the restaurant so we can have lunch,” I told her. Again, total bull shit. She wasn't happy. I can't even remember what she said, all I know is she agreed.
I didn't show up to the spot until half an hour after she got there. When I arrived, I found my friend Chelsea, who was a photographer from Montana. I made sure she brought her stealth mode to Baltimore so she could get pictures of what was about to go down.
“You ready for this?” Chelsea literally had gone full stealth mode. She looked exactly like a bush. She might as well have headed for Vietnam, nobody would've notice her. Stealth mode was strong in that one.
“Without a doubt in my mind,” I told her.
Mary-Margaret was tracing the lines of the pavement. Such a sweet girly girl she was. I was almost to her, she hadn't spotted me quite yet. It was so silent out there with the snow storm that had moved in. It was the first time I'd ever seen standing snow in Baltimore. Eventually she heard the crunching of snow beneath my feet. I had my hands tucked in my peacoat. She was wearing her stunning little black dress with a nice coat over top. I found my mind taking inventory of everything surrounding, even though I knew we'd have pictures of it.
“Finally, you found me! I was starting to think I was blending in,” she said with a mischievous smile. Surprisingly she didn't seem mad at all. Did she know I was setting her up? No way, I'd never done the piss-her-off-then-make-her-happy routine with her.
“I'll always find you, my love. You couldn't take my eyes off of you if you tried,” I said, drawing another one of her unparalleled smiles. “There's something that I've been meaning to ask you for a long time. About ten years, actually.” I got on one knee... Aaaand I think she was surprised. Either that or she was thinking I literally would never propose.
“Mary-Margaret, I love you. I have always loved you. And I want to make sure we do this right this time. I want to be everything for you and I want you to be everything for me. I am so sorry it's taken me this long to ask,” I said as I took out the ring. “Please, in front of all of our closest friends and all the people we love, show the world that you and I belong together. Show everyone that we should grow old together, and prosper together, and...”
“Just say it!” she said. Admittedly I tend to be long winded at all the wrong times.
“Will you marry me?”
“Of course I will, you goof!” She pulled me up by my coat and kissed me. I put the ring on her and she wrapped her arms around me.
Wait, she said yes? Score.
The rest of the day was as perfectly unplanned as it was planned. We had rented out Phillip's Seafood Restaurant in the strip mall. We had the restaurant cater the meal, even had a DJ for the festivities. Of all the ways one could celebrate the glorious day of Christmas... This was how it should be done every year.
Mary-Margaret was set to be my wife. Great feeling, let me tell you. After eating dinner with the entire team and love interests in attendance, Ayrton took the microphone from the DJ.
“Okay, so as we all know, these two love birds finally decided to make their way to the alter. That is, so long as Ryan can find a way to not screw this up. Mary-Margaret is the most classy, elegant woman Ryan has ever known. And Ryan is... None of those things. My friend, you are, without a doubt, the luckiest sonuva bitch I've ever met. Now you two love birds get up here and dance,” Ayrton said as he turned the mic back over to the DJ and put on a song for us to dance to.
I spun Mary-Margaret out onto the floor. She looked at me with those googly scared eyes she gets once in a while.
“Ryan -- Ryan! I don't know how to dance. You already know that!” she exclaimed.
“It's okay. It's easy. I'll show you,” I said with a smug smile.
She cocked her head to the side, gazed at me curiously. “Mister Sumpter, when did you learn to dance?”
“I'm just full of surprises.”
“That you are,” she responded. She gave me that smile she always does... So big, so cheesy. Half laugh, all grin. I never expected her to become a model, but it was interesting that after she did, I noticed her modelling smile was very different than the one she regularly gave me.
So I asked her as we danced around, “Why do you smile like that?”
“What do you mean?”
“When you smile in your photoshoots, it's much different than how you just smiled.”
“I can only smile like that when I'm looking at you. No other feeling in the world can make me smile like that.” The best part about what she said was her sincerity. She meant every word. And that, my friends, is where you will find truth in true love.
The rest of the night was filled with dancing, most of it stupid crazy dancing that made no sense and had no rhythm. What do you expect? I'm pasty white and only schooled in ballroom. We eventually found our way back to the suite. Ayrton made sure Mary-Margaret and I had the place to ourselves. Perhaps he knew how entertaining Mary-Margaret could be, especially when she looked that sexy in her little black dress.
At the end of the night, as Mary-Margaret laid on top of me asleep, I stared at the ceiling in deep thought. This one, this was the one that was supposed to last. Yeah. This one couldn't be ended. It's the way it was always supposed to be. Mary-Margaret and I were forever, and now it would finally soon become a reality. A dream come true. Mary-Margaret was my dream come true. Better than any other.
- 12 -
The New Challenges
The year 2010 brought about many things. It was the team's third Formula World Championship season and we were eyeing a third trophy. We were building on our tweaked 2009 chassis which would end up proving vital to our success. As with almost every year, we faced some controversy over the racing season. That controversy wasn't what shaped my year though.
My relationship with Mary-Margaret had taken a very strong step forward. We found a way to respect each other more than ever before. Still, memories of Maddie were impossible to avoid. Those memories showed up on April 22nd after the team arrived home in Montana from the race in Shanghai.
I woke up that morning in the same bedroom that my Maddie was mercilessly murdered. Mary-Margaret had already gotten up and was on a phone conference with a business associate. I jumped in the shower, the hot water felt so cold. I finished, toweled off, and sat on the end of my bed.
Maddie entered.
“Hey there, my gorgeous man,” she said as she approached me and sat down.
“What're you doing here?” I asked.
“I'm here to see my man. You were out cold last night,” Maddie said. She was real. She was actually sitting there with me. Her long loosely curled blonde hair was real. Her emerald green eyes were real. She... Was real. “You know what I'm doing here, Ryan.”
“I'm afraid I'm losing you completely. I can't remember your scent. I can't remember what your hair felt like when I ran my fingers through it. I can barely remember you.”
“Do you really believe that? Dear, if that was true, would I be sitting here right now?” she asked.
“But you're just a memory. You're not actually here, are you?” I asked. She took a moment to respond.
“No, Ryan. You're alone. But I am always with you.”
“Why did this happen? Why did you leave me?” I asked her.
“I wasn't your destiny. I wasn't the right future for you,” she responded.
“
How can you say you weren't my destiny? I chose you. We were going to have a child together.”
“Ryan, please be honest with yourself. I was never your destiny. Mary-Margaret has always been the perfect match for you. You need to be honest with yourself before you end up losing her.”
“So what are you going to do? I mean, where are you going to go?” I asked, afraid of her response.
“I'll never leave you, Ryan. I love you. I always will. But you need to let me go. You need to make sure Mary-Margaret is the only woman in your heart.”
Mary-Margaret entered and just like that, Maddie was gone. Mary-Margaret approached me, sat down next to me and hugged me.
When she let go, I looked at her and asked, “Why'd you hug me?”
“You looked hurt, lost. I figured you were probably remembering what happened a year ago today,” she responded with the same grace and elegance that she always held within herself.
“That doesn't bother you?”
“No, sweetie. I love you. All of you. Maddie was a big part of your life. I'm not going to hold her against you,” she said. I wondered if she was completely serious. It couldn't possibly be easy for her to know that I would ever think of any woman other than her. But maybe she was serious, that she knew how much Maddie meant to me. After all, Mary-Margaret was a real woman. If anyone would understand not just losing a loved one, but a child – She would.
“I need to let her go, Mary-Margaret. I need to focus on you. You are my present, my future. You are the only woman I want in my life.”
“That doesn't mean you can't let yourself grieve. I don't want you holding it all in and then being in danger when you're driving.”
Four months passed and life still felt stale after seeing Maddie like that. It was strange though. Mary-Margaret brought so much light. Without her, things would have been dangerously dark. She kept me from sinking back into the darkness. I used to believe if you want to become a better person, you must let yourself sink into the darkness. Without experiencing the darkness, one can never really see light. Drowning in sorrow, alcohol, sex, drugs -- Those are great ways to escape the pain. But if you want to grow, you must let the pain in. Feel it, breathe it. Live the darkness. Only then can you grow.
The Legend: The Love of Ryan Sumpter Page 22