More Than Enough (More Than Series, Book 5)

by Jay McLean

  No moment’s hesitation.

  Just his all-consuming smile. “We have bacon.”

  Dylan

  It doesn’t take long for us to finish our meals and drive to the VA hospital. She didn’t speak much at the table. In fact, she didn’t speak at all. Neither did I. Same goes for the car ride here.

  I watched her though. I watched her eyes, clearer than I’d ever seen them, shifting constantly from one spot to another while her hands rested on her lap, her thumbs circling each other. I watched the rise and fall of her chest caused by her uneven breaths… and I watched her. Just her. And I tried to reason with myself as to why it made me so damn happy that she showed up at my door.

  I guess, if you take away my pride, I really just wanted her. How ever she’d have me.

  Now, we’re sitting in the waiting room at the hospital, her hands still on her lap and mine on top of my knees, stopping them from bouncing. Somewhere, there’s a clock ticking, soft footsteps as they move from one area to another, and gentle voices filtering from down the hall where the examination rooms are.

  The guy sitting across us clears his throat and I look up at him. He’s looking at Riley. Maybe this should piss me off—but the fact he’s missing an arm kind of deflates my annoyance. His gaze moves from her to me and he nods once as if we share some kind of unspoken bond.

  We don’t.

  I feel like an imposter.

  He’s missing an arm. The older guy on my right has scars covering half his face and then there’s me. I’m young, I’m fit—and give it a couple months—I’ll be back to a hundred percent. I glance at Riley, searching for her reaction. Her gaze is lowered, focused on her moving thumbs. I nudge her with my elbow. “You okay?”

  Before she has a chance to respond, the same doctor from my first visit calls my name. I stand up, taking Riley with me. She keeps her hand in mine, her grip tight as we walk down the narrow hallway toward his examination room. We walk in silence, the same silence that seems to have surrounded me all day. Silent on the outside, roaring thoughts on the inside.

  A woman stands when we enter the room. She’s in her mid-forties, dressed in standard hospital gear. She introduces herself as Tracey, my physical therapist, all while clutching a folder to her chest with LCpl. Banks, D. printed on the front. I sit on the bed while Riley takes a seat against the wall next to the door. Her knees are bouncing now, just like mine wanted to out in the waiting room. She looks out of place and I’m sure she feels it.

  “Who do we have here?” Tracey asks, motioning to Riley.

  “This is my friend Riley,” I tell her.

  “And you’re comfortable with her sitting in the room?”

  Riley’s eyes meet mine from across the room and she smiles. And that slight smile gives me the encouragement I need to speak the truth—the truth only she can get out of me. “She’s the only one I’m comfortable with.”

  Riley’s body relaxes with her exhale and I know I’ve said the right thing because her knees are no longer bouncing, her gaze is no longer wandering. And me? I realize now why I was happy to see her this morning—because there was a reason I asked her to come with me today. I wanted her here. No. I needed her here.

  She just doesn’t know how much.

  “How’s the wound healing?”

  “Good,” I say, but I’m still watching Riley.

  “Still bleeding?”

  “No, Ma’am.”

  “That’s good, Lance Corporal.”

  I tear my gaze away from Riley and focus on Tracey. “Dylan’s fine, Ma’am.”

  She nods once. “Okay, Dylan. You ready for me to take a look at it?”

  It takes longer than it should for me to shrug out of my shirt and as soon as it’s off, both Tracey and Dr. Garvis block my view of Riley to inspect my shoulder.

  He checks the entry wound first and then the exit. “It’s healing well,” Dr. Garvis says while Tracey takes notes in her now open folder. I wonder what it says about me. How much detail goes into medical records of wounded Marines? Does it state how it happened? Not the technical aspects of what bullet or gun caused it but how. When. Where. Who.

  They speak for a few minutes, their words a jumbled mess of medical terms and timelines. Dr. Garvis moves back to his seat behind his desk, his fingers typing away when I hear the gasp come from Riley. My eyes snap to hers—wide and glazed with tears.

  It dawns on me that it’s the first time she’s ever seen it. Sure, she knows it exists, she’s seen it bandaged up, but she’s never seen it. She raises her hand and covers her mouth and when she sees I’ve noticed her reaction, she looks away.

  Tracey must see it, too, because she stands in front of me, blocking Riley’s view. “Still okay, Dylan?”

  I nod and look over her shoulder at Riley, who’s now looking everywhere but at me. “Riley,” I call out.

  “Yeah?”

  I motion for her to sit on the bed with me and without hesitation; she picks up her bag and sits next to me, her hand immediately on my leg.

  Tracey smiles. “I’ve gone over your file,” she says, “and I’ve come up with a rehabilitation plan for the injury. We weren’t sure if you needed more time for it to heal or if your current exercises are helping—”

  “He does these spinny things,” Riley interrupts.

  Tracey quirks an eyebrow at her, her amusement evident. “Spinny things?”

  “Yeah.” Riley holds her free hand to her chest, then rotates her shoulder like she must’ve seen me doing a few times. “Spinny things.”

  Tracey smiles.

  So do I.

  “And these ones,” Riley continues, releasing my hand. She has both hands on her chest now, her elbows moving back and forth and I wonder if I’ve looked as ridiculous as she does at this very moment.

  Tracey laughs. “Well, it’s good to know you’ve been doing them,” she murmurs, scribbling more notes in the folder.

  I cover Riley’s hand with mine when she places it back on my leg. Then I nudge her with my elbow. “You been watching me?” I joke.

  She shrugs.

  “So keep doing those,” Tracey says, looking up from her notes. “Give it about a week or so and you can start adding weights. You can start with—” She breaks off when Riley moves quickly to pull out a notebook from her bag. She flips open the cover and sets the tip of the pen on a blank page, her eyes on Tracey. Then she nods.

  Tracey looks at me.

  I shrug.

  Dr. Garvis joins us.

  “Go on,” Riley says. She looks down at her book, just long enough for her to write: Dylan’s rehab on the top of the page, and then refocuses on Tracey.

  “Riley?” I ask, my gaze moving from Tracey to her. “What are you doing?”

  “Taking notes,” she answers.

  She’s already written Tracey and Dr. Garvis in the time it’s taken me to ask a simple question.

  The rest of us stay quiet, our eyes on her. “What?” she asks, looking between us.

  “Nothing.” I shake my head, smiling to myself.

  “I’ll be giving Dylan a copy of the rehab plan and all the exercises so you don’t have—”

  Riley waves her hand dismissively. “But that’s for him. These are for me.”

  Dr. Garvis asks, “For you?”

  Riley shrugs. “So I can make sure he does it and kick his ass if he doesn’t.”

  “Some friend you have here, Dylan,” Tracey says.

  “Yeah.” I can’t stop smiling. “She’s just lucky she’s beautiful.”

  We spend a good half hour in the room while Tracey and I discuss my new rehab plan and Riley frantically takes notes. Ten pages of them, last I counted. She asks a lot of questions, too. Questions I would’ve never thought to ask. Tracey and Dr. Garvis answer every one as best they can and at the end of it all, Doc says, “If everything goes well, we’ll have you back to your unit in four to six months.”

  Four to six months, I think. Riley though—she says it out loud. And havi
ng her voice it makes it more real. So does her writing it down, apparently.

  The ride back home is exactly the same as it was there. Silent.

  She sits with her back to the door, her legs crossed beneath her, writing in a notebook—a different one to the one she had at the hospital—and whatever she’s writing has her mind so consumed she doesn’t even realize that I’ve pulled into my garage and parked.

  “So…” I say, killing the engine.

  She looks up and around her and for a moment she’s confused. Then she must realize where we are and what we’re doing and the reality of the day finally hits her. “Four to six months,” she mumbles.

  “Four to six months,” I repeat.

  Blindly, she shoves the notebook in her bag and looks around again. “This your garage?”

  “Yep.”

  She opens the door and steps out. I follow behind her, meeting her at the workbench where my engine parts sit. “What’s this?”

  “Just an engine I’m working on.”

  “You think it’ll be done in four to six months?” she asks.

  “If I want it to be,” I tell her. My response has more than one meaning, but she doesn’t need to know that. “I’ve pulled it apart and rebuilt it so many times I can do it with my eyes closed.”

  “So why not just leave it?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. I guess maybe I’m not ready to move on.” Another double meaning.

  She picks up the toothbrush I use to clean the smaller parts and lifts it between us. “What’s this for?”

  I grab a random part off the bench and hand it to her. “Scrub it clean.”

  It wasn’t an order, but she does it anyway, and I watch and wait to see if this is it. If this is her way of avoiding the situation and everything we’ve done to get us to this point. She says, “So you just clean them and…”

  I tune her out, my mind too busy screaming all the questions she’s avoiding. “Why did you come today?”

  Her hands freeze mid movement, just for a moment, before she starts again. “Because you asked me to.”

  I cover her hands. “Riley,” I deadpan. I want her to pay attention. I’ve moved on from wanting the empty silence of her room and the comfort that comes with it.

  She swallows loudly and drops the brush and the part on the bench. Then she faces me. “You had sex with me.”

  “I’m blindingly aware of that, Riley.”

  “And you want to have more sex with me.”

  “Again, I’m positive that’s obvious.”

  Her gaze drops. “But it’s not just about sex anymore is it?”

  “It’s never been just about sex.”

  “I mean… we feel things…”

  I nod. “I feel a lot of things for you. So? What does that mean?”

  Rubbing her temple, she sighs loudly. “It means you were wrong, Dylan, about there being a big difference between can’t and won’t. Sometimes, it’s not that easy, especially when it comes to feelings. I wanted you, but I shouldn’t have let it happen.”

  “That makes no sense, Riley. You either wanted to or you didn’t.”

  “I did want you.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “The guilt! Okay!” she shouts. Then takes a calming breath. “The guilt is the problem.” And now she’s crying. “I can’t let it happen again—the sex or the feelings—because the guilt is stronger than the want and it would be okay, you know? For you to be in my room and for us to kiss and touch each other the way we did, but the second you’re gone, I’m surrounded by guilt because Jeremy—”

  “Is dead,” I cut in, and the second the words leave my mouth I hate myself.

  She starts to leave, but I grasp her arm. “I’m sorry, Riley. That was wrong and completely out of line.”

  Her eyes drift shut, her intake of breath long and loud and when she releases it, she opens her eyes—her clear gray eyes. “I need to show you something,” she says, shrugging out of my hold and walking out of the garage. I follow behind her, because I can’t not. And I know whatever she’s about to show me, whatever she’s about to say, it’s going to change everything. Everything.

  Sixteen

  Riley

  There’s no emotion greater than fear.

  No ache greater than grief.

  No sound greater than silence.

  Dylan’s eyes lift from the notes in his hands and the hundreds on the floor—all the notes I’ve written to a boy I love. A boy he so simply worded as “dead” and if it were that easy—for me to say he’s dead and to move on—then I wouldn’t be holding on to him, to the memories of him. Because he’s still here, in my mind and in my heart—he’s still alive, and the guilt I feel now, which is greater than the guilt I felt after Dylan’s kiss is proof of that. Because now, I’m sharing more than just the guilt of our actions. I’m sharing our memories, our lives, our pasts, and our love. Not with the boy I loved, but with a man who’s making me question that love.

  “Do you get it now?” I ask, my voice strained from the sob forcing its way out of me.

  “How long have you…” He doesn’t finish his sentence. He doesn’t need to.

  “You know, it’s strange… that you can see someone every day for over two years of your life… look into their eyes, touch them, feel their hair between your fingers, see them smile, hear them laugh—and then it gets taken away from you and nothing.” I wipe my cheeks, my tears flowing unrestrained. “You close your eyes and you try to picture them and you can’t. You can’t see any of it. You can’t hear their voice, hear their laughter, hear them say your name a thousand different ways.”

  “Riley,” he says, his voice hoarse from his own fear—his fear of me and my form of crazy.

  “So I write him these letters,” I tell him. “I try to remember him, every moment of our lives and I write them down so I don’t forget them, because I don’t want to forget him. I don’t want his life and our love to become a generic quote. To one day mean nothing.” I take a breath and make sure he’s looking at me when I add, “Because he meant everything to me, Dylan.”

  I start to pick up the letters, placing them carefully back in their jars, trying to do everything I can to avoid reading them. Because it’s already bad enough that I’ve bled my heart to Dylan, I don’t need the reminder of the guilt to add to the pain.

  He drops to his knees in front of me and picks up the notes, opening each one and reading them before handing them to me. He doesn’t speak when he does it. He just takes his time, being as careful as I am when he unfolds and refolds them. And when we’re done, he leans back against the bed, his eyes on the ceiling and my broken heart weighing heavily in his hands. He stays that way for minutes, hours, who knows? Then he drops his gaze, looking at me silently crying in front of him.

  “What happened to him?” he asks, and I shake my head. It’s one memory I don’t want to remember.

  “Will you tell me about him?”

  I release a sob. “What?”

  He pushes off the bed and moves closer to me, his legs crossed as his hands reach for mine. “Not the memories you have of him or the things you did or the color of his eyes. Tell me about him, the boy who loved you.”

  I look over at the full bottle of wine on my nightstand.

  “No,” he says, his finger on my chin, making me face him again. “Let me be your alcohol. Let me dull your pain.”

  I cry into my hands, free and uncontrolled and louder than I ever let myself cry.

  “Come here,” he pulls me with him until he’s lying on his back, my head on his chest as he strokes my hair. He holds me to him while I cry. Not from grief. Not from anger. Not from missing someone so badly I don’t know how to get through the next hour, let alone the next day, but I cry because it’s all too much. Too real. Too raw. And for the first time ever, I allow myself to cry for me.

  For my loss.

  “Start from the beginning,” Dylan says. “Tell me how you met. How he asked you out. Where he t
ook you on the first date. Your first kiss. Tell me how he made you feel. Tell me how he loved you.”

  I sniff back my heartbreak and look up at him. “Why?”

  “Because, Riley,” he says, kissing the top of my head. “I plan on loving you like he did.”

  * * *

  It was English class. Sophomore year. We were studying Shakespeare, watching the “modern” version of Romeo and Juliette. You were sitting next to me leaning on the back legs of your chair messing around with your friends. You were the popular Jock. I was the quiet, get-through-the-day girl. You and your friends started talking louder and louder and I lost it. I turned to you all and told you to be quiet so I could focus. You dropped your chair forward, your eyes wide and on me. “Excuse me?” you asked.

  “You heard me. Shut up. Some of us are here to actually learn.”

  Your friends laughed. You didn’t. You just kept looking at me. “Riley, right?”

  I rolled my eyes.

  You leaned forward, your forearm on my desk and your voice low. “You really think some old dude like Shakespeare wrote this shit so hundreds of years later a bunch of punk teenagers can rip it to shreds in order to get some score out of a hundred… so some self-righteous adult who once ripped the same material to shreds can give said teenager a number in comparison to how he feels about Shakespeare’s life’s work?”

  Shaking my head, I glared at you and pushed your arm off my desk. “I don’t need to hear your bullshit opinion. I just want you to shut up.”

  Your friends laughed again.

  And again, you didn’t.

  Instead, you turned around and told them all to be quiet.

  You were their leader—an opinionated ass of a leader.

  “Let the lady learn,” you shouted.

  I yelled at you to shut up.

  We both got detention.

  And when the class was over I stood up and started packing my bag. You stood, too, right by my table, waiting for me to finish. When I was done, you took my hand in yours and placed your lips on the back of it, kissing it once.

  I stood still, not knowing what to do… and annoyed that my first kind-of-kiss from a boy was from you. Then you smiled. “Sweet Riley,” you announced. “Parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow… at detention.”