The Difference a Day Makes (Perfect, Indiana: Book Two)

by Longley, Barbara

  Why would a woman like Paige want to stay with a broken man like him? He blinked back the sting in his eyes and concentrated on bringing his pulse back into the normal range.

  Turning into the parking ramp, he tried to pull himself together. He had to learn how to stand on his own two feet. He had to do this for himself, or he’d never be fit for anyone else.

  Ryan parked and headed for the mental health wing, trying not to run like hell to get there before a meltdown happened. He approached the check-in desk. “Hey, Mrs. Beck. I have an appointment with the doc.”

  “Have a seat, Ryan. I’ll let him know you’re here.”

  “Thanks.” His ass had barely hit the fake leather when Dr. Bernard walked into the waiting room. He shot up again.

  “Hey, Ryan,” Doc greeted. “Let’s talk.”

  Relief washed through him. Doc always started their sessions the same way. Let’s talk. Translated roughly to mean, Let me poke and prod until you break down and regurgitate the shit lurking inside your dark soul. Ryan always left their sessions purged, and the emptiness came as a welcome reprieve from the pain. Once he was safely inside the doc’s office, Ryan slumped into his regular chair. “Paige got the job. She’s leaving.”

  “Ah.” Doc reached for his legal pad and pen.

  He shot him a glare. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means tell me how you feel about her leaving.”

  “Hurts like hell.” His jaw clenched.

  “Did you tell her how you feel about her?”

  “No.” He studied a new tear in his old jeans. “Why bother? I don’t want to stand in her way.”

  “Ryan, a couple of weeks ago we discussed how you’ve cut your parents out of your life. Do you remember?”

  He nodded, and his heart crawled up his throat.

  “Let me ask you a question.” Doc shifted in his chair. “You don’t believe you deserve to be happy. Am I right?”

  “I don’t deserve to be happy.” He swallowed hard in an attempt to get his heart back into his chest, where it belonged.

  “Hmm. You also believe you’re responsible for all the bad stuff that has happened in your life. Would you say that’s the case?”

  “Yeah.” He glanced at Dr. Bernard. “Have a pocketful of quarters with you today, Doc?”

  Dr. Bernard smiled. “OK. Here’s the real question, and I want you to think about it before you answer. What does taking the blame and feeling worthless do for you? What do you get out of it?”

  Ryan opened his mouth to reply and shut it again. What did it do for him, other than make his life a miserable hell? “Punishment. The self-imposed isolation and misery are my penance for being a bad person.”

  “You aren’t a bad person, Ryan. You’re a good man who has gone through more than most and lived to tell about it.” Doc peered at him over the rims of his reading glasses. “Has it occurred to you that if you truly were a bad person, none of what happened would bother you?”

  His eyes burned, and he couldn’t speak.

  “Were your parents abusive toward you? Did you have a terrible childhood?”

  “Hell no!” A flash of anger loosened his tongue. “My parents are wonderful people, and I had a great childhood.”

  “So, who are you punishing by cutting them off—you or them?”

  He shot out of his chair, anxiety and rage boiling over. “Me. I’m the one who deserves to be punished. I ruined everything when I talked Theresa into going riding. She died in my arms, man. Her head was cracked open, and her neck was broken…she…She died as I held her, and I still wear her blood all over me like I did that day. That kind of shit doesn’t wash away.”

  His stomach knotted into a hot, painful mass. “My best friend died because I failed to protect his back the way I’d sworn. I saw him in pieces on the Iraqi desert, because I let him down. I let everybody down. Five soldiers in my platoon died because I didn’t do what I knew I should.” He pressed his fists into his eye sockets. “I can’t get the pictures out of my mind, Doc. How the hell am I supposed to live with that? How the hell am I supposed to be happy?”

  Doc reached into his pocket, pulled out a few quarters, and handed them over. “Before the traumas, you allowed yourself to be happy, to be part of a loving family. What would happen if you forgave yourself right now? What would happen if you allowed yourself to believe you’re worthy of happiness? What would you do differently?”

  Swiping at the tears on his face, he pondered the questions and walked to the jug behind Doc’s desk. He dropped them in one by one, focusing on the plink-plink-plink they made as they hit all the other quarters. He stared at the contents, once again struck by the sheer mass of coins inside the plastic. He wasn’t alone in the self-blame game.

  “Can your parents forgive you?”

  “I don’t think they ever blamed me.” Ryan reached for the box of tissues sitting on the desk.

  “But you can’t forgive yourself.”

  “It would be so great if I could.” He blew out a breath. “All this weight and hurt, the loneliness…and guilt…”

  “Ryan, this might come as a shock. Is it possible nobody holds you responsible for the things you’ve suffered through but you? Especially not the dead?”

  “That’s what Paige said too. She said my ghosts have better things to do with their time than to blame me for what the enemy did to them.”

  “She sounds like a smart woman.”

  “She is.”

  “She sounds like maybe she’s worth fighting for.”

  “Yeah, but am I?”

  “Why don’t you ask her?”

  His ears rang, and his mouth went dry. He wasn’t sure he had the balls to do that. What would I do differently if I forgave myself? “So, the road to happiness is self-forgiveness? Sounds too damned easy.”

  “Simple, yes. Easy, no.” Doc made a chortling sound deep in his throat. “How are you coming along with your journaling?”

  Ryan made his way back to the hot seat he occupied each week and sank back down. “Good. I journal every night, just like you said I should.”

  “This week I want you think about the concept of self-forgiveness. What would that look like and feel like in your life?”

  “I will.”

  “How do you feel about group?”

  “I like being a part of the group.” Thank God he had his group to lean on. He and the other five veterans had bonded, and he knew he could call on any one of them if things got too rough to handle—like any one of them could call on him. He’d come too far and worked too hard to backslide now, and there was far too much at stake.

  “I didn’t realize how much I missed the brotherhood of being on a team. My squad in Iraq and I were tight. We all had each other’s backs, you know? There wasn’t anything we couldn’t talk about, and nothing we wouldn’t do for each other. When you leave the military, all that’s gone. It’s like having the rug pulled out from under your feet, and you just don’t fit in anywhere anymore.”

  “I know what you mean. It’s important to surround yourself with people who share common ground with you. A lot of the friendships started in group last a lifetime. I hope that’s the case with you.”

  “Yeah, me too.” His mouth quirked up. “We all go out for dinner together after our session. Each time, I wonder what civilians must think of us. We all make a mad dash for the chairs against the wall.”

  Dr. Bernard laughed. “Do what my group does—take turns and promise to watch your buddy’s six.”

  “Oh, yeah. Why didn’t we think of that?”

  “Don’t sweat it, army. It takes a marine to come up with the good stuff.”

  Ryan snorted. “Says you.”

  Doc leaned back and scrutinized him. “It’s time to think about a visit home, Ryan. No pressure. Just think about it for now.”

  Ryan’s palms started to sweat, and his chest ached in the empty space where his family used to live. “I will.”

  “You have a lot to thin
k about this week. I’ll see you for group on Monday.” Dr. Bernard stood. “How are the exercises to cope with the anxiety and rage coming along?”

  “Still working on that, Doc. It’s going to take some practice.”

  “They’ll work if you let them. Keep at it.” He set aside his pad and gave him a sharp look. “Trust me when I tell you this: You’re a good man, and you deserve to love and be loved. You deserve happiness as much as any of us do.”

  He choked up and nodded. If only.

  Doc smiled at him. “I’ll see you next week.”

  “Yeah. See you.” The familiar wrung-out weakness settled into his limbs as he left. What would he do differently if he truly believed he deserved to be happy? He would’ve wrapped his arms around Paige’s knees and begged her to stay, that’s what. He wasn’t there yet, and anyway, she had her mind made up about leaving.

  His heart hammered with fear. What if he had begged, and she’d agreed? Would she get into a car accident, or fall down the stairs, or…Stop.

  Paige wasn’t the kind of woman who could be talked into anything she didn’t want to do, and his fear had no basis in fact. He was manufacturing the worst scenarios he could, just like he’d conjured his ghosts.

  He gritted his teeth. I’m not going to do that anymore. It might take some time before I can forgive myself, but I’m not going to invent trouble where there is none. Straightening his spine, he got into his truck and headed home. Shit. He had a rough night ahead of him, with Paige so near and yet entirely unreachable.

  Ryan sat at his workspace and tried to tally how many hours it had been since Paige had walked out of his life. Should he start with their last argument, or should he begin with the moment she drove away on Saturday morning? Saturday, Sunday, to this Monday morning. That’s—

  “Hey, sad sack.” Ted came into his space and hovered there like bad news. “I don’t suppose you told Paige how you feel about her before you let her go.”

  Ryan shifted on his stool so his back faced Ted.

  Ted followed him around so he could glare at him. “Why not? She deserves to know.”

  “How is this any of your business, kid? You didn’t want her here in the first place.”

  “And yet I miss her already. Despite my awkwardness with the situation, I’m man enough to admit she was good for this company.” He continued to scowl at Ryan. “You let her make a decision about her life without having all the facts. That makes you a chickenshit.”

  Ryan practiced his deep breathing and counted to ten. “It’s for the best. Noah didn’t want me involved with his baby sister, anyway.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Noah came around the edge of the back staircase. “What gave you that idea? I wouldn’t have any problem with the two of you together. In fact, I was hoping—”

  “Well, then why did you keep warning me away from her?”

  Noah’s palm came up to rub the back of his head, and a sheepish expression flitted across his face. “It wasn’t because I disapproved, bro. I didn’t want to see you hurt. I didn’t want to see either of you hurt.” He shook his head. “Tell me you didn’t let her go because you believed I didn’t approve.”

  “I couldn’t stop her,” he snapped. “It’s what she wanted.”

  “I’m not so sure.” Ted looked at him like he was intellectually impaired. “If I know anything about women, it’s that they want to know they’re worth a little pleading when it comes to the men they love. You let her down big-time, man.” He sent him a pitying look.

  “Was I this dense?” Noah’s brow rose, and he glanced Ted’s way.

  “Worse. It took you forever to muster up the courage to do anything about the way you felt about Ceejay. Plus, you drooled every time she got anywhere near you.” Ted walked to his workbench. “At least with Ryan, all I had to put up with were the googly eyes and the sexual innuendoes.”

  “Humph. I’ve seen him drool.”

  “Will you two shut the hell up? Do you not realize I’m in pain here?” Had he just admitted that out loud? “There’s nothing I can do about it now.”

  “Isn’t there?” Ted stared at him through his safety goggles.

  Ryan frowned. “Is there?”

  “Moron.” Ted scowled. “I’m surrounded by idiots, and it drives me abso-freaking-lutely nuts, because you guys always seem to get the girl. You know where that leaves me?” He shook his head in disgust. “It leaves me all alone. I can’t fucking stand it!” he shouted. “You don’t deserve her, dumbass, and not because you don’t deserve her, but because you’re a chickenshit, and you let her get away without telling her how you feel. Everybody in Perfect knows you love her. Everybody knows except Paige. Criminy!”

  He pulled off his goggles, threw them on the workbench, and headed for the back door. “I’m going to my aunt’s to get a decent cup of coffee.” He stopped to glare at Ryan. “That’s another thing. Paige was the only one here who knew how to make a decent pot of coffee, dammit. This is all your fault, Malloy. Fix. It.”

  “Well, shit.” Ryan stared at the empty space where the kid had put on his show.

  “I know, huh?” Noah came to stand beside him. “Ted still has the capacity to surprise me from time to time. Don’t underestimate him.”

  “I won’t.” Ryan scrubbed at his face with both hands. “What the hell am I supposed to do? Paige accepted the job. She’s already gone.”

  “Uh…What do you have in your back pocket right now?”

  “My wallet?”

  “What else?”

  “My cell phone.” The phone Paige had forced him to buy and helped him choose. He swallowed the painful lump rising in his throat. How many times had he pulled it out of his pocket over the weekend to look at the picture of the two of them?

  “Right.” Noah slapped him on the back and walked to his workstation. “You might want to think about using that phone soon, bro. Don’t wait too long.”

  Stunned, Ryan took it all in and let it spin around inside his head. “I need a minute.”

  “Take two.” Noah shot him a wry look.

  Ryan took the back stairs two at a time and walked into the office they’d used for their Monday-morning staff meetings—Paige’s idea, and a good one, at that. Did the raking over the coals he’d just received qualify as their staff meeting for the week? Confusion and the persistent stir of hope took his breath. Dizzy with all the thoughts clamoring inside his head, he sat down, leaned back, and closed his eyes.

  His last session with Doc shouted out the loudest, and he tried to visualize his life as if he deserved good things. Paige’s assertion that Jackson and Theresa wouldn’t want him to continue carrying around all the guilt weighing him down pushed forward. What would it feel like to let it all go, forgive himself, and reach out with both hands for what he wanted?

  The image of his mom and dad popped into his mind, and regret stole his breath. He’d meant to punish himself and managed to hurt them in the bargain. They didn’t deserve what he’d put them through, and the sooner he made it right, the better.

  Maybe he wasn’t ready to call Paige, but the desperate longing to see his family couldn’t wait. He knew what he needed to do. Ryan straightened, pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, and made one of the hardest calls he’d ever made.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Mom. It’s Ryan.”

  “Oh, my boy. How are you? Is everything all right?” Her voice broke.

  Ryan smiled through the sting behind his eyes. “Yeah, Mom. I’m fine.” If being heartbroken qualifies as fine. “I miss all of you something fierce, and I want to come home for a visit. Are y’all going to be around this coming weekend?”

  “Yes! Come home, baby. We’ve missed you something fierce too. Shawn and Austin said they ran into you in Indiana. They said you have a new job, and…When did you move? How did this all come about?”

  He laughed and heard her gasp at the sound. “I have lots to tell you and Dad. We’ll talk when I get there. I’ll be h
ome late Friday night. Leave the porch light on for me. I can’t wait to see everybody.”

  “I will. Oh, it’s so good to hear your voice, honey. Wait till I tell your father. He’ll be so pleased. We’ll see you Saturday morning if we can’t manage to wait up Friday night.”

  “Don’t wait up.” He grinned so hard his cheeks ached. “I love you. See you this weekend.”

  “We love you too, Ryan. Drive carefully.”

  “I will. I gotta get back to work.” They said their good-byes, and he laid his phone on the table and stared at it. He knew what he had to do to move forward. He worked it all out in his mind. Tonight he’d run things by his buddies, and maybe they’d have some insight about how to cross the great divide separating him from the woman he loved.

  Too weak from emotional upheaval to use the stairs, Ryan rode the freight elevator to the first floor. He walked over to the entertainment center he’d started, put on his safety goggles, and carried a piece of lumber to the table saw.

  Noah watched his every step. “Did you call her?”

  “Nope.” Ryan shot him a MYOB look. “I need a few days off, Boss. I’m going home to see my folks this weekend. I’m leaving on Friday and driving back on Monday.”

  “That’s great, bro. Time off granted—with pay.” Noah’s eye met his and held.

  The compassion and understanding Ryan saw there humbled him. “Thanks.”

  “Paid!” Ted groused. “Since when do any of us get paid time off?”

  “Since right now,” Noah answered. “If you have a problem with it, take it up with our CFO.”

  Ted slammed down his hammer. “I am our CFO, and our human resources director, payroll manager, production manager, and janitor. Where the hell is my employee-of-the-month plaque? I’m also the most underappreciated employee here.”

  Ryan exchanged glances with Noah. He’d never seen Ted this on edge. “Can I buy you lunch today, kid?”