Little Conversations

by Matilde, Sibylla

“Fuck that,” Joanie said as the others filed out of the room. “Where are your towels, Ronin?” she asked, and he raised a hand slightly to point to a cupboard in the corner of the room. Joanie reached in and pulled out two towels, wrapping one around Devin who was still shaking ferociously with shivers and ragged breaths. Joanie gently pulled her away from Ronin’s arms.

  “C’mere, Dev. Let’s get you dried off,” she whispered in an attempt to wrest Devin from her stupor.

  With a little help from Ronin, Joanie got Devin to stand. She threw the other towel at Ronin, shooting him an angry glare. Ronin appeared drained by Devin’s outburst, a little shell-shocked by the whole ordeal, but stood and began to towel off his face and shortly cropped hair.

  Devin stood frozen and lethargic as Joanie began to rub her skin harshly with the towel, trying to warm her. Suddenly, Devin looked back at Ronin, tears again filled her eyes, and she fled the room, running through the house and out the front door.

  Once outside, she dodged through the trees, ignoring the calls of her name behind her. She slipped through the dense cover in the dark until she could no longer hear a thing but her own ragged breathing. She angrily brushed the wetness from her eyes as she stumbled along in the darkness. It was probably not the safest thing, an eighteen-year-old girl roaming around alone at night, but it wasn’t like this was a big city or anything. Besides, anyone who tried to fuck with her tonight had no idea what kind of fury they’d unleash.

  She found herself at in the vicinity of the creek on the edge of town, and carefully, by the silvery moonlight as it emerged from behind the clouds, she followed a rough path to the water’s edge. The gurgle of water tumbling across the rocks soothed her nerves a bit, and the solitude let her fill her lungs with air. She was so cold, her shirt still soaked by the impromptu shower Ronin had given her. She welcomed the icy chill in the night air as she sat on the cool grass. It seemed to numb the hot anger. Or was it shame?

  Devin’s thoughts turned to the last couple weeks, and the vicious twist in her gut tightened. She remembered that first time she laid in Ronin’s bed, how close she came to using him to exorcise Jake from her mind, the tears that followed when she couldn’t follow through. She had wanted him, right up until she closed her eyes and Jake’s face rose like a specter in her mind. Jake’s disgust, his self-righteousness, his knowledge of the whore he had always predicted her to be. It was as though he had been able to see her true nature, her lack of morality, as if he had been the only saving grace. Devin had cried out in Ronin’s arms. Wait! Apologizing over and over for being so perfidious.

  And Ronin had stopped, in a heartbeat. He had pulled back from the thrust that would have soiled and spoiled her in Jake’s eyes. No anger or blame. Ronin had been… understanding. As she cried in his arms, he had soothed her, comforted her, and calmed her. He took care of her when she was barely able to take care of herself.

  Devin’s alcohol-riddled brain flashed through the moments in time. Never had he pushed her. She would kiss him, sit on his lap, dance closely pressed against him. Hell, she slept with him more than without. She knew he wanted her, but he had never shown anger or frustration with her. Until she pushed him tonight. Until she’d poked and picked and nettled him. Until she’d broken the sweet gentleness of him.

  She was losing her fucking mind.

  Her head grew heavy, and Devin lay back in the soft grasses on the bank. The world was still aside from the rippling sound of the water flowing by. No stars tonight with the thick clouds overhead. In short little bursts, the moon would peek through, but its light was generally filtered by the overcast sky. There were no streetlights this close to the water’s edge, this far back in the trees. The darkness encompassed her as her eyes drifted closed, seeing only Ronin’s face. Seeing the flitter of deep regret in his eyes right before she had run out of the bathroom.

  And then she saw nothing at all as the night and the whiskey claimed her.

  So cold…

  The shivering woke her, teeth-chattering and shaking uncontrollably. The chill in the air had intensified, and her breath was almost visible in the dropped temperature. Devin lay there for a few moments, trying to emerge from a fog, trying to remember how she came to be lying on the cold, hard ground near the creek.

  Looking through the trees to the east, a faint blush of pink was beginning to warm the sky. Morning, Devin thought as she rose stiffly and rubbed her painfully cold hands on her arms.

  Slowly, gingerly, she began the trek home, trying to stay in the shadows as she came out of the woods into town. The world was slowly waking up around her. Finally, she turned down her own street and her steps quickened as she rounded her little duplex to the back door.

  And there was Ronin, sitting on her back porch, leaning up against the wall by her door. Devin’s breath caught, and, at that littlest of sounds, his eyes opened to see her there. He was wrapped in the throw from his truck, the one he’d covered her legs with during the storm a while back, and he was holding her purse on his lap. His shirt underneath the blanket was rumpled, still evidently rather damp. His eyes were bloodshot as he blinked against the golden-pink lighting up the sky behind her.

  Devin froze.

  And then she burst into tears.

  Her legs gave out and she fell to her knees on the wood deck, her eyes clenched shut as she cried. Ronin’s arms closed around her, and she jerked away.

  “No!” she cried. “Don’t be nice to me!”

  “Dev—”

  “What are you doing here!? I tried! I tried so many times, Ronin. I used you to try and get him out of my mind, to rip him out of my soul. And all the while,” she laughed hysterically, “I still keep hoping he will come back to me. He will. As long as I don’t fuck you, he will come back to me.”

  “He’s not coming back, baby.”

  “How do you know? You don’t know him, not like I do. I know him. And I love him. He loves me, and he will come back to me!” She shook her head slowly, and whispered, “He has to. Nobody else will ever love me.”

  “Honey, don’t. Don’t let Jake fuck with your head anymore.”

  “You,” she cried brokenly. “You said we were friends, but you shouldn’t be my friend. I am not a good person. I’ve used you, and you should hate me. I don’t deserve your friendship. You’re being nice to me, and you’re supposed to hate me.”

  “Honey, tonight was a fucking catastrophe. I should have never treated you that way.”

  “You’re wrong! I deserve worse!” she yelled at him, babbling almost incoherently with the cold and anguish. “W-w-w-what’s wrong with me? How did I become this…?” She clutched at her chest, trying to regain control of her paroxysmal breathing. “Oh God, I… I can’t breathe…” she rasped as she lay curled up on her deck, crying and shuddering—done. More than anything at that moment, she wanted to just wither away, to die and finally end the pain.

  Ronin knelt before her and gently rolled her into his arms. This time, she let him. She didn’t fight. She didn’t look at him. She only continued trembling with her eyes clenched shut, heaving with jerky breaths.

  “Jesus, sweetheart, you are frozen clear through.”

  He reached down and grabbed her purse, reaching for the lanyard that held her house keys. He unlocked the door with the hand that supported her legs and then carried her inside, kicking the door closed behind him.

  Dropping her purse and keys on the kitchen counter, he swiftly carried her to the bedroom and stood her beside the bed as he began to strip the icy-cold damp clothes from her chilled skin. She simply stood there in a daze, her mind simply unwilling to function anymore.

  Ronin pulled back her sheets and grabbed a super-soft chenille throw from the edge of her bed. He laid her down, then pulled off his own damp shirt and slipped in beside her, pulling her close and using his own body heat to help raise her core temperature. His hands rubbed her back briskly to warm her skin with the friction as he wrapped himself around her.

  Slowly, after what seemed
like forever to Ronin, the catch in her breathing eased. Her shivering and shuddering lessened. Her eyes closed softly and her body began to relax into sleep.

  Ronin continued to hold her, running his hands over her blanket-clad body to warm her, softly kissing her forehead as she once again faded into oblivion.

  Chapter 14 – Emotional hangover

  Bright midday sunlight poured into Devin’s windows. Waking up with puffy eyes from the flood of tears, the ache in her throat grew as the memories of last night filtered in through her slowly returning consciousness. Devin opened her eyes, already knowing Ronin would be gone. Why would he stick around, after he’d been so frustrated, and rightfully so? After she’d collapsed into a hysterical display of pseudo-psychosis.

  She lay there for a while, in a fog of bleak despondency, when her iPhone rang from the dresser beside her bed. Ronin must have placed it there before he left. She glanced at the screen to see who was calling. It was him… Ronin.

  She didn’t answer. She couldn’t answer. Her ringtone was set to From Yesterday by Thirty Seconds to Mars, and she let the music play, feeling the haunting tones more than hearing them, the empty feeling magnified by her emotional hangover. Jared Leto began to sing, softly and somberly, and then the song stopped. Her breath caught a bit as she watched the phone with one eye open, waiting for the voicemail ping, but a few minutes passed with nothing.

  Probably just as well, she thought.

  Devin stood on shaky legs, wrapping the blanket around her, and made her way to the bathroom to pee. Mechanically washing her hands, her eyes wandered up to the mirror. She looked like hell.

  Walking out of the bathroom, she contemplated trying to find something to eat to settle her stomach, but decided she wasn’t interested. The thought of food made her a bit nauseous. She returned to her room, lying on her bed, burying her face in her pillow. It smelled ever so faintly of Ronin and she clutched it tighter, aching to feel close to him somehow.

  Her phone started up once more. Ronin… again. After a few seconds of deliberation, she answered.

  “Hey,” she said quietly.

  “Hi,” was Ronin’s soft reply. “How you feeling?”

  “Um, not sure yet.”

  She heard Ronin exhale. “Honey, I’m sorry. About all that last night. That was really not okay.” Devin didn’t answer, so Ronin continued. “I know things are a mess right now. I know that you’ve been kinda put through the wringer lately. I’m sorry I got all pissed and flipped out on you. You didn’t deserve that.”

  Devin still didn’t respond.

  “Honey? Dev?”

  “But I did,” she whispered.

  “What?” Ronin asked.

  “I did deserve it,” she said softly.

  “Dev, we’ve been through this—”

  “No,” she interrupted more forcefully, her words coming out in a rush. “I haven’t really been fair to you. I’ve been a big ol’ lush who comes on to you whenever I’m feeling lonely, but then I freak and can’t give you what I’m all but promising.” She laughed a hard, cold sound. “Who does that!? I don’t know what’s wrong with me. There are times when I really, really want you. My God, I’ve even dreamed about you! But I can’t just turn off my feelings for Jake. I have loved him for so long. How can I just stop?” Devin’s voice dropped to a fierce whisper. “I know he still loves me.”

  “And how’s that been working for you?” Ronin asked. “When is the last time he put you first, before his own selfishness? When is the last time he has truly done anything for you? And not just a clinging to what is familiar, or even available, but something that gives you strength, something supportive that makes you feel loved?”

  “You don’t understand,” she cried weakly. “Three years… You don’t just stop loving someone. You don’t just throw that away.”

  Ronin said nothing for a moment, then softly replied. “I think I understand better than you do. Because, honey, I hate to tell you this, but that’s exactly what Jake did, and you know that as well as I do. You are afraid of what’s next, but if he came back to you today, would you really want him?”

  “You know I would. He’s a part of me—”

  “Would you trust him?” Ronin interjected softly. “Could you? Trust him?”

  Devin was quiet.

  “You’re afraid to let go, but you’ll be even more afraid if he actually does leave Melanie and comes back to you. Afraid of the next time… the time after that.”

  Devin swallowed hard against the increasing lump in her throat.

  “Really, sweetheart, how could you not be?”

  Ronin’s words stuck with Devin all day, all through her shift at the Sundowner. She felt a little spacy and disconnected as she took orders and refilled sodas.

  How could you not be?

  As she stood in the wait station washing glasses, she thought back to the last time Jake had made her really, truly feel like she was important. It took a while to remember it, and it seemed like an awfully long time ago.

  They had been together about a year and a half, and he’d bought her that little golden heart necklace. Right before he’d left to go farm for the summer. She was simply elated that he would shop for her. She had shown it to all her friends, and she made sure it was prominently displayed in her senior picture. In her mind, as she posed with the heart settled at the base of her neck, she would someday be showing those photos to her children and grandchildren, and she would tell them that their daddy or grampa had given her that necklace.

  Devin didn’t wear that necklace anymore, not since Jake had told her he was going to live with Melanie at school. Now it made her feel hollow and empty. It made her feel stupid and naïve. But she kept it by her bed, a part of the little Jake shrine that he would tease her about whenever he was in her room. He loved that she still loved him.

  She could clearly see now, though, that he did not love her. He loved having her hanging on. He loved knowing she’d be there whenever he wanted her. He loved how she would drop everything and run to him.

  But he couldn’t love her and do what he was doing to her.

  That night after work, Devin walked out to her little black Jetta to see Ronin’s truck parked alongside. He stood leaning against his driver door waiting for her to emerge from the building. Having not seen her when she first stepped outside, he gazed off at the horizon, at the sun that was beginning to sink below the mountains. A jet trail streaked across the sky, and it caught the pink hue of the sunset. Ronin’s expression was hard to read. He looked deep in thought as he tipped his hat back on his head. His eyes seemed very far away.

  The door closed behind Devin with a click, and he turned his gaze to meet hers. The emotion in his eyes clued her in on his frame of mind. She could see exactly what he felt when he looked at her. Regret. Remorse. Relief that she was standing there before him finally.

  “Ronin? What are you doing here?” she asked quietly.

  Ronin looked down at his boots for a minute, then back up and answered. “I’m waiting for you. I wanted to see if you are really okay.”

  Not quite knowing how to respond, Devin didn’t. She cocked her head to the side.

  “And I wanted to apologize,” he said quietly.

  “You already did. This morning, on the phone, you apologized.”

  Ronin shook his head wistfully. “And then I proceeded to make you feel even shittier about Jake. It’s not my place to tell you what to think or how to feel. I’d just kind of like a redo of the last twenty-four hours.”

  “It’s been… different. But, honestly, Ronin, I was kinda asking for it last night. I should be the one apologizing to you. I was being pretty bitchy.”

  “I don’t know what happened the other night, Dev,” Ronin started. “The night Jake came into the bar.” He watched her stiffen and then saw the uncontrollable shudder reverberate through her. “And the part that’s killing me is that I knew you were hurting. I knew something had gotten to you. I don’t know if that fucker hit yo
u or hurt you or what. But everything about you was suddenly so… scary-sad. Hopeless.”

  Ronin stepped away from his truck and walked closer to her. His hand reached out, and he lifted her chin with the first two fingers. “I was worried about you, worried for you, pissed off for you. And then, all of a sudden, I was just fuckin’ pissed… period. And I took it all out on you. The one person I wanted to help was the one I turned on.”

  “I was pushing your buttons,” Devin admitted, “intentionally. I was trying to get a rise out of you. As much as part of me was a little freaked out by your response, a bigger part still feels incredibly guilty. I’ve been pretty awful to you, right from the start. All those times I lushed out on you. I selfishly didn’t give you a second thought, never once considered how this weird friends-with-sorta-kinda-but-not-quite-benefits thing was affecting you.” Devin’s eyes lifted to his. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sweetheart, you’re sexy as hell. I’d go halfway with you any day, even if you never do let me in. You really didn’t deserve that. Blue balls or not, that was so wrong of me. I know how hard it is to let go… that first time with someone else. Sort of like you’re really saying it’s over.” His hand cupped her jaw as his thumb brushed her cheek. “It’s hard to take that leap.”

  Devin focused on the light in his eyes, the sincere glow that seemed to warm her soul, seemed to melt some of the hardness inside her. “Ronin—”

  “How about if you come over to my place? We’ll hang out, watch one of your crazy old black and white movies. Friends,” Ronin smiled slightly. “I’ll cook, even.”

  She raised her eyebrow. Ronin? Cook?

  “Okay, so I’ll order a pizza,” he smiled, and his grin made her laugh a little which broadened his smile. “I’m glad to hear you laugh again, honey. It’s a pretty sound, and, honestly, after what I did, I was kinda worried I’d maybe not get to hear it again.” His expression sobered a bit. “You know, if I hadn’t gotten all fucked up by Kim, I think I’d totally be fucked up over you.”