Ravel

by Ryan, Shari J.

  “Sure you do, babe. You’re just upset right now, and I would be too, but this isn’t what it looks like. We love each other and we can’t let something like this get in the middle of us.”

  “I want to leave you,” I say again.

  “Now we both know that ain’t true,” he says, moving in a little closer to me. “You and me—we’re happy and we’re in love. You aren’t leaving me.”

  “Yes, I am,” I say softly.

  “Let me tell you something, Daphne. Leaving me would be a mistake you would regret in many ways.” He squeezes his hand around my arm and his eyes squint with anger. “Many ways.” He releases his grip from my arm and pulls me in for a hug. “So why don’t we agree to forget that this all happened and move on—together.” I don’t respond. I can’t.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CURRENT DAY

  DAPHNE

  I DON’T HAVE THE STRENGTH to keep my eyes open. He keeps hitting my head against the wall, telling me to admit I cheated. It doesn’t matter what I tell him. All I know is my head is throbbing and the room is blurry, making me dizzy. I close my eyes and my knees give out. Maybe if he thinks he knocked me out, he’ll let me go.

  “Such is life, huh?” is the last thing I hear him say. I don’t know if he left, but I won’t open my eyes to check.

  After a few minutes of silence, I re-open my eyes, finding two blurry figures wobbling in front of me. My eyes close again. I can’t help it. I’m tired. I need sleep. I need to get away from here.

  I feel hands on my shoulders. Everything in my body is shaking and there’s a ringing in my ears. There are cold fingers touching my cheek and it feels like an electrical zap on top of all the other sensations. I want to see who’s in front of me. If it’s Trent, he’s probably just going to finish me off, but I need to see what’s going on. When I open them, I see Kemper hovering over me. Am I lying down or sitting up? I can’t tell if he’s standing or sitting beside me. Is this just a dream? The room is spinning like a merry-go-round, and I want to get off the ride before I throw up.

  “Daphne,” his voice vibrates through my ears. I can hear his words; it’s not a ringing sound anymore. I blink a few times, and everything is a bit clearer, but words still don’t form. Maybe I’m in shock. “We have to get you to a hospital, darlin’. You’re going to be okay, though.” He’s trained to say that, is all I can think. I try to push myself up or away from the wall, whatever position I’m in, but Kemper’s heavy arm holds me down. “Whoa, easy. You gotta stay put until the paramedics get here.”

  I place my hand around my neck, feeling the sensation of a growing bruise. What did he do to me? I want to cry, but I can’t figure out how to right now. I should be hyperventilating. I should be breathing heavier than I am. Why am I so aware, yet unaware at the same time? At least I can hear everything now. I just can’t keep my eyes open long enough to see what’s going on. Is Trent still in the bar with us?

  My body feels heavy as it’s lifted flatly. Everyone is talking around me, but there’re too many voices to make out what’s being said. Why won’t anyone tell me anything?

  I hear sirens. They seem really close, but also kind of far away—ah, another cold hand on my cheek. The scent of his skin smells familiar. Kemper. Please be Kemper. Lips press against my cheek in place of the hand. I know those lips—even if they only touched me one other time, but he wouldn’t kiss me like this. We’re only friends. Did he forget how selfless he is?

  I close my eyes as I’m rolled into an ambulance. I don’t want to see the blurry looks. I don’t want to assume the thoughts of everyone around me. I just want to disappear.

  It’s only minutes before the ambulance stops and I’m carted back out. I feel speed growing around me and I force my eyes open to finally take in the reality of what’s happening. The white walls are decorated with signs and posters, but I’m moving past them so quickly that they’re impossible to read. Oxygen is over my nose, a needle is pressed into my arm and people are in scrubs. Some are wearing masks, some have clipboards, and others are holding wires and tubes. I feel a cool rush pushing through my veins.

  I can now see the looks on everyone’s faces. I wonder what they know.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CURRENT DAY

  KEMPER

  I’M NUMB TO EMERGENCIES. The sirens, the radio calls, the shouts for help—it’s just the power button, springing me into action. I don’t panic or think the worst. I just react, which is what I did when I got the 9-1-1 text from Daphne. Thankfully, I wasn’t on base and I was able to get to her in a few minutes. I’m sick, thinking about what would have happened if it took me any longer. I’m even sicker now that I know who her fucking ex-boyfriend is and what he is definitely capable of. This town is too goddamn small. He looked like he was about to kill her. He was definitely on something—maybe drunk too. No surprise there.

  I hadn’t asked Daphne what her ex’s name was. It was easier not knowing the name of the man who hurt her; it made him a little less real to me, but now I wish I knew. I would have told her how dangerous he is and how important it was for her to get as far away from him as possible, but I didn’t ask.

  By the time I got to Daphne, Trent was taking off, but I saw him drop himself into that ratty piece of shit he still drives. It’s been years since I’ve seen him, but the shithead looks exactly the same. I wonder if he saw me. I wonder what he’d do if he knew I had been a little more than close with her. The thought makes me feel a bit proud, but I’m quick to remember that I’m sitting in the waiting room of a hospital hoping that Daphne’s head is okay.

  She was so out of it when I found her on the ground, hardly leaning up against the wooden post. When I cupped my hand around the back of her head, I found a large bump. I saw another one developing on her forehead. Her pants were undone and her shirt was torn. I don’t know what happened, but there were bruises all over her.

  I did my best to rouse her back to a state of full consciousness, and it worked a bit, but she wasn’t making a whole lot of sense. Thankfully, the cops and the paramedics showed up soon after I did.

  I hopped on my bike to follow the ambulance and watched through the back window as they treated her with oxygen. While I know I should be focused on her right now, the look I saw in her eyes did something to me. It put me somewhere I’m thinking I shouldn’t be. Her eyes became Rex’s eyes. The blue of her eyes became lost in a sea of white. She was scared, but alive. Rex was scared, and dead.

  They wouldn’t let me go into the emergency room with her and I was asked to stay put until they could evaluate her further.

  I wonder who her emergency contact is. Would she want her parents to know? All I do know is I’m sitting here scared out of my mind for her. She’s going to be okay. She has to be. God can’t put me through something like this again.

  This same thing happened when the medic came to take Rex away. He told me to stay put—said I couldn’t go wherever they were going. I watched as Rex was lifted onto a make-shift stretcher, all two-hundred-fifty pounds of him, while I sat there, my hands covered in his blood, left with nothing but a memory of his existence.

  Minutes feel like hours at this point. I’ve gone through four cups of coffee from the lousy vending machine, and I’ve watched every other person in this waiting room find out whatever they were waiting on. No word here, though. It’s making me think things are worse than I thought. Did he break her fucking neck?

  I want her to leave the bar. She just needs to quit. I’ve been trying to get her a job on base at the commissary so I know she’ll at least be safe there, but things take time, and I know she needs to pay her bills. I wish I could help with that too, but I’m already spread thin by the amount I give Mom. God, all I want to do is take the blame for this. It’d make me feel better.

  I get up and approach the nurses’ station, waiting not so patiently for one of them to either get off the phone or finish their conversation with a doctor. It’s minutes before one of them even looks a
t me. They know I’m not here for an emergency and that I’m just looking for an update since I’ve done it several times now.

  “Sir, we still haven’t heard anything. As soon as we have an update, we’ll let you know.” The nurse looks down at her computer monitor and then back up at me, “Does she have any relatives we can contact in the meantime?”

  I have no clue. I know her parents live around here, but all that information would be in her phone. “I don’t know their information. All I know is, I’m the closest person in her life right now.” And yet we’re nothing more than distant friends. Are we even friends?

  Right after we kissed, as fucking amazing as it was, I felt this overwhelming need to protect her. Unfortunately, that meant I couldn’t continue seeing her. I don’t want to be the person to cause her anymore pain than she is already in, and if I stayed with her, I know I would…over and over with my deployments. I don’t think I’m what she needs right now.

  Even though she’s all I need right now, I can’t be selfish. Marines aren’t selfish. We’re selfless and that’s what I’m trying to prove, even if I’m only proving it to myself.

  I press off of the nurses’ counter and walk back toward my seat as I see another doctor press through the swinging doors. He leans over the nurses’ desk and I see them pointing over at me. The tension grows thick and I grip the back of my neck, feeling the heat build within me. Just say it already. Let’s not drag this shit out.

  “You here for Daphne Belle?” the doc asks. He looks as serious as a heart attack, which sort of scares the shit out of me.

  “Yes, sir.” I didn’t even know her last name, and yet, I’m the closest person in her fucked up life. Belle. Fucking beautiful. Of course.

  “Daphne is suffering from a slight concussion.” He looks down at his clipboard like he’s looking for something other than a reason to pause. Is it getting any worse? Just spit it out already. “As you might already know, she was assaulted. She’s going to be fine, but she’s a little loopy and will need someone to watch over her for a day or so once we release her.” His eyes widen, waiting for me to volunteer to be that person.

  “I won’t leave her side,” I tell him.

  “We want to keep her overnight just to monitor her concussion, but you’ll be able to take her home in the morning.”

  “Can I see her?”

  “You’re family, right?”

  Lie, Kemper. Just do it. “Yes, she’s my fiancé.” The doctor eyeballs me warily.

  “Very well, follow me.” Thank God. I follow him down the hall and into her room where the doc and I part ways. A nurse takes the blood pressure cuff off of her arm and types something into the computer. She gives me the same look the doctor did—she probably knows I lied to get in here too, but I don’t care.

  Daphne is asleep and I can’t help admiring her pretty features even in this condition, but my gaze is interrupted when I notice the hand-shaped bruises on her neck, which makes my anger resurface. I’ve wanted to make Trent suffer for longer than I can remember, but now I want to kill him.

  I take a chair and pull it up beside the bed and interlace my fingers with hers. I want her to know she’s not alone when she wakes up. Yet, that’s exactly what I’ve done these past couple of weeks…left her alone. Shit. I should have read the writing on the wall. I should have watched out for her. She told me she would be okay, and I listened when maybe I shouldn’t have.

  I feel her fingers move—they tighten around mine as her eyes struggle to open. I look at the clock on the wall, noting it’s been about an hour since I sat down beside her. She opens her mouth to talk, but air mixed with a scratching noise comes out in its place. “You’re okay,” I tell her. The fear in her eyes breaks me. She looks so helpless and confused. “You can go home in the morning.” Her hand tightens around mine again. “I’m staying with you. Don’t worry.” And just like that, her body relaxes back into the bed and she brings my hand up to her chest, holding it like a child would a blanket.

  “I’m thirsty,” she whispers.

  I lean over and press the button on the wall, calling the nurse back in. “The cops are going to want to speak with you when you’re up to it.”

  Fear illuminates her widened eyes. “No,” she mouths. “Let’s just leave him alone. I’ll leave the bar and find a new job. I’ll even leave the state if I have to.”

  I don’t want to argue with her right now, but I can’t let this go. He could have killed her and yet, she’s protecting him. I pull in a sharp breath and refrain from telling her that I know him way better than she does. “Why?” I ask.

  “He’s angry right now. I’m sure he’ll get over it. He always has in the past.” No, he hasn’t.

  You’re breaking my heart, Daphne. “You can’t lie to the cops when they question you.”

  “I know,” she whispers. “How did you get the doctors to let you in here?”

  “Ah,” I laugh softly. “Congratulations, you’re now engaged.”

  She swats at my arm. “Loser,” she croaks. “I must have missed the whole period of time we dated. Didn’t realize I was out for so long.”

  “About that,” I say. My heart leaps into my throat, making it hard to say what I want to say, but after all this shit, I don’t know if I can continue being so selfless anymore. “This whole ‘just friends’ thing isn’t working for me.”

  With eagerness in her eyes, she pulls herself up on the bed. “What do you mean?” she asks, her focus pings back and forth between my eyes. I can see she isn’t sure whether to be nervous or happy to hear whatever she thinks I’m about to say, but for my own sake, I want to assume it’ll make her happy.

  “I can’t pretend I don’t want more. I can’t pretend I haven’t thought about you every day since we last spoke, and I can’t pretend like being selfless is better than being selfish. Every part of me wants to be selfish with you.”

  She takes my hand in between hers. “Why do you keep telling me you don’t want to be selfish? I don’t understand.”

  “I’ll end up hurting you, Daphne. That’s why.”

  “How do you plan on hurting me?” The way she says this forces my heart into my throat. The type of hurt we’re both talking about might be two different kinds.

  “I’ll end up back overseas and I don’t want to put you through that,” I tell her.

  “But, I can’t just be friends with you,” she says, a smile touching her lips. “Protecting our country and leaving me behind for a few months wouldn’t hurt me. Not like the hurt I’ve experienced. I’d miss you like hell, but you couldn’t possibly hurt me, Kemper.”

  I nod, unsure of how to respond. “So now what?” I ask her.

  A nurse walks in behind me, interrupting this very important conversation. “Visiting hours are over,” she says with a monotone drawl.

  “Can I stay?” I ask, already knowing what her answer will be. I realize I’m pressing my luck, but they can’t blame me for trying.

  The nurse raises a brow and crosses her arms over her chest. “Is this your fiancé?” the nurse asks Daphne.

  She looks at me briefly and then over at the nurse. “Yes,” she croaks. “We got engaged last week.” The nurse looks down at Daphne’s bare finger. “Ring was a little too big. It’s getting sized. You should see it, though. It’s amazing.”

  The nurse probably knows she’s lying too, looking between the two of us and rolling her eyes. “I still need you to leave,” she says. “You can come back at eight in the morning. to pick her up.” She shuts the call button off. “Did you need something?”

  “A glass of water would be great,” Daphne says.

  “We’ll pick our conversation back up tomorrow morning,” I tell her, standing up and debating whether or not I should kiss her.

  I try to do what’s right. I really try. I stand up and walk toward the door, pulling on the handle and taking one step outside. But—fuck it. I turn back quickly, making my way over to her bed and lean over, leaving my lips less than an inc
h from hers and whisper, “Friends?”

  “No,” she breathes. With as much selfishness as I can muster up, I feather my fingertips along the side of her cheek, feeling a selfishly winning grin tug at my mouth as I press my lips lightly over hers. I’m careful, afraid of causing her pain, but I’m evidently the only who who’s afraid—her hand grapples around the material over my chest and she pulls me in a little harder. The sensation of her wet lips is like a warm honey I won’t be able to get enough of.

  “Visiting hours are still over,” the nurse says, walking back in with the glass of water.

  Leaving Daphne with her cheeks red and that cute pinched smile might get me through the next twelve hours.

  Or so I thought.

  ***

  The second I drop down on the couch in my very empty, new apartment, exhausted from the day, my phone buzzes. Worried it’s the hospital or Daphne, I rip the phone out and look at the caller ID. Tara again. The bitch has been calling a hundred times a week for the month I’ve been home. She’s relentless.

  “What?” I finally answer.

  Fuck. Yes, Tara, all I want to do is listen to your fake sobs all night. I’m forced to listen to some story about why she stopped writing and why she didn’t show up at homecoming, and while I know she’s speaking words, all I hear is babbling—until she said the words: I had a baby.

  My heart stopped beating when Rex got shot. It was complete shock and too much for my simple mind to comprehend. I’m pretty sure my heart is doing the same damn thing right now too, all while I’m trying to do the math.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CURRENT DAY

  Dear Journal,

  I struggled with what to tell the cop last night, I’ve never had to deal with any sort of official. I’ve never been in trouble. Why doesn’t anyone understand where I’m coming from? He asked me if I wanted to press charges. Yeah, of course I want to press charges, but I also know how unlikely it would be for Trent to be put away for more than a few days. The cop even confirmed that thought. He told me domestic abuse doesn’t always qualify as a felony.