by Sharon Page
“Good to meet you, Mr. Reynolds,” Ryan says, and he holds out his hand.
Dad shakes his hand, while giving Ryan a once over. I roll my eyes. Dad grills him with a few questions, and Ryan replies that he’s heading to military college on a scholarship. It’s as if my stepfather is judging whether Ryan is worthy. He has no right and my stomach churns.
“I have a couple more things to get from the house.”
“I’ll get them with you,” Ryan says.
He helps me bring the desk and chair I bought that are not yet assembled, and are still in boxes. This is all I’m bringing—two pieces of furniture, some clothes, my laptop, and my art material since it’s my love of drawing that gave me a good enough portfolio to get into Architecture school.
My dad is on his phone, sending emails, so I stop with Ryan at the back of the SUV. We stand so close we could be trading breaths.
“I’d better go,” Ryan says. “I wish we didn’t have to be so far apart.”
I want to stall him. I’m desperate to do that. But at the same time, I don’t want to say anything that might make him change his mind about college. I love him too much not to let him go.
It was hard work for me to convince him to leave his father and do this—even tougher than it was for him to convince me to take my stepfather’s offer.
“It will work.” My voice wobbles. I surge up and I touch my lips to his. Damn, I so wish my stepfather was not a witness to this. What is he thinking about it? I really don’t want to know.
Ryan’s hands go around my waist and I lock my arms around his neck. I almost fall into him I want to be so close to him. He’s warm, and has that earthy, sweet, sexy smell I associate with Ryan. A smell I want to remember so I can imagine it every morning when I wake up at Yardley.
In front of my stepfather, Ryan is a gentleman. He doesn’t touch my butt or my breasts. His large hand stays on my low back, warm, strong, and comforting.
It’s frustrating because I want to touch him all over one last time. Or make love to him.
In the background, my father makes grunting noises, then makes a few short, abrupt phone calls. But this is my last moment with Ryan and I’m clinging to it.
Finally, Ryan steps back. His black Ford truck is parked behind my father’s car.
He lifts my hand and kisses my fingertips. My knees quiver. Never have I had any guy do that to me. I feel like Elizabeth with Mr. Darcy. How she didn’t jump Darcy’s bones the very instant he bowed over her hand I can’t imagine.
I want to grab Ryan by his hoodie and pull him into the cab of his truck, rip off his jeans and make love to him. Except I can’t. My belly aches with frustration. I want to make up an excuse to drag Ryan back in the house, a reason to bring him into my bedroom. So we can do it quick, up against the wall, but my dad says, “We have to get on the road, Mia.”
“Sorry, Mr. Reynolds,” Ryan says. He ducks his head down to me. “Text me as soon as you arrive.”
God, God, God, why can’t I have just a few minutes alone with him? But it’s too late.
My throat aches as I promise, “I will.”
But I think I’ll phone him, not text. Just to hear his deep, husky voice say hello.
Ryan walks away from me, toward his truck, but he’s watching me the whole time. He stumbles in a divot in our driveway. Grins.
My last view of him, before he jumps into his truck, is blurred. Tears fill my eyes and threaten to pour down my cheeks.
Ryan gives me one last wave from inside the cab of his pickup. Then he turns around, his strong arm resting over the seat behind him, and he backs out.
“Goodbye,” I whisper.
The truth is, I want to hold onto him, but should I? Probably, at military college, there’s a decent, smart, honest, good-as-gold girl that he deserves. Ryan really doesn’t know anything about me. He knows “re-invented me”. The “me” who is keeping my past secret.
I know keeping Ryan is probably selfish. I’ll ultimately break his heart, because someday I’d have to tell him all of the truth.
Then he’s going to hate me, because he’s going to know I’m not what he thinks I am.
“Come on, Mia,” Dad grumbles, impatient. “Let’s go. I have a lot of driving to do over the next few days.”
I walk around to the passenger side. Get in the car, curled up against the door. I stay silent as Dad backs out of the driveway. Mom comes to the door and stands on our broken concrete stoop. She has a dressing gown wrapped around her and a cup of coffee in her hand. She waves goodbye.
I turn around and wave, until Dad turns left and she disappears from my sight. Now I’m alone with my stepfather and I feel weird. So I let my head rest against the door beside me, and I close my eyes and pretend to fall asleep.
***
I drive eight hundred miles with my stepfather and I barely say a word. He talks a lot. He always does when we’re together, as if talking can make the past not exist. I act like I’m listening—I guess I do listen, really. All my life I’ve been obedient—I’ve rarely strayed from the rules, and I’ve always done what I’ve been told. The only claim to rebelliousness I’ve ever had was through sex…until I discovered that didn’t fill any of the emptiness inside, it didn’t make any of the doubt or pain go away.
Dad talks about his work, about Lisa, about the house they are renovating and what great taste Lisa has. I try not to think about our crappy rented bungalow. One thing my mom’s divorce taught me was to be able to take care of myself and any kids, and that I can’t rely on a guy to do it for me.
Even with Ryan, who is a decent guy and probably a guy who would stay married for a lifetime, I know I need to earn an income too.
During the whole day, Dad and I have just stopped for food or to use a bathroom. It gets dark and he keeps on driving. I assume he’s not going to drive all night, but I’m getting tense. He’s got to stop somewhere—
“I have to pull over, Mia.” My stepfather yawns.
“Okay,” I say, as if my heart isn’t pounding and my stomach isn’t in knots.
We’re coming up to an off-ramp. The signs for a couple of motels glow against the velvet black sky. This is awkward—I don’t know what to do or say.
My phone vibrates. A text from Ryan. How are you, Mia? The drive okay? Miss you.
“Which do you want?” my father says. “Super Eight or that other one?”
The other one isn’t part of a chain and looks a little shabby. “Super Eight, I guess.”
I’d thought about this for days leading up to this trip—about having to stop for the night. I’m nervous. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen my stepfather. Six months this time. He used to pay a lot more attention to me when he lived with us and I went along with whatever he wanted me to do. I felt I had to. But that was then, and this is now. He’s not going to ask for one room for two of us, is he?
The issue comes up right away at the desk. A black woman with glasses on a gold chain and a uniform types away at a computer keyboard. “Will that be one room?” she asks my dad.
“No,” I say quickly. I pull my wallet out of my purse. In it, I have three hundred dollars in cash. I can pay for my own room at the Super Eight.
“There’s two beds in a room,” he points out.
“I need my own room. You snore.” He does, but that’s not the reason why. He grumbles, pulls out his credit card to pay for both rooms.
Once I’m inside mine, I lock my door. I run over to the bathroom, put the shower on. Then I sit on one of the beds. My stomach is churning. It’s been four hours since we had dinner and I didn’t eat much. My tummy has a gnawing hungry feeling, but I’m too tense for food.
I pull out my phone, tap in a message with my thumbs for Ryan. Miss u already. I hit send.
I guess I’m not going to have to deal with some nightmare confrontation with my stepfather. Maybe we can just have a normal drive across the country, like a normal father and normal daughter as she goes away to college.
A freaking Hallmark commercial, my life is not.
Then I go to the bathroom, kneel in front of the toilet and throw up.
Someday I’m going to have to tell Ryan the truth. How can I explain who I really am, and why I’m really so nuts, if I don’t?
***
I wake up at five a.m. with a pounding head. Flopping from side to side, I close my eyes and try to get comfortable in my huge bed. At five thirty, I give up, kick off the heavy comforter that hotels use—it feels like it’s going to crush me—and get out of bed.
Ryan will be leaving early this morning. That was his plan.
I pick up my phone, so tempted to send him a message. But somehow I can’t. I’m too tense, my throat hurts too much and I can’t write with a swollen up throat.
Instead I tackle the coffeemaker in the room. I end up with something strong, dark and bitter in a Styrofoam cup. Drink this and I’m committed to staying awake.
I drain it fast, shuddering.
Then I send a message to Ryan: Drive carefully. Text me when you get there. I still have hours to go. Take pictures of yourself along with way and send them to me. I miss your smile. I miss all of you.
I know all the nagging will make him laugh. I can’t help it. Ryan is good with it—his mother is dead, his father’s dead drunk most of the time and Ryan has to worry about him. There’s no one else to worry about Ryan. I can tell my fretting about him doesn’t bother him. He actually likes it.
Strong coffee makes my stomach growl. A Denny’s is across the way, and I guess I’ll get breakfast. Something to kill the time. I realize Dad and I made no plans on when to get up or when we would get back on the road. I feel so awkward around him I forget everything but the tension.
It must be too early to knock on his door. He’ll understand that. I pull off my oversized t-shirt I use for sleeping—one of Ryan’s old t-shirts. Almost reverently, I fold it and lay it on the top of my suitcase. I’m not forgetting it and losing it. Then I throw on one of my t-shirts and jeans, brush out my long hair as fast as I can. Wearing sneakers, no socks, I tuck my room key in a back pocket and head out of the motel. The fall air is brisk as I run across the parking lot, arms folded over my chest.
The inside of Denny’s is warm and smells like coffee and bacon. Really hungry now, I slide in a booth. There’s a guy wearing a ball cap and plaid lumber jacket who looks like a truck driver. A young family with kids that seem awfully excited for six o’clock in the morning. They sit at the booth across from me. The mother is cupping and drinking her coffee like it’s elixir of life, and the father cuts up food on the boys’ plates.
That sense of family captivates me for a moment. I’ve never known that.
“What do you want, honey?”
The waitress asks it, and for a moment I feel transported into a seventies movie with a diner setting and a tough waitress, shot in black-and-white. I pick out the largest breakfast on the menu—I’m starving now—and ask for coffee.
She brings me a cup right away. I sip it and close my eyes. I hear footsteps and I lift my lids.
My stepfather gets into the seat opposite me, waves his hand impatiently to summon the waitress. She brings him coffee, takes his order, which he gives abruptly. She rolls her eyes at me.
Once she’s gone, my stepfather and I talk awkwardly. Then, out of nowhere, he asks, “Why don’t you ask me how Lisa is?”
His new wife. “I never ask how you are,” I say.
The words come out of my mouth and surprise me. I never let on how I feel on the few times we see each other. I’m stiff and uncomfortable, but I never say anything. I can’t believe he’s irritated that I don’t ask about his new wife.
“I want to change that,” he says. “I want to make up for the past. Be a part of your life. You are my daughter, Mia. And I love you.”
I’m his daughter because he legally adopted me when I was little. Mom always used to say that—that he did love me. He just loved me too much.
But having come close to an actual confrontation, I can’t take it further. I can’t now that I’ve accepted his offer to send me to college, can I?
“It’s just weird,” I say. A sixteen-year-old’s answer, I know. I am nineteen now, an adult. I should be able to do better. “I guess, if that’s what you want, we can try it. But college is going to be demanding. I’ve heard about Yardley’s architecture school. There are students who put in almost one hundred hours a week at school, Dad. I’m not going to have a lot of time.”
“I know. That’s why I’ve arranged with your mother that you can spend Christmas break and Spring break this year with me.” He smiles, looking handsome.
My heart has dropped to the floor of Denny’s. It’s sunk so low, I think I’m stepping on it. “I was planning—”
“Your mother is fine with it. She’s had you to herself for Christmas for years.”
“I wanted to see Ryan.” Shock makes me blurt it out. How can he do this to me? I can manage a few days of our tense relationship, but not weeks of it. Not at Christmas. Not when that’s the only time, after Thanksgiving, I can see Ryan.
“The boy I met before we left?” My father lifts his eyebrow, as if he’s a bit disgusted. “You’ll have moved on from him by then.”
“No, I won’t,” I say tersely.
Our plates come. I have a choice. Shut up and eat. Walk out and go hungry. But hell, no. He had no right to dismiss my relationship and look down on Ryan. Really no right.
There is a third choice.
To get some guts. Do what I should have done for the better part of my life.
“I’m not like that. Maybe you went for what was convenient, knowing you always intended to move on or move up.” I say. “But that is not me. Ryan is special and I know it. I can recognize it.”
I stand up, pick up my plate and my coffee cup and I walk across the Denny’s to a booth on the opposite side. At this point, I don’t care if my stepfather gets up and walks out.
He just sits there, starting at his plate. I know he’s humiliated, and he does not like that.
I’ve probably crossed the line in the sand. I’ve always been so docile and obedient and weak. He wouldn’t have expected this. A wild exhilaration flows through me. Remember, this is the heady moment when you leap off a bridge. The crash comes after.
My father picks up his plate and coffee. Walks to my table.
I really can’t believe this.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I want to make this work between us. If you care about this boyfriend, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Will you accept my apology?”
“I guess.”
“Can I join you again?”
“All right.” I try to eat, but it is hard now. Why is so he interested in trying to get close to me? I can bury the past, but I can’t let it go.
More than ever, I wish I was going to be near Ryan. I’m scared that if something happens where I need courage, I won’t find it. With Ryan, with his support, I know I could be invincible.
Chapter Three
My father drives through a set of iron gates from the main road onto the Yardley College campus. The first things I notice are all the trees. They line the lanes in majestic columns, surround the buildings, and stand in solitary splendor in stretches of open parks and grass-covered quads. Most of the trees glow gold, covered in the yellowing leaves of September, but there are vibrant splashes of red and orange from the maples, stunning in contrast to the dark green firs. There is a crisp bite to the air, though the afternoon sun is bright and hot.
A breeze comes and sends leaves swirling around all the buildings: the ivy-clad stone ones, the modern ones of brick and glass, and the white clapboard steeple of a New England church. The steeple stands far taller than the old-fashioned stone buildings, pure and white against the backdrop of mountains.
I printed out the information I need to get to registration. I just want to get this over with and be on my own again. “It’s a building called the O’Connell Buildin
g, on Campus Drive,” I tell my stepfather.
A wooden sign announces we’ve reached it. The building is made of two structures joined together. One half is century old, with stone, ivy, and a slate roof; the other is gleaming blue-green glass. The modern part seems to be exploding out of the old part.
I send my dad in search of coffee while I register.
Inside the new part of the building, I sit at a desk while a woman with cropped black hair taps away at a computer keyboard, verifying my information. Her nametag reads Ava Rundell. Sunlight pours in the windows of the offices behind her. I get glimpses of red and gold trees and the blue-green horizon of the White Mountains.
“The five year Bachelor of Architecture program,” she says, and I assume the computer has pulled up my information. “Most of your courses are already scheduled. About 80% of your schedule is comprised of core courses, which include your studio courses. You do have two electives each term, but we provide a suggested list. There are only five elective courses that will fit into your schedule. If you let me know which you prefer now, I can register you.”
I could have done this online at home, but I couldn’t make up my mind. Now I see the list of five courses. So I won’t be taking Literature or Fiction Writing or Art. My choices are Marketing, Economics, History of Modern Art, a Writing Program, and Psychology. The rest of my schedule for the entire school year is already set out. The bulk of it is called Studio 101.
This is my dream and I feel a flare of excitement, but it’s muted. I need to put away the sadness and the empty feeling in my heart. I’ll make this work with Ryan, I promise.
“I’d like to do the writing program. I saw online that you have a Studio Art program. I was hoping to—”
“We don’t allow Architecture students to take the art courses, since you will already be spending the bulk of your semester in Architecture Studio,” Ms. Rundell declares. “Those are limited to Fine Arts majors.”
I nod. My heart sinks though. I was hoping to be able to keep up my art. I tell her I’ll take marketing. She prints everything out.