The Marriage Pact (Viral Series)

by Mara White

  “What’s good?”

  “Chicken and dumplings. blueberry pie?” She said as she poured a smooth stream of hot, dishwater java.

  “I’ll have both of those, please.” She grinned at him and nodded to his open backpack.

  “Finals? Or is this midterms? I can never keep it straight.”

  “Just writing a paper.” He looked at her and wondered what her story was.

  “Well, I’ll leave you alone. Slide your mug to the edge and I’ll know if you need a refill. Food’ll be out in ten or so, I’d imagine.” Ryan nodded and thanked her.

  His paper was on sport’s injuries and time intervals for reintegrating in the game. Ryan couldn’t get his mind on track with anything that wasn’t directly related to Ms. Jackie Bowen.

  He wondered how often the average person finds true love in their lives? Maybe once, maybe never. Do you always realize it when you have it? Recognize true love from its cozy neighbors, infatuation and obsession?

  Ryan wanted to believe you could, that he had, in his parents Diane and Cal, they were the perfect example. Their love was bottomless and fierce, sometimes subtle and gentle, sometimes loud and awe-inspiring. He didn’t think it was cliché or corny or not masculine enough to aspire to someday emulate their example in love. He knew he wouldn’t settle for a love which was less than that. It was one of those concepts that felt abstract, or nebulous, it lacked linearity. He had plenty of time, there was no need to rush it. But Ryan’s problem was that the abstraction faded the moment he looked deeply into Jackie’s eyes, because he’d recognize that he already had it. Ready or not, too young or too inexperienced, he could see his future in Jackie’s eyes and he would fight for it, even if she couldn’t.

  When the accident ripped the rug out from under them, Ryan suddenly had no idea how to make her happy. Worse than that, he didn’t even know how to convince her to keep going until tomorrow.

  Somehow he always knew that waking up next to her was a privilege. He’d kept those fleeting moments guarded, close to his heart as some of the most special he’d ever shared with another human being. When Jackie woke up next to him and took him in, her eyes softened, a smile graced her lips. She’d burrow under his arm until her head lay comfortably on his chest. It was during those luminous mornings that he understood long-term commitment and marriage, the desire to share your whole life, not just a piece of it, with the same person forever. Accumulating mornings. He was greedy and he wanted all of hers.

  Yet during those same mornings of basking in her sun, Ryan felt fear, too. The idea that Jackie didn’t feel the same way about him, or even worse, that maybe she was incapable of love. It scared him to no end. Jackie was an enigma, a person who was so full of feeling and yet frightened of her own capacity to feel.

  He rubbed his face again, trying to snuff out the memories, pull his head back around to the paper that was due tomorrow afternoon.

  The waitress was at the table in front of him. She’d put the pot down on the table to scribble orders onto her little pad. The couple ordered tater tots and Ryan lamented that he hadn’t even looked at the menu. As she was winding up, he used his pinky to slide his coffee mug to the edge of the table. She walked right up to him, filled his cup, winked and snapped her gum.

  Chapter 17

  Ryan

  After getting his degree in physical therapy, Ryan moved back to Iowa. Got a job at the community college coaching football at night and working as a full-time PT during the day. He certainly wasn’t living a dream that he’d at some point imagined, but Ryan was happy to be home, it felt good to be close to his parents. Scotty had gotten drafted and was playing professionally. Everyone in his family said that the only reason Ryan wasn’t was because he didn’t put his heart into it. Fair enough, he didn’t.

  There was some truth in that, Ryan supposed, and he did sometimes feel a pang of envy when Scotty called home and would rave about the games, the women and the money. But what he was really searching for, wasn’t so easily obtained. He wanted meaning, he wanted to find that one thing that made him look forward to the next day, a person, a profession, strike the bull’s-eye that made his heart sing. He wanted to help people.

  Ryan made plenty of money and had actually saved enough to put a down payment on a house, but then he’d read about an opportunity to go work in Guatemala at one of the missions. The same country his parents had lived in and brought his two brothers home from. It was through his dad’s church, the one he’d grown up in. The associate pastor was going and it was his mission, but he needed volunteers, especially those with skills in the medical field. It was fully funded and his mom had asked him to go to the church’s first presentation on it. He watched the informational video they showed and he was stunned, the conditions were not what he expected. The section on border crossing and human trafficking shocked him into utter silence. He felt sick watching the huge sacrifices families made, risking their lives for a dream, no guarantee of relief or safety on the other side. It didn’t help that all the footage of the children reminded him of his brothers when they were little. The missions were established in some places to help the community thrive, so that they wouldn’t be forced to migrate. He hadn’t even realized how dumbstruck he was, until his mother had to say his name twice.

  “What an incredible mission!” Diana exclaimed, as he drove her home after the presentation. “If I were younger, I’d go,” she stated with conviction. He’d no doubt she would, too, even though they were looking mostly to staff the clinics. But his mom and dad were and always had been about actualizing change through real work, they took their commitment seriously and spread the word of God not through proselytizing, but through direct action—through service.

  That night in bed, he mulled it over and over in his head. Tossing and turning, he got up four times to drink water and even more to go to the bathroom. Could he throw his responsibilities aside and dedicate a year to helping others? While he knew he should probably call his current girlfriend, Carol, who worked at the elementary school and taught art to third graders—a matchmaking job of his mother’s because Carol also happened to be employed by the church and taught Sunday school. She was great. She was kind and smart, a truly decent person, but try as he might, Ryan could barely round up enough interest to take her out twice a week.

  “Jackie,” he grumbled as he got back in bed and punched up his pillow. He was committed to Carol, and yet he wasn’t committed at all.

  What was the big deal? He could call her. They had been great friends, despite the mind-blowing sex they’d engaged in in college. It shouldn’t be so awkward to call her. He’d seen her one time at homecoming a couple of years ago and they’d gone out for a beer. Hugged a little too long at their farewell. He’d thought about it every night afterwards for a straight week. They acted like it was typical stuff for the two of them to hang out, but Ryan was gutted. And Jackie was guarded. She was, without a doubt, his biggest weakness, the chink in his armor. He’d never met another person who had such a magnetic pull. Who could drown him like that and make him never want to resurface. Although, he knew deep down, he wasn’t the only man who realized Jackie’s allure. He was sure she’d had her fair share of serious suitors after they’d broken up. But honestly, so had he. Neither one of them were hard pressed to find dates or hookups. Even after their emotional goodbye, he had mourned the loss terribly, but at the same time, he felt lucky to come up alive and relatively unscathed on the other side of Ms. Jacqueline Bowen.

  “What’s up, stranger?” she’d said when she saw him. Leaned in to kiss his cheek with ease. “You look good, Sport,” she’d whispered. Deanna had talked her into coming and Jackie was even wearing mascara and lip-gloss for the occasion. But the veneer didn’t fool Ryan. She looked thinner, her eyes were sunken in. There was a kind of vacancy about her that unnerved him. She was spacey, distracted.

  All he’d wanted to do was remind her of their marriage pact. Secretly whisper that with him she didn’t have to pretend. Ins
tead he drank, caught up with Deanna and their other friends. Jackie flitted around and refilled everyone’s beer.

  “Where did you say you wanted to move to? Montana?” he’d asked her.

  “Wyoming!” she hit his arm. “My dad finally found a girlfriend, if you can call her that. He doesn’t need me anymore.” She said it flippantly, as if it were subtly annoying. But Ryan could read behind the words. Jackie didn’t feel needed anymore. He father had relied on her for years and suddenly dismissed her when he had a shot at happiness.

  “What about California? I thought that was your dream.”

  “I’ll make it there someday. I got work on a farm in Wyoming, so I’m just going until I can save up the money and go out west.”

  “Good for you,” Ryan had said, hoping to fortify her resolve. It was true she needed to get out of that house. It was so empty, yet chock-full of memories of the ghosts of those who were no longer with them.

  Ryan had wanted to steal all her time, convince her to come home with him, but they parted causally, hugged hard, promised to call. Ryan smelled her hair like a starving man. When he woke the next morning he jogged ten times around the lake, just to run off the tension. It was probably a month before he’d recovered from that love bug.

  What was it about her that was so utterly addictive? Her ease with joy, he knew that attracted him to her from the very beginning. Jackie grabbed joy by the horns and made life open up for her. She blazed a fire trail of light for all of those around. Ryan sometimes wondered if the reason she withdrew was because she couldn’t handle being the sad one. She was incapable of letting her guard down enough to let others take care of her.

  He let out a sigh and grabbed his cell off the side table, pressed buttons until it was Jackie’s smile lighting up his screen. It had been a while. But he didn’t want to tell Carol the plan that was brewing in his mind. He wanted to tell Jackie. Plus, she was the only person crazy enough to answer a call at four o’clock in the morning. He went back to the home screen and searched for Carol’s name instead. Duty. Obligation. Loyalty. He understood the necessity of those things.

  Ryan hadn’t called Jackie since that encounter at homecoming a couple of years back. He’d given it a few feeble tries in the last two years, but she never picked up. Sometimes he convinced himself that she had a new number, but even those scenarios hurt—-the fact that she hadn’t tried to stay in touch with him was painful. If he could have had his way, they would have parted as friends who were speaking and in touch, but Jackie was unflappable when it came to splitting up on her terms.

  On a whim, he went back to the contacts, his thumb hovering over her name. He tapped it, holding his breath. His conviction didn’t mean anything if he couldn’t share it with someone he truly cared about.

  “Hello?” she said sleepily into the phone.

  “Jeez, Jack, you don’t even check to see who’s calling?”

  “Ryan, oh, my God! I swear I was going to call you this week!”

  “Really? I must have picked up on your wavelength. Hey, shouldn’t you be up milking cows or something? It’s not even dawn. Is there a Starbucks or a coffee shop out there? How do you get your fix?”

  “Shit,” she said. Ryan could hear her blankets shifting, like she was sitting up in bed, that soft scratch and tug of sheets and comforter protesting her movement. “It’s all paperwork right now, I swear, we’re this close to losing the farm.”

  I thought you were headed to Montana.”

  “Wyoming. I am. As soon as I can save or sell the farm. Too bad I didn’t study pre-law. I’m just poring over paperwork until my brain turns off and I gotta go recharge it.”

  “What do you charge it with?” he asked. In his head he said, Sex. Booze.

  “Mostly, pizza. Sometimes Redbull,” Jackie said. He could tell she was yawning. He felt a pull in his heart that was like getting sucked into the waves by a strong undertow. And it wasn’t just the sound of her voice. It was everything, her breath, the spaces in between her words, the slight hoarseness that told him exactly how tired she was. “What’s up anyway?”

  “Well, nothing really.”

  “Ryan, come on.”

  He simultaneously cringed and delighted at how well she could read him.

  “I saw this presentation last night on the missions in Guatemala.”

  “Oh, here we go. At night church?” Jackie thought night church was hilarious.

  “You know it!”

  “Tell me,” she said.

  “I got so inspired and then halfway through, felt resolved to actually do something about it. So, there’s this program, it’s both intervention, prevention and outreach, that the assistant pastor at my dad’s church has already been funded for, he’s putting together a team.”

  “So what, you want to go and thump bibles at them?”

  He’d expected this reaction because Jackie has always been a little critical of his upbringing. She’d gone to church maybe a half a dozen times in her life, so it made sense to him that she was suspicious, that she didn’t immediately trust the intentions.

  “It’s not a faith-based mission, Jackie, it’s pure action and service. They need a team of eight and there are already five who have signed on. They’re taking any kind of medical professionals and—”

  “And you want to be number six,” she said, before he could even finish.

  He ran his fingers over his face in frustration. Not at Jackie, but at the fact that it had been a long time since he’d even felt so moved by something. He’d done a couple of faith-based missions in Central America with his whole family in the summers when he was a teenager. It wasn’t his choice to go, but he admitted that the experiences had made him more humble and grateful than he had previously been. But this idea sat like a bonfire in the pit of his heart, igniting his compassion, even his passion for life.

  “I can’t stop thinking about it,” he said, as a way to bridge the gap between what he felt so strongly and what he possibly had to say about it.

  “How long is the commitment, Ry?” he heard understanding in her voice. He’d gotten through to her that he was serious, that right then, in that little moment, his life might be changing its course. He’d reached out to her. He would always reach out to her. She held that exalted place in his heart as the first person to whom you would tell both the good and bad. And for all he knew, maybe she always would. Maybe they were meant to be best friends, nothing less, nothing more.

  “Six months, but there’s no official end date. It depends a lot on the funding and it could last up to a year. But yeah, the official commitment is six months. I’d be putting my PT experience into practice.”

  “Follow your heart. If it speaks to you—go get it!” Jackie said.

  “You think so?”

  “Oh, I know so. There’s no doubt in my mind that you were meant to do great things. You just find the right outlet, the right cause and you run with it. Because what is life for, if it doesn’t sing you a siren call every once in a while?”

  God, the strongest siren call of his life was speaking to him encouragingly on the other end of the line.

  “Jack, how are you?”

  “I’m good. I’m fine.”

  “You always say, “fine.”

  “What am I supposed to say? That’s what I am!”

  “Do you miss me?”

  “Of course, I miss you! God! They don’t make them like you anymore, Ry. My feet are always cold in bed because I don’t have anyone to warm them up on. Or if I do happen to have somebody, they push away my cold feet like they’re infectious. No one has manners. You’re a real gentleman, Sport.”

  “It’s a lost art form.” Ryan laughed. He loved talking to Jackie. Whenever they connected, he was left wanting more. He felt like Jackie wanted more, too, but she held herself back—that was the art form she’d perfected. He couldn’t help but wonder if it would, at some point, come back to bite her in the ass.

  Ryan had always wished he could bring Jackie
home to his family. He’d wanted her to witness his parents and how truly in love they were. Diane and Cal, despite the odds, had remained one of the strongest marriages Ryan had ever seen. His parents were best friends, too, like he and Jackie, but their commitment to one another was astounding and humble, it was inspiring as much as it was quotidian. Their love was epic and yet somehow totally normal. The love they shared made an impression on everyone. They’d never once made marriage seem like a chore or a duty, but instead acted as if their union were a great honor. Ryan thought that maybe if Jackie could get to know them, to see how deeply their love for one another burned, then maybe, by some miracle, Jackie herself would realize she, too, deserved a love like that.

  But Ryan shook off his reverie because what did he really know about Jackie’s family? How could he know what kind of relationship her parents shared before her mother’s untimely death? Maybe it was the success of their marriage that made Jackie so cynical and not just the loss part. Ryan realized that moment, while listening to her breathe on the other end of the line, that he wanted those things for Jackie, even if he weren’t the beneficiary. He wanted Jackie’s long term happiness, whether or not her love story included him. He wanted her to be happy.

  “I’m sorry. It’s so late. I should have just texted instead.”

  “You kidding? I love hearing from you. Once you’re down there, will you have access to phones? We’ll have to catch up at weird hours.”

  “Is that your way of telling me I should go?”

  “You already know you should go, Ryan. That’s my way of telling you that sixteen thousand miles ain’t gonna cut it as an excuse for never calling. Stay safe and be smart, but stay in touch.”

  “Course I will, Jackie. Can’t imagine facing all of life’s problems without consulting you. Is there any way I can help you with your dad or the farm?”