Raine's Haven

by Shari J. Ryan

  With reluctance written so loudly across her face that I can almost hear it, she closes her hand around the cash I'm still holding up. "Someday, I want to stand on my own two feet. I don't want to have to ask for help, and I don't want to be taken care of anymore. I want to be able to take care of myself."

  "I want that for you too, Haven. I do." She has a look in her eyes that's begging me not to leave her here, but Crow is waiting for me, and I'm not sure I can explain why I'm going into a motel room with a chick who had me locked up for seven years. He already thinks I'm insane as it is. "Go on, I want to make sure you get into your room before I leave."

  Haven grabs her bag and makes her way into the front office. I hold up a finger to Crow, so he knows I'll just be another minute. When she comes back out, holding a key in her hand, she looks embarrassed. "I feel so guilty about this," she says. "I'll repay you."

  "Don't worry about it," I say, squeezing her shoulder gently. "Lock your door and keep the blinds closed."

  She nods her head with understanding before moving in close to wrap her arms around my neck. "Thanks for saving me again." Her hair smells like summertime at the lake, and I have the urge to wrap my arms around her too and hold her against me until I get drunk off her scent, but I can't.

  "I'll see ya," I tell her, breaking free from her embrace. With despondency emanating from her, she hikes slowly up the stairs and opens the same room I was sleeping in with Crystal the other night. That sucks. Hopefully, they have a better housekeeping service than the one they used to.

  She closes the door and peeks out of the blinds a second later.

  With an ache in my chest I need to ignore, I climb back into Crow's truck. "I think I'm better off not asking what the hell that was all about," Crow says.

  "You're definitely better off not asking," I confirm.

  "Jesus, do you still have feelings for that chick?" Crow adds in. "I know it's none of my business, but did you just give a rich priss money? One that put you behind bars."

  "She's going through a tough time right now." I’m aware of how ridiculous my reason must sound to him.

  "Cool, man, no judgment here." Crow laughs to ease the tension. "Is she safe in there tonight? All by herself. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not like I can say I care a whole lot for some chick who destroyed seven years of your life, but this place has had more break-ins than any other motel in the surrounding two-hundred-mile radius in the last three years."

  "What are you talking about?" Sutter may be a hole in the ground, but there's never been any real crime here.

  "Ever since the 'poor' were kicked out of Cascade a few years back, Sutter has become a black hole for outraged ex-townies. I don't know why they take their anger out on this shitty motel, but they do. In any case, if she locks the door and shit, I'm sure she'll be okay."

  "That dickhead mayor really kicked all of the 'poor' people out of Cascade?"

  Crow lets out a strangled laugh. "He pushed out anyone who wasn't in the top fifth percentile of wealth in that town. New rich fucks moved into the advertised hub for the wealthy, a place where their children could be safe from common citizens, and where southern twats could dress in fine clothes and hold civil conversations about fabric choices."

  "I had no idea it was that bad," I tell him. How can one man destroy so much in such a short period of time? "I guess you should let me out of the truck."

  "I wasn't insinuating you should babysit her, man. I was just asking a question."

  "It's fine. Kacee would be more comfortable without me crashing at your place anyway. We should give her a little time so she can see I'm not the criminal she has labeled me as."

  "I don't give a shit what Kacee thinks," Crow says, looking over at me. "You're my bro, and if you need a place to crash, it's yours."

  I slap my hand on his shoulder. "Thanks for everything you're doing. I'll be at the bar at three tomorrow." I step out of the truck once again with a quick salute to Crow.

  "Good luck, man. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

  I poke my head back into the truck before closing the door. "How many chicks under the age of eighteen did you bang when you were twenty-one?"

  "Every one of them with a fake ID," he chuckles.

  "So you have no idea if they were telling you their real age when you confronted them about their fake IDs?"

  "I see where you're going with this," he says, pointing at me like I just beat him in some stupid board game. "You're a good man, Raine Carson. Don't ever lose sight of that."

  I close the door and make my way up to the room Haven is staying in, knocking once before she peels the blinds apart.

  24

  Haven

  I'm staring out the window, looking right at Raine who's waiting for me to open the door. In truth, I had no intentions of sleeping tonight, not on an unmade bed with condom wrappers freshly tossed into the trashcan less than four feet from me. I was going to keep a watch out the window and make sure no one attempts to break in—not that I have a plan if someone were to do that.

  I release the deadbolt and the chain-link from the door, opening it enough for Raine to come inside. "I'm sleeping on that chair," he points over to the corner of the room. "And you're going to sleep on the bed." He walks past me and over to the chair he just claimed. "Furthermore, I need you to stop putting yourself in dumb situations." Why did he even come back?

  "I'm not being stupid, Raine. God. I have no one. Can't you see that? I know I have two parents that are physically alive, but I don't want to be anywhere near them. That's half the reason I ran into Bennett's arms during my junior year of college. I couldn't fathom the thought of graduating and being forced to go home to those assholes."

  "That's not my point," he says. "You aren't thinking things through, Haven."

  "When did you become so self-righteous and a know-it-all?" I retort. "I was suffocating in a relationship, and despite whatever you may think, I didn't leave Bennett because of you." Well, maybe a little because of him, but it wasn't because he was being released from prison the same week.

  Raine drops down into the chair and slouches into it, making himself comfortable. "It's late," he says, closing his eyes.

  "If you hate me so much, why are you here?" I ask, folding my arms over my chest. "Why do you want to keep helping me. I don't get it, and it's hurting my head."

  "I just worked all night, and I'm not in the mood to argue," he mutters.

  "I didn't exactly start an argument." I can’t help feeling a bit defensive about the way he's acting. In response, Raine slaps his hands down on the armrests of the chair and props himself back up. His eyes flash open and glares right at me while releasing a loud, exaggerated breath. "What is your problem? Why did you even come back here?"

  "I feel sorry for you," he says.

  Each word feels like an intentional punch to my gut. I don't know what my face looks like right now, but if it represents even the slightest bit of what I’m feeling, he should be aware of how much his comment hurt. "You should leave," I tell him. "I don't want you to feel sorry for me." I tried to convince myself that prison wouldn't damage him further, but I always knew it was a strong possibility. It was a more substantial possibility that he would never want to see or talk to me again too, but here he is.

  "You're not staying here in this place, alone tonight," he says, without so much of an apologetic intonation to his words.

  "I'd rather deal with whatever loser breaks into my room than your cruel words."

  I walk over to the door, ready to open it up for him, but he lashes back. "My cruel words?" he repeats, calmly. "Those words are the truth. I do feel sorry for you, for the life you were brought up in. It was so shitty that you have unknowingly put yourself in ridiculous situations, leading you here tonight. My statements aren't entirely meant to piss you off. They are intended to make you understand that I get it."

  "You only get you. You don't get me," I argue, knowing everything I'm saying is pointless. Raine will hear what
he wants to hear. He's made that clear these last couple of days.

  "So you think," he says, relaxing back into the chair.

  "Oh my God. Get the hell out of here. Honest to God, you are not the person I once knew. You're a jerk who wants retaliation against me. You think saying every cruel thing that comes to mind is going make me feel worse for what I did to you? It's not, Raine. So, stop trying," I shout.

  He isn't moving from that chair, and as a result, I'm becoming more enraged by the second. Who the hell does he think he is? "I don't want retaliation against you," he says. "I'm tired, and you're pissy. We should just go to sleep and talk about this in the morning." His eyes begin to close again, and I'm about ready to have a full-blown screaming fit.

  "I'm not sleeping in that bed," I tell him.

  "Fine, want the chair?" he asks with indignation.

  "Actually, I do," I snap back.

  He sluggishly hoists himself out of the chair and practically throws himself down onto the bed. He doesn't seem to care about the fact that the sheets aren't clean; although, he may not know since he didn't see the comforter already pulled down like I did when I walked in.

  Knowing this argument isn't going much further tonight, I drop down into the chair with a remnant of warmth left over from his butt. I pull my legs into my chest and position myself to be as comfortable as possible, which isn't much, but at least the chair can't be as dirty as those sheets. I hope.

  I try to close my eyes, needing to erase every memory of the last twenty minutes, and the entire day for that matter, but my mind feels like it's spinning a mile a minute as I listen to soft breaths spilling out of Raine's perfect lips. The sound is soothing, and it pulls me a little closer to contentment. Without fully reaching a state of sleep, I snap out of my dark haze, finding Raine convulsing on the bed. The memory of this happening years ago floods back to me. He never did say much about it other than it being a random seizure—or so he made it sound. If I remember correctly, he shooed me away from the topic completely.

  I jump out of the chair and clamber on top of him, placing my hands on the side of his face. "Raine," I mutter, hoping not to startle him from whatever he's going through. It looks like he's definitely having some kind of seizure. He isn't snapping out of it, so I call his name a little louder, watching as foam bubbles in the corners of his lips. I've gone from worried to scared out of my mind in a matter of seconds. The convulsions are growing more severe, and it sounds as if his body is stealing each breath he tries to take. His eyes are rolling into the back of his head, and blood is trickling from his lip now as it looks like he might have just bitten down on it.

  Furiously, I look around the room for the phone so I can call 9-1-1, and at the same moment I find it, Raine's body relaxes into the bed. I turn back to him, hoping whatever was happening is over, but he's looking around the room with what appears to be confusion. He's gripping at his chest and trying to catch his breath as if he just ran a marathon. "Raine, can you hear me?" I sit down on the bed and run the back of my hand up and down his flushed cheek. His eyes struggle to focus, but after a few long seconds, he stops looking around and stares at the ceiling. "Raine?"

  He opens his mouth, and more blood drips over his lip, so I jump up from the bed and run into the bathroom for some tissues. As I return, he's groaning, but his focus is still on the paneled ceiling. "I'm calling an ambulance," I tell him as I press the tissue down onto his lip.

  While I try to stand back up to move closer to the phone, he gently grabs my arm. "Don't," he says weakly and under his breath.

  "Raine, you're bleeding, and you were just having a seizure. I have to call. Something could be wrong." I know I sound frantic when I should be keeping him calm, but I am frantic and he needs help.

  "I have epilepsy," he mumbles.

  My heart feels heavy in my chest and falls quickly to the pit of my stomach, making that hurt too. "You never told me…"

  He tilts his entire head to the right, struggling to look up at me. "I've never told anyone," he says.

  "Do you have medication or something I can get you?" I ask, running my fingers through his short, sweat-coated strands of hair.

  "I ran out," he says with a rasp to his voice.

  "Well, let's get you more," I tell him. "Come on, let's go. The pharmacy is open all night."

  He slowly shakes his head from side to side, and it looks like there is more pain in his eyes at the moment, than there is in his entire body. "It costs almost eight-hundred dollars without insurance."

  "Oh my God," I say through a sigh laced with heartache. "Are you going to be getting health insurance at Crow's?"

  He shrugs. "I don’t know. Crow’s looking into it."

  "How often does this happen?" I know I should ease up on the questions, but I need to understand more. Does this happen every day? Is he usually alone when it does? God, what about when he’s driving?

  "Usually once every couple of weeks when I don't have meds," he slurs while pinching at the cut on his lip. "Sometimes it's worse right after I stop taking the pills, though, and I ran out last night."

  "How long does it usually take for the seizures to go away?"

  He shrugs again. "Depends."

  I press the tissue back against his lip and slide down beside him, repeatedly running my fingers through his hair, trying to relax him. "Have you always had this?"

  "My whole life. My mother used cocaine the whole time she was pregnant with me," he says, talking against the pressure I'm putting on his lip. I remember now. He confirmed all those rumors when he said she died from a drug overdose when he was just two. The story about her dying broke my heart, but now seeing what she caused him to suffer with, I want to think that good-for-nothing woman got what she deserved. In the end, though, the only person being punished here is Raine.

  "That's not fair," I tell him. He inhales a long, slow breath and sinks into the bed while clenching and relaxing each hand over and over as if they hurt. "Are you in pain?"

  "My muscles hurt," he says, closing his eyes. “And I’ll probably have a nice headache tomorrow.”

  I rest my head on his chest, listening to the speed of his racing heart as it melts from frantic to calm over the course of several minutes. He falls back asleep from exhaustion, and while I’d rather lay awake and watch him all night to make sure he’s okay, I feel about the same after the day we had.

  My body falls flat to the bed, and I slowly come to awareness, feeling the brightness of the sun hammer against my closed eyes. I squint a little tighter and push myself up. It takes a minute to remember everything that happened last night, and when it all comes back to me, I force my eyes open against the burning sun beaming through the blinds that are only partially closed. Raine is sitting up, his back facing me as he rubs his hands up and down his face. "Are you okay?" I ask softly with hesitance.

  He stands up without responding and walks across the room, closing himself into the bathroom. My heart hurts in my chest as I consider the thought of him not having medication while in prison, either. Epilepsy looks like a jail sentence itself. I want to help him, but I can't even help myself, and yet, he helped me last night, even though he has nothing. I don't deserve to be in this man's presence. He served time in prison, but I'm a horrible person. The number of times I felt jealousy for his life, it’s clear now; I never knew what I was jealous of. I just wanted to get away from my stolen life.

  I pull a hair elastic off my wrist and scoop all my hair up into a ponytail. The best thing I can do for Raine is disappear. It's so obvious how bad I am for him, and why he should never forgive me. I know he tried to move past things yesterday, but I think it’s because he feels sorry for me. No one should feel sorry for me, though. He’s right. I’m responsible for the decisions I made. I went down the easy road, and now I need to pay that consequence.

  I walk over to the bathroom door and tap my knuckles against the wood before speaking. "I'm going to get going. I think it's best if I don't cause you any more stress,
so I just wanted to say thank you for helping me with a place to stay last night, and—"

  The door flies open, and he's standing in front of me with puffy eyes and a swollen lip. "Are you okay?" I ask cautiously, again.

  "That was a bad one last night," he says.

  "Can I get you anything?"

  "Forgiveness." What is there for me to forgive him for? I’m the asshole.

  "Raine, you have nothing to apologize for."

  He closes his eyes and pauses. With a sharp inhale, he places his palms on the frame of the door and peers down at me. "Yes, Haven, I do."

  "Well, I can't imagine what it could possibly be for," I tell him. What could it be for? I’m the one who has continuously hurt him.

  "You should sit down," he says, nodding toward the bed.

  He's making me nervous, and I can't figure out what he could say that I might want or need an apology for. Regardless, I do what he asks and take a seat on the edge of the bed as he walks toward me while rolling out each wrist. He must still be in pain from last night.

  He pulls the chair around to face me and sits down, leaning forward as his elbows press into his thighs. "I lied to you," he says. "I've been trying to figure out a way to tell you the truth, and last night, I stupidly thought if I got you mad enough about random shit, you'd be a little less angry about what I need to tell you." Until a couple of days ago, I haven't seen him in seven years, and there isn't much he could have done since then to make me as mad as he's claiming I'll be.

  "Raine, please just tell me."

  His eyes close for a long blink before he refocuses on me with a dark look in his eyes. Then he takes my hand from my lap and squeezes it gently between his.

  "I'm so sorry, Haven."

  25

  Raine

  "This is making me so uncomfortable," Lenore says as we walk into a small, run-down office building in the middle of this factory town.