by Xavier Neal
“Well, I...I don't know if I do. What if I do someday? What if you change your mind?”
“There's always adoption, which logically makes more sense for the two of us anyway. We would be better suited to adopt an older child who is ready for school that requires less hours and attention than that of an infant. Between your job and mine, that's not a probable desire, especially with the retirement plan I am on.”
Discontent pushes me back into my seat.
“It's Friday morning. It's an in and out service. I am aware you will be working, so I have arranged for my mother to drop me off and pick me up.”
“You don't even want me there?” I whisper in disbelief.
“I don't want you missing work over something so minuscule.”
The chance to never procreate if I stay in this relationship is now minuscule. New found panic starts to set in. I suck on the mint a little harder, dizziness from the delirium, shutting down my ability to move.
Xander grins. “It's close to lunch. I'm already here. Would you like to grab a bite?”
Doing what I do best, I plaster on a phony smile in return. “I can't. I have to review Merrick's proposal as well as return a few calls in regards to the charity event.”
“I understand.” He rises to his feet. “I'll see you for dinner?”
“Yep.”
Xander gives me a nod and exits my office door sucking the life out of me with him. I never pictured myself in this position. I used to want kids. I used to want a life filled with laughter and excitement, charm at every corner. I used to be driven and full of zest yet here I am, at the bottom of a pit bereft of almost all vivacity that once was. How is this living?
**
Katherine chomps on her salad across from me, awe on her face as I devour the pasta she brought me. The combination of cheese and tomato sauce, swirl around my pallet, lulling all the overworked emotions back to slumber. I needed this. I need more food. More bread. More pasta. Chocolate.
She puts her fork down. “Okay Princess Linguine, how about you slow down on the carb fest you're ingesting and tell me, what's wrong?”
I drag my bread around the sauce. “Xander's having a vasectomy on Friday.”
“Thank God,” she mumbles. “Any more little robots like him wandering around and I would be worried the cyborgs have already begun to take over.”
Shaking my head, I snap, “I'm serious.”
“So am I,” she counters. “Why are you so upset? Did you want kids with Xander?”
“No. Maybe. I don't know,” I babble. “But I don't like the choice stolen from me like a thief in the night. He didn't ask. He informed like he always does. Declared it like fucking President of the United States of America. Like he's the fucking king of England and we folks don't have a say! No taxation without representation!”
Cautiously Katherine asks, “Why are you yelling History Channel moments at me?”
I drop the bowl on my desk. “Sorry. He was watching some special while I was trying to go to sleep. It stuck.”
“That was weird.” Katherine nods. “More importantly, you're expressing your anger with the wrong person. Did you try to tell him how you felt?”
“I did and he gave me some really well played speech about respecting women's' choices, so I need to respect his. If this were any other case, it would be valid, but it's not.”
“Because...”
“Because what if I do want children, Katherine?” I fight. “I'm not against adoption, but what if I want to carry a baby? And be swollen for 9 months? And nurse? And...” The end of sentence drifts and I take another bite of bread. “I don't know what I want and that's the problem.”
“Well if you don't know what you want, you can't be pissed off at Xander for knowing what he does.” Hating her valid point, I have another bite. “He always has, Presley. He may be very by the book, very boring, very precise, but he is always certain of what he wants and communicates that to you, even if it's not what you wanna hear. The problem is for the first time since I've known you, you've started to question your own desires.”
My chewing slows down as my eyes fall to my lap.
“It's not a bad thing if you ask me. You're twenty eight. You run an insanely well-oiled company. You're beautiful, brilliant. You've got a bright future ahead of you that doesn't stop at thirty, Pres. You have time to decide if you want a Xander or you want a Ryder. You can have the power to make those choices in your life, if you just take it back. As much as I hate what these little therapy sessions are doing to you, I'm glad something is. No one should wander through life alive, but not living. That's a waste. Stop wasting your life, Presley. You deserve more than that.”
I grunt my agreement and prepare to take another bite.
Katherine grabs my arm. “And stop eating your emotions. Talk. Let them go. Scream. Shout. Stomp. Something. But put down the bread and step away from the sauce.”
Surrendering, I drop the last piece. With a heavy sigh, I ask, “What's wrong with me Katherine? Why am I just now acting like this?”
“You've been dormant. Believe it or not, you're part of the reason, I enjoy writing these books. It's to help others wake up and reevaluate their own lives.”
Unsure I buy into it, but for the first time since we've been friends, gaining a new perspective on what it is she does, I simply smile.
“Speaking of.” A giggle comes from her before she wipes her hands on her napkin. Immediately after she pulls out her recorder from her purse and places it on my desk. “I was going to skip today and do tomorrow, but Carter's parents are insisting we go to some Yacht Club thing instead, so what do you say we go ahead and do it today?”
“How many more are left?”
“Just this one. We're practically done. Sadly...”
“Sadly?” I scoff. “You're sad you're almost done turning my life upside down.”
Katherine hits the button, leans back, and folds her hands on her stomach. “Am I turning your life upside or are you?”
Glaring at the machine, I respond, “No comment.”
She rolls her eyes. “I meant sadly, because I know at the end of all of this, the chance of you ever reliving these memories or level of emotions again, is slim. Which is sad to me because, a passionate you, a you filled with that much brio, is one I would love to see all the time.”
The temptation to put an end to the bread stick returns to my system. Katherine moves it away from me.
“Do you feel you were protective of Ryder?”
Flatly, I reply, “Yes.”
“Do you ever feel there was a time you were too protective?”
A familiar craving sweeps across my tongue. “I don't understand.”
“Can you recall a time where Ryder did something that maybe he should've been punished for but you took the fall instead? He was a growing drug addict. Was there a time maybe he took something from you and you convinced yourself you lost it instead? Maybe he lied about something and you lied on top of that to cover him?”
Slowly shaking my head, I whisper, “I'd rather not talk about this, Katherine. Can we...pick a different subject?”
Intrigued she leans forward. “No. We talk about this one.”
Anxious I tilt my head at the recorder. “Could we at least do it off the record?”
“Wow,” she whispers out, amazed. “Even now, even after all this time, your first instinct is to protect him. That's incredible, Presley.”
My jaw starts to tremble. I battle away the tears that are choking me. “I would just...I would rather not have it on record.”
“This is confidential.”
“Katherine-”
“Presley,” her voice gets firm. “What did Ryder do?”
“He...He wasn't himself that night...”
There's an ache in my head like no other. It's throbbing. A ringing in my ear or maybe that's the school bell. Wait. Is that...is that beeping? What could possibly be beeping? Did my alarm clock reset itself?
Groaning, I force my eyes open, the fluorescent lights blinding. The sharpness to them amplify the excruciating pain. What the hell?
“Thank God, you’re finally awake!” My mother rushes to my side, tissues clutched in her shaky hands. “I was so...we were so....terrified.”
My eyes shut from the annoyance of the light. “Of what?”
“You not waking up,” my father's voice answers.
“Why wouldn't I wake up?” I ask. “And why am I here? Why am I at the hospital?”
“You were found passed out at the house….” Her voice trails off as the tears return.
When my father's voice returns my eyes open. “The paramedics say you hit the back of your head on the coffee table. Apparently you landed at the right angle to miss any major damage. If you would've fallen the other way, you could...you could've....”
Died. It's the word they wanna say, but don't. I tuck my bottom lip between my teeth. One wrong move and I could've been dead. What...what happened?
“Do you remember what happened?” My father clears his throat. “The police suspect it was a robbery and you got caught in the crossfire. Do you recall what happened?”
Images of Ryder coming by for dinner quickly fill my brain. There was something so different about him. Ever since I heard he started to do drugs, I would read up on them late at night from my phone. There were articles about irritability when coming down, strange paranoia when coming down off of coke. Anxiety. There were also articles about MDMA, having some of the same responses. Apparently a lot of drugs can cause the behavior he had when he showed up. It's not like he's been honest with me about what he's been doing when we're not together, so it makes it hard to say what exactly caused his actions, but it's safe to say it wasn't his fault. He was high. He didn't know what he was doing. Ryder would never hurt me. Not in a million years. The throbbing acts as reminder that he did. He hurt me and destroyed my parents’ house.
“Presley,” my father calls out to me. “Are you with us?”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Sorry. I was just...thinking.”
My mom sniffles. “Do you remember anything, honey?”
“The police say any little detail about the intruder can help.”
For a moment, my eyes oscillate back and forth between my parents. I should tell them the truth. I should tell them that I was still seeing Ryder and he came over. That all this is a huge misunderstanding. I should be honest and confess that he's changing and hurting and needs help. God, he needs help. Real help. The kind I don't think I can give. I mean, first he bruised me, now he put me in the hospital? Sure, he may never intentionally hurt me, but if I keep up like this, if I keep up with him like this, I'm going to keep feeling the side effects of his addiction. I may not be able to help him fight that, but I don't have to make his life any harder than it's about to be.
Confidently, I lie. “No. I don't.”
“No worries, pumpkin,” my father assures and plants a kiss on my forehead. “It's over now...it's all over.”
The words cause tears to unexpectedly crawl into my eyes. It is this time. It really is.
“I didn't speak to him again until Prom.” Swallowing the developing tears, I shake my head. “He was too far gone at that point. As much as I didn't wanna abandon him, as much as I wanted to rescue him, Katherine, I just couldn't.” More tears fall from my eyes. “I was just a dumb teen. What did I know about fighting drug addiction or abuse? I couldn't save him from himself, so I did the one thing I could. I saved him one final time from the rest of the world.”
Katherine clears her throat. “Did he ever acknowledge what he did? Apologize?”
“I missed school for a couple of days. During that time he sent me flowers and cards. A stuffed animal. Candy. He sent them all from his alias in case my parents opened some of the cards-”
“What was his alias?”
“Sean Hunter.”
Katherine looks at me blankly.
“From Boy Meets World. Rider is his real name.”
“Clever.”
I smirk. “We used to watch old reruns together on Saturday mornings while eating big bowls of sugary cereal. He'd come over super early, crawl into bed, and it's how we would start our day when we could...”
“Why, did your parents open some of the cards?”
On a sigh I answer, “The police decided to rule out robbery and put in their heads that maybe I had a stalker. As a result, they opened some of my stuff looking for death threats. I suggested changing my phone number.”
“To separate yourself from Ryder?”
Slowly I nod, wiping away more tears. “I knew any time he called, I would come running, so if he couldn't reach me, I couldn't go. I didn't have the will power to say no to him. He's my other half.”
“You mean was,” Katherine corrects.
My eyes shut tightly more tears arriving. I'm not sure I do. I've been teeming with a mixture of so many emotions, but one thing has been steady. The love I have for Ryder Collins may be dormant, but it is by no means dead. Merely lost. Can I spend the rest of my life with anyone else when I know they'll never have all of me?
Ryder
-“Letting you walk away was the hardest thing I've ever done.”-
Staring at Presley from across the room I admire her longingly. Last year, when we went to Prom together, she wore this classic black dress. It wasn't too tight, but was one of those sexy because it is subtle things. It was a French theme, so it fit. We danced in a room filled with Christmas lights to shitty pop music before grabbing breakfast at IHOP. The end of the night we spent, like we always loved to, fooling around and then falling asleep together, except I remember it felt different. Something inside told me at some point we would do this every night, for the rest of our lives. Something told me we would begin and end our days together, always. It was a romantic night. I wasn't wasted or in the process. I wasn't stoned or coming down. At that point the only high I wanted or even needed in my life was her.
Presley tosses her head back in laughter, the dangling strands around her face bouncing. This year she looks nothing like last year. Sure, she's still got the glasses I love, and the glow that makes her her, but subtly is not what she's offering. No. In that skin tight gold dress with a plunging neckline right between her tits, the only thing she's selling isn't even for sale. At least it better not be.
“Do you know how hard you're staring, bro?” Dennis, an acquaintance as well as Morgan's date tries to pull my attention away from Presley. He fails. “Hard. Your girlfriend is gonna notice, bro.”
My eyes flicker over to Bambi who is giggling with Morgan. The way their faces are leaned towards each other indicates they're conspiring. They're already tipsy, horny, and high, so the guesses of what the whispers are about are few.
“We're gonna go downstairs.” Bambi wiggles her eyebrows. “Wanna come?”
Unimpressed by her invitation, I reply, “For what?”
“Drink a little, plus Morgan needs a cigarette.”
I give Presley another glance this time just as she does me. Hope floods my system faster than any hit ever could. I adjust my tie. “I uh...I'm good. I'm gonna talk to an old friend.”
“Do whatever,” Bambi sighs standing. “But don't be pissed at me when you miss me and Morgan making out.”
“I don't wanna miss that,” Dennis volunteers.
“See.” My head tilts towards him. “Take Dennis. He'll be a great audience and make sure you don't get raped by anyone that's not him.”
She laughs an outrageous amount. I roll my eyes. Every moment sober with her is harder than it ever has been. After 'the incident' with Presley, I tried to limit most of my time with Bambi. I knew it would just be easier to break up with her, but I didn't want someone somehow connecting the dots of our break up to what happened to Pres. And everyone knew what happened to her. It was speculated for being everything from a robbery to a hate crime. The stories were so ridiculous it made it even more difficult for me not to just fucking con
fess. I knew if I did that it would damage her. Her reputation. Her word. She didn't need that. She didn't deserve that, so I stayed with Bambi. I spent a good hunk of my time trying to pass the classes I didn't realize I was bombing, helping fix broken cars for money with Issac, and getting fucked up enough to pass out without thinking about the disappointment I was becoming. With my parents pending divorce, Bambi makes for a safe way to get my dick wet when I take a harder combination of pills. She doesn't complain. She merely calls me 'the best boyfriend in the world'. It always makes me feel like I should fucking throw up.
The second the three of them are out of the room, I quickly hustle over to Presley. Not the dumbest thing I've done. Hell, not even the dumbest thing I've done today, but definitely the most desperate.