Ties That Bind

by Neeny Boucher

  Christina’s eyes darted to Beaumont and Palmer cringing in the corner. Beaumont was holding his face and Palmer was visibly shaking. She understood now that they weren’t there by choice.

  “What did I do?” Mason laughed. “I think a better question is what are you doing, Riley? Is this your ‘business’,” he air-quoted. “Are you here to get a little revenge-y for Darth?”

  Christina flinched, meeting Riley’s eyes before he turned away. Oh my god! This was bad: so-so bad.

  A part of her was conflicted. On the one hand, she was genuinely touched he’d defend her honor and on the other, terrified that he’d take such a dangerous course of action for her. “Riley,” she started, but Mason interrupted.

  “I am an asshole,” Mason nodded, “and I will own up to what I am. If we’re being really honest, who hasn’t wanted to do something to Darth at some stage? Let’s face it she is annoying-”

  “Hey,” Johnny snapped. “Fuck you, Mason!”

  Mason winked at Johnny. “Your place or mine?” He blew Johnny a kiss, making her brother pull an ‘ewwww’ face.

  “I’ll also confess to sending her pornographic pictures and ideas for ritual sacrifice,” Mason mocked. “I once had her chased through a sex club by idiots for a joke, but in all fairness, I did offer to participate.”

  “What?” Bonnie bellowed. “You sick, little, creep. That was you?”

  Christina stared at Mason in horror. After Riley’s parade of ‘hoochies’ and finding him with Stephany Gilmore, she thought her humiliation was complete. Apparently, she was wrong.

  She’d always suspected Mason’s involvement in the harassment when Riley first left, but having it confirmed made her rethink her Gandhi philosophy. She decided then and there, whatever happened, she couldn’t work with Mason Glenn. No. She wouldn’t work with Mason Glenn.

  It pained her to think that Riley would beat up Beaumont and Palmer without hesitation, but when it came to Mason, he ignored his bad behavior. She and Mason had never liked one another, but Riley always made excuses. In fact, the absence of Riley’s criticism was tacit endorsement for the way Mason treated people, including her.

  Grinning at Bonnie, Mason laughed. “Now, now, Hot Bonnie. I’m just articulating what a lot of people think, but won’t say.”

  Christina went to the dark recesses of her mind. How much did Riley know about Mason’s involvement in her misery? Or was it entirely coincidental that his friend and now business partner harassed her at one of the worst times of her life? And why wasn’t he saying anything now?

  Taking a deep breath, Christina shook her head. It didn’t matter. It was irrelevant; her tolerance was at an end and she didn’t need anyone to defend her. “As from this moment, I resign from all present and future projects that include Mason Glenn. You’ll have that in writing tomorrow morning.”

  “Ooooh, Darth,” Mason leered. “There’s my girl. Welcome back.”

  “I’m not your anything,” Christina retorted. The thought made her nauseous.

  “Christina,” Riley started, but she ignored him. To hell with him and everyone. She didn’t know what she would do for employment, but anything was better than this.

  “Calm down, Darth,” Mason smirked. “You don’t have to go that far. You’ll ruin all of Riley’s carefully laid plans to make us socially acceptable and then he’ll get his boo-boo, sulky face on.”

  Pointing his finger at Beaumont and Palmer, Mason paused before dropping his bombshell. “Whatever I am though, it pales in comparison to those two. Rumor has it, they tried to rape her.”

  The moment would be etched into Christina’s mind forever. She felt the color drain from her face and everything went into slow motion. She saw Johnny’s mouth and eyes open in unison. He mouthed ‘fuck’ and it was exactly how she felt.

  Bonnie, Mandy, and Gabby were shouting behind her, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. How did Mason know? Hardly anyone knew: her, Bonnie, Mandy, and the Robinsons. She’d never told anyone else. She’d been too ashamed and she knew none of the others would have told a soul.

  Riley was frozen in shock, but his eyes roamed her face. As understanding washed over his features, a cold determination settled in his eyes, and she began to panic. He was less than ten feet away from her, but it may have been a universe.

  **********

  Riley

  Everything was white noise in Riley’s head. He knew people were talking to him, but he didn’t care. His eyes were focused on Dina and the look on her face told him what he needed to know. Turning toward Beaumont and Palmer, Riley snarled, “I’m going to kill you.”

  All hell broke loose as the men broke and ran into the car park with Riley in hot pursuit. His eyes were on the targets before him. Shane Palmer was beefier and Riley closed in on the lumbering fool easily. He shouldered him at full speed, making Palmer fall forward onto the ground and the prick just lay there groveling.

  Riley’s main target, however, was the surprisingly quick Carl Beaumont, but Riley had more stamina. He closed in on him halfway across the car park, hauling him down by grabbing the back of his shirt. He rolled Beaumont onto his front, standing over him, barely controlling his rage.

  “Fuck off, man!” Beaumont snarled. “I didn’t touch her. She’s a lying bitch.”

  Riley lost his temper. “Wrong move, asshole,” he snarled, hitting Beaumont in the face. He hit him again and again, punctuating each punch with a question: “Did you do it? Answer me!”

  Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he was in the danger zone, but he was too angry to care. He’d always had a bad temper; the type that smashed up houses, defied authorities, and made him fearless when confronted. He’d spent years getting it under control, but he had his pressure points and these assholes had just detonated them.

  Riley had wanted Dina to denounce Mason’s accusations as a lie, but as he watched the color drain from her face, he knew it was true. They’d laid hands on Dina and tried to… his mind winced on the words.

  She should have told him. Why hadn’t she told him? Oh, that’s right: because getting information out of Christina was like pulling teeth. She wasn’t just an iron vagina. She was the iron curtain.

  Riley was furious and he could hardly breathe. He was angry with Dina, himself, and everyone around him. He’d left her unprotected in town because he wanted to pay her back and teach her a lesson. Instead, he’d left a power vacuum and Christina isolated, where people got the idea they could target her for him.

  Who were these people? He didn’t know them. He didn’t even like most of them. Dina was right and he’d ignored her.

  The town had taken sides and they’d turned feral against her, including his friend. He’d stood listening to every cruel thing Mason had done with increasing fury. He knew Mason had done it out of some sense of twisted, misguided loyalty, but he’d never asked him to.

  He cursed himself for his arrogance. He assumed that he could overcome anything through sheer force of will, but now he didn’t want to. He wanted to burn them all to the ground, take Christina, and leave here forever.

  Riley was just getting into the groove of hitting Beaumont when the fireworks went off, shooting sound and colors into the night sky. As the booms and whistles flew overhead, Riley started laughing. He’d fucked up so many things in his life, but he was going to get this right.

  Pulling a dazed and bloodied Beaumont up by the front of his shirt, Riley went in for the kill, but someone jumped on his back. He went berserk, living up to his hometown nickname of Psycho, snarling and clawing at the would-be attacker. He tried to swing whomever it was off him, but the back invader hung on like grim death.

  His passenger wasn’t heavy enough to stop him, but it slowed him down until Steven got there. Steven bear-hugged Riley, like he did when they were children. Ever prone to fits and tempers, Steven was one of the few people prepared to hold Riley when he threw a temper tantrum. The other one was Christina.

  Steven turned him away
from Beaumont, allowing the back invader the chance to jump clear. “Easy, Nick, easy,” Steven soothed in his ear. “I’ve got you.”

  “Did you hear what they did, Steven?” Riley snarled. “Did you hear? They tried to-” he choked on the last words.

  “I heard,” Steven growled. He clutched Riley’s head and stared into his eyes. “I heard and I swear, they’ll pay, but not this way. You’re not destroying your life over this.”

  Andy James came to Riley’s side, his face impassive, and his eyes intense. “You need to go to Christina, Riley. She’s devastated and she needs you.”

  At the sound of her name, Riley began to shake. The adrenaline that had been pumping through his system was now trying to find a way out. He rubbed his hands over his face, resting his hands on his knees.

  He took some deep breaths and went to find Christina, but he didn’t have far to go. She was standing in the car park with Jed and her friends less than ten feet away from him. Jed was standing over Palmer, making sure he didn’t get away.

  As soon as they made eye contact, Christina started walking towards him, and they met in the middle. Riley wanted to grab her, pull her into his arms, and never let go. One part of him wanted to wrap her in cotton wool, mark her fragile, and guard her with his life. The other wanted to rail at her for being proud and stubborn, and keeping him in the dark.

  As Christina took his hands in hers, looking at him with concerned eyes, the darker impulses won out. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He snarled, making her flinch. She went to pull her hands out of his, but he held on. “You should have told me.”

  **********

  Christina

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Riley demanded.

  This was not the way Christina imagined their ‘conversation’. In her mind, their fantasy ‘talk’, the one she’d been preparing for, was much more civilized. It hadn’t included an agitated Riley with blood-smeared clothing and skin off his knuckles from beating two men in the car park of the Hub & Spoke.

  Riley was breathing heavily and his eyes burned with an intensity that made her stomach clench. Nothing, however, was scarier than the sight of him tearing off after Beaumont and Palmer, threatening to kill them, and knowing he meant it. Christina recognized the danger signals before anyone else did and she started moving, but it was too late.

  She’d run barefoot after him across the car park, out pacing nearly everyone, except Andy James. He’d overtaken her, launching himself onto Riley’s back without any thought for his own safety. She’d stood screaming at Riley as he beat Beaumont and clawed at Andy like a man possessed, but he was in the place beyond reason.

  Everything else was blurred detail: the two kids from Wild in Shanwick filming events, Mason Glenn confiscating their cellphones, Jed standing over a traumatized Palmer, and Steven wrestling Riley away from the carnage. The saddest realization for Christina is that it was entirely predictable from the moment Mason had vented his poison. It was their very own twisted version of Groundhog Day, replaying the roles that Shanwick had assigned them years ago and fulfilling the prophecy they were losers.

  It was one thing to revisit your past and another to ask people not to judge you on it. In order to do so, however, you had to stop living in it. Otherwise, it was like being stranded in purgatory and she was tired of this perpetual limbo.

  In Christina’s experience, the direction of someone’s life rested on moments; the importance of which was only clearly defined in retrospect. She fully admitted many of the decisions she’d made were lackluster and she now wished she’d taken an alternative course of action. If she’d used more reason than emotion, she could have changed the outcome of her life, but the head/heart split was a schizophrenic bitch.

  The only common denominator in all of it, in a life spent nursing regret and guilt like old friends, was the man standing in front of her. She’d wondered where her bad boy had gone, but here he was: all reckless, impulsive, dangerous, six-foot plus of him, and lurking crazy underneath.

  Christina hated making decisions on her personal life and relationships. She knew her weaknesses: she was too cautious and dithered. She had trust issues, could be unreasonable, and hated compromise, viewing it as a loss.

  She had a choice to make now and she knew in the marrow of her bones that whatever path she took, it would alter the course of her life. The future may not be set in stone, but the building blocks were before her. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ The answer was convoluted, but the choice was simple.

  Christina was in or out of this relationship. She couldn’t sit on the fence any longer because she’d get splinters in her ass or worse: the debris would spread, hitting other people. It was fight or flight, love or fear, retreat or surrender.

  In the split second where her mind processed everything, Christina pushed away all her fears and chose love. “I didn’t tell you,” she started, “because I can hardly think of that time without pain. It’s all hidden behind this wall and blocked off so tightly, that if it started to unravel, so would I. Why didn’t I tell you? I didn’t want to tell anyone.”

  Riley gripped her hands tighter, but she finally worked out what this was about: grief. Grief was the price you paid for loving someone and losing them. She’d never grieved or even expressed it because it was a luxury she couldn’t afford.

  “I lost my mother and you in two weeks,” Christina said in a voice thick to her own ears. “I was twenty years old with no life skills beyond living in a small town. Everything else paled in comparison to the misery of losing Mom and then you.”

  Taking a shaky breath, Christina’s eyes welled with tears. “And you know what? I didn’t think I was entitled to my own pain. Not over you because I was the instigator. I broke us up and drove you away. It was my fault, and whatever happened after that was on me. I’m sorry, so-so sorry. I’ve carried the guilt of that with me like a heavy weight.”

  Riley pulled her into his arms, stroking her hair. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him close and feeling the steady beat of his heart. “I did this,” he whispered into her hair. “This is on me. I left you here unprotected because I was mad and wanted to punish you. I opened the door for… all of it. I’m the one that’s sorry.”

  Christina squeezed her eyes shut and breathed him in. She had been so lost in her own grief that she’d failed to recognize his. Whereas she channeled hers internally, Riley was the polar opposite, expressing it externally and lashing out. “No,” she mumbled into his chest. “You did not do this. How could you have possibly known that any of this would happen?”

  Riley hugged her tighter and she felt it: hope. Hope that they might be able to resolve their past without bitterness and anger. “They tried to-” Riley growled, but she cut him off, holding him tighter.

  “Yes,” Christina agreed. “They beat me up and sexually assaulted me. Eddie Robinson stopped them. Would it have gone further? I don’t know, but it didn’t and that’s what I choose to focus on. I know this might sound strange, but if anything, the harassment and what those creeps did motivated me out of my stasis.”

  Riley groaned, moving away from her and swearing, but she hadn’t finished yet. “I’m not going to lie and pretend this is some Pollyanna version of the world,” Christina confessed, “where I think everything bad is one of life’s lessons. In saying that, I refuse to give them any more power over me. I’m keeping it in perspective. They have no impact on my life.”

  “Really?” Riley laughed, but there was no warmth to it. Shaking his head, he leaned in close to her. “That’s bullshit. You never really liked Shanwick. I get that now, but I didn’t then. It was too small for you, but you never hated it the way you do now. That’s an impact.”

  He was right, but now was not the time to diverge into random tangents. “You’re right,” Christina agreed. “It’s had an effect on me. I never considered Shanwick my home after that, but it didn’t matter. You were my home. You still are.”

  Running his hands over his head, Riley
glanced at Christina, and then his eyes fell on Beaumont and Palmer. She knew what direction his thoughts were taking and she needed to head that off at the pass. There were very few people with the type of will Riley possessed and being the focal point of it was an ‘experience’.

  She’d never had much control over him, but she’d always had influence and she was prepared to use it. “You can’t do this, Riley,” Christina said forcefully. After her evening ‘encounters’ with Mason Glenn, a part of Christina felt like she’d swallowed a gallon of hypocrisy. “We both can’t,” she corrected.

  “I can’t do this?” He snarled, staring at her in disbelief. “It’s already done. They need to understand that they don’t touch things that don’t belong to them and if they do, they face the consequences.”

  Christina nodded, and although she didn’t agree with his reasoning, she could see it. “Does this work one-way? Is it just me belonging to you like a piece of property, or do we belong to each other?”

  “Ugh,” Riley scowled. “Are you seriously going to do this? Take the ‘feminist angle’,” he air-quoted, “and infer I’m somehow sexist? NOW? I’m trying to protect you. Do you understand that?”

  She did understand that. Twisted logic or not, she did, but it didn’t mean she accepted it. “Yes. I’m really doing this because I’m trying to work it out in my head,” Christina frowned. “The way I see it, if we belong to each other, then I get to protect you too, and I am trying to protect you.”

  “Way to cut my balls off, Dina,” Riley seethed. “What are you going to do? Have strong words with those two fucks? Remain silent for years, pretending it never happened, and scaring them with your resentment?”

  Ouch. As much as it was offensive, she agreed with his assessment and so long as he was talking, he wasn’t trying to kill people. “Okay,” Christina said between gritted teeth. “I accept… that, but this isn’t what it’s about. You brought me back here for a reason. You told me that the project I’m doing and your family’s legacy is important-”