//12// Funny You’re The Broken One

I was aware of two things:  The first being that my heart was thumping extremely loudly in my chest, the sound filling my ears; the second being that everyone else had seemed to freeze, the room slowing to a stop, void of noise or movement.   A half dozen pair of eyes settled on me, yet despite this I could only see one single set of green eyes, the rest of the room fading into a fuzzy white tunnel.  All the words I should have said six or eight months ago began to rise in my throat, but died before finding their way to my lips, my mouth opening and closing with silent sins I could not confess.

The staring contest continued to a few minutes, neither of us apparently knowing what to say to the other.  There was a knot starting to form in my stomach from the tension and anticipation.  My face was starting to flush; I could feel the heat rising to my cheeks, burning through my flesh.  I couldn’t feel my fingers, and suddenly all the oxygen seemed to be gone from the air.  Suddenly, my knees gave out and I felt gravity take over; I was passed out before I hit the ground.

Consciousness and confusion reached me at the same time, causing my heart to race in a panic.  My eyes fluttered open and I gasped for breath, trying to sit up.  Small hands applied enough force to coerce me to lie down again, and when I dared to look, I saw Ryland above me.  “Shhh,” she whispered, running what felt like a cold, wet cloth over my forehead.

Upon meeting eyes with Ryland, the pain emanated from various locations on my body and the realization that my stomach was growling angrily for food, seemed to melt away.  I was comforted by her touch, and the care she placed in to her task.  This allowed me to relax a bit, my heart settling in to a normal rate and my breathing coming easier.  When my heart rate and breathing had been normal and steady for a few minutes, I began to sit up again, this time with Ryland’s assistance.

“How do you feel?” she asked, placing her hand on the back of my neck to check my temperature.

“Um…hungry?” it was the only identifiable feeling I could make out at that moment.

This elicited a chuckle out of Ryland.  “Ok, well we were just about to order room service,” she smiled, and then ran her hand over my forehead.  “But how do you feel otherwise, Zac?  Take a minute if you need to assess.”

Doing as I was asked, I took a few minutes to run a quick mental analysis of my physical state.  I had a headache, but it didn’t appear to be from hitting my head, which I was thankful for.  I seemed to be lying on my bed, Ryland perched next to me, and I assumed that since I hadn’t hit my head someone might have been able to catch me and generously deposit me to the bed.  Moving on, I noticed that while my face still felt flushed, it was cooling off rather quickly now.  Other than the headache and the hunger, I felt much better.  “I feel pretty OK,” I confessed.  “Just a headache,” I added at Ryland’s scrutiny.

“Speaking of you being hungry,” Natalie’s voice came through from somewhere to my right.  “When was the last time you ate, mister?”

“Um…” my voice trailed off as Natalie appeared at my side, hands on her hips.  “I don’t remember,” I admitted.  It was the truth—I remember my brothers eating, or talking about eating, but it never occurred to me in the last week to actually pick something up and put it in my mouth.

I was wondering if either of them had noticed when I heard Isaac’s voice.  “He had a handful of Cheetos on the bus two nights ago.  That’s the last I remember seeing him eat, anyway.”

“No wonder you passed out,” Natalie exclaimed, as if that was the only way to rationalize why a grown man would faint.

While it probably had a significant part to play in my ability to stay upright, I had been fine until I nearly ran over Ryland.  It was seeing her face, thinking of all the things that were left unresolved between us, which made me start to feel sick.  The way Ryland slipped off the bed, mumbling something about room service, told me she knew it as well as I did.  This left me to the mercy of Natalie, who was in full-out Mother-mode now.

She was giving me a physical once-over, and upon finding nothing that would obviously indicate injury, she announced:  “I think we should go to the hospital, just to be sure.”

I jerked my arm away from her as she reached out, sliding toward the center of the bed.  “I don’t need to go to the hospital, I’ll be fine after I get some food in me.”

As if on cue, Ryland appeared just then with a tray of food.  She set it down next to me and lifted the little dome used to keep the food warm and untouched by the air and handed it to me.  I examined the pancakes that sat in front of me:  two pancakes, each with a pat of butter, some fresh berries to the side and a dousing of maple syrup, precisely to my liking.  I looked up at her, shocked that she had remembered my go-to plate for room service, and was about to thank her when she turned away.

I could feel my face fall, and returned my gaze to the plate of food in front of me.  I pushed the berries around a bit, getting syrup on them before taking a bite.  Natalie was ushering people out of the room, demanding I have time to rest.  Ryland lingered until everyone else was out of the room, standing quietly by the door with her hands behind her.  Once we were alone, she closed the door and walked back over to the bed, sitting across it in the chair Taylor had occupied earlier.

She sat there, staring at her hands, for quite a while, so I took the opportunity to eat my pancakes.  I was just finishing the second pancake when she finally spoke.  “I didn’t intend to just show up.  I had begged Jess to call you and let you know; she refused and I…”

Her voice trailed off, her cheeks flushing as she struggled to find words to fill the space between us.  “It’s ok,” I replied; and I even meant it.

I hadn’t been prepared to see her; hadn’t even though of her since Natalie and Jess told me she was coming in to town a few weeks ago.  I had thought I had at least another week before I had to worry about seeing her; it had never occurred to me that she might meet up with us somewhere.   But with her sitting there, in the room with me, all the reasons I had convinced myself of why I didn’t want to see her were replaced with all the reasons I hadn’t wanted to let her go.

“Good…” she smiled weakly at me, leaning forward in the chair.  “I…I’ve missed you,”

The words were barely above a whisper, and I had to pause for a moment to make sure I had heard her correctly.  She turned her eyes to her lap after a few silent moments, her fingers working at a frayed piece of her cut offs.   The words “I’m sorry” hung on the tip of my tongue, but in my stubborn glory, I couldn’t bring myself to say them.  Saying them would admit that I had done something to warrant an apology, and despite knowing that I, in fact, had, I still refused to acknowledge my shortcomings.

“I…guess I’ll leave you alone then,” her voice penetrated the silence, startling me with how sharp it was.  I glanced up at her as she walked quickly to the door.  With her hand on the doorknob, she turned back to me.  “You know I loved you, right?”

Her words caught me off guard; had I known?  I certainly had had suspicions, but I hadn’t been convinced at times, despite her as much as saying it to me a few times.  My stomach rolled, and I suddenly regretted eating both pancakes.  I couldn’t look in her eyes; instead I let my eyes linger on the bedspread as I nodded, the truth becoming aware even to myself.

When I still didn’t respond, Ryland just nodded her head and left the room, shutting the door behind her.

**

Natalie, having just left her youngest home with my parents for more than a night for the first time for this trip, spent the remaining portion of the evening mothering me.  The subject of hospitals and doctors came up a few more times over the course of the evening, and I struggled to convince her that I was feeling much better.  So much so, in fact, that I told her I wanted to go out for a walk and get some fresh air.  It took forty-five minutes, and a promise that I would come right back and let her take me to the hospital if I felt off again, for Natalie to finally conceded, and her petite frame slide away from the door to allow me to leave the room.

I pulled my jacket on, feeling over the pockets as I did so, smiling as my fingers traced the familiar square of my cigarette pack, and then exited the hotel room.  I trudged down the stairs, my legs itching for movement after being in the bed for well over three hours.  When I finally made it to the ground floor, my thighs and calves burned, my lungs working double time to provide oxygen to my organs.  I was reaching in my pocket for my pack of smokes when the elevator dinged, the doors sliding open to reveal Ryland standing, by herself, in the center of the elevator.

She walked off slowly, her eyes watching her feet as she moved, and she stopped about two feet to my left.  “Could I bum a smoke off you?”

Silently, I held the pack out to her, and she slid one of the white sticks from it, carefully cradling it in her hand as she turned toward the front door.  I followed, getting a cigarette for myself, and light it the second I stepped out the door.  I held the lighter out, flicking the flame to life.  I watched it danced in front of her face as she leaned forward, placing the tip of her cigarette in to the flame.  Her eyes turned up toward mine slowly as she pulled away; there seemed to be so much lying just under the surface.  I wanted to reach in and pull it all out; needed to feel all her hatred and sadness engulf me—drown me.

“Thanks,” she exhaled a puff of smoke as she spoke, crossing one arm over her stomach and balancing the elbow of her smoking hand on it.

An uncomfortable silence settled over us as we smoked our cigarettes, and in an attempt to occupy my thoughts, I mentally played through our latest single, rocking back and forth to the beat only I could hear.  After a few minutes, I saw Ryland’s cigarette butt fall to the ground, and she squished under her toe, and then she took a couple steps closer to me.  She waited for a minute, and even though I felt her eyes on me, I couldn’t bring myself to look at her.

“So, this is how it’s going to be?”  Her voice was sharper than it was earlier, despite the just-audible shake that threatened to convey her force.  I still couldn’t find words to say to her, so I kept my eyes fixed on the ground.  “I’m not going to beg you to take me back, if that’s what you’re afraid of,”

“That’s not even…I’m not–” I stopped myself before continuing the thought.  It dawned on me as my lips started moving that the truth was, if anyone needed to beg, it was me for forgiveness.  Furthermore, it occurred to me as I lifted my eyes to meet hers again that if she did ask me to take her back, I would in a heartbeat.  Common sense made me think better than to actually tell her this, though, and so I just left my words as they hung.

Ryland sighed from beside me, her eyes searching mine.  “I meant it when I said I missed you,” she rocked her weight—a solid ten pounds less of it than I remembered—from foot to foot in the damp evening air.  “You’re like, the only person on the planet who has ever even tried; who can actually understand.  Jess is the best friend I could ever ask for, but…she doesn’t get it the way you do.  I miss having a lifeline…I miss having you as my lifeline.”

She paused, more than likely waiting for me to say something, but I had nothing.  A soft, frustrated growl escaped her lips, but she continued, her voice more collected than I’d have though.  “Alright, you do what you need to; I’ll do my best to try to stay out of your way.   Give you as much time and space, or whatever, it is that you need to decide if you hate me or not.  But, in the meantime, I’m going to be around…and I’m not saying that to be a bitch, I’m saying it because we need to figure out how to coexist.  There are a select few people who know the truth, and I doubt they’re going to say anyth—“

“Ike already did,” I cut her off, speaking the first words to her since we met up in the lobby.  “To Kate.”

I watched in silence as Ryland’s face drained of color and her hands both migrating to her stomach; she looked like she might vomit.  “Wha…what?”

“He didn’t give her any specifics, I don’t think.  Despite how understanding she seems to be, I’m pretty sure Natalie would be clawing your eyes out right now if Kate knew everything,”

“So, what did he tell her, then?”

I shrugged, stubbing out my cigarette against the building.  “I didn’t ask for a transcript, but he told her I cheated.  Didn’t say who with or how many times, but…she knows that much.”

“Okay.  She hasn’t suggested that she knows who with or…?” I shook my head at her question, thinking back to the night of the storm.  No, if Kate knew, that night never would have happened.  Ryland exhaled loudly.  “I might need another cigarette after that!”  She shook her head when I offered her one, and I chuckled softly.

The sensation caught me off guard; it had been so long since I had genuinely laughed, I didn’t really realize what it was at first.  I lifted my eyes and caught a glimpse of Ryland, the corners of her lips turned up slightly, and I had to use the building for support.  Our eyes met, both of us holding it just a little too long, before we looked away awkwardly.  “I’m going to head back in,” she motioned toward the door.

“I’m just going to go for a walk around the block.  I’ll be back,” we stood there for another few moments, awkwardly, before we both turned and went our separate directions; my mind congested with thoughts and emotions.

 

 

 

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