A Moment (34 page)

“I’ll take it.”

I walk out of that store feeling like I have shackles around my legs and neck. The small box resting in my pocket feels like it weighs a thousand pounds.

Lili calls me almost the moment I’m out of the store, she’s ready to go.

We meet at the car; Alex is already there, leaning against it, refusing to look at me.

Ignoring him, I kiss her cheek, a little stunned that she doesn’t seem to know what I’d been up to. For me, it feels like I’ve got a giant crimson A stitched to my shirt.

I drive back to her house in silence, happily listening to her chatter away about the deals she’s scored.

But the whole time I feel Alex’s eyes drilling into the back of my skull.

Lili decides to stay at my house tonight, she brings Javi and Alex makes himself scarce. Watching him walk out the door, she frowns.

“What’s up with, Alex? He’s been quiet ever since we got back?”

The lights are off, the TV on to some old black and white movie. I’d muted the sound earlier. Because I know Alex won’t be back the rest of the night, we tuck Javier into his bed. The house is ours and it’s nice to just chill.

I play with the ends of her hair. “He’s tired. Don’t worry about it.”

Nibbling on a corner of her lip, she seems to not hear me.

“Angel, c’mon. Let’s go to bed.” I click the remote off and standing, hold out my hand for hers.

Sighing, she stretches and then grabs on, hopping up.

“I’m not really that tired.” Her smile is sultry and fills me with an immediate ache to hold her.

“Neither am I.”

Twirling, she runs for my room and I follow hot on her heels.

Earlier I’d placed the ring in my dresser, tucked under a pile of socks. As I pass by, I can’t help glancing, wondering how she still doesn’t know.

I know when I’m going to ask. Christmas.

I’ve got a fight scheduled that night. A paying one, and I know I’ll win. I’m twice the fighter he is, better at wrestling and take-downs, I’ll get him, end it with a quick tap out and right after, I’ll ask her.

It will be perfect, another memory for her to store away in her memory bank. A night she’ll never forget.

That night, after we make love, the dreams come back. And it’s a bad one.

Chapter 24

Liliana

I’m floating on a cloud, a foggy, hazy one, somewhere between dreaming and awake. Thinking about all the things I’d bought. Wondering if Ryan will like the Mark Twain Collection I’d bought him, when I hear him grunt.

It starts out low, like it has every other night, but this time he’s trembling.

His body is coated in sweat and he’s panting hard.

Instantly awake, I shake him. “Baby, wake up.”

“No!” he roars, flailing his arms.

I have to duck to avoid his fist. He’d gotten so close my skin tingles at the disturbance of displaced air shivering across my face.

Heart pounding, I grab his hand, grunting with the effort to keep him still. “Ryan, wake up. Honey, wake up.”

His eyes snap open and he grabs his head, then his stomach, shoving the sheets down his lap. His abs flex hard and furious as he struggles to regulate his breathing.

“Did I hurt you?” He peeks through his fingers.

I shake my head, my pulse is beating so hard I feel it through the tips of my fingers. “You were dreaming.”

Grimacing, he drops his head. His hair shields his face from my view.

“I’m okay,” he whispers, grabbing his hair, “I’m okay.”

I’m not really sure he’s saying that for my benefit and when I rub his back, his muscles are snapping like a Mexican jumping bean.

I know what that is, I’ve studied it in class. A strange phenomenon associated with adrenaline run off and high trauma.

Swallowing hard, I tuck my legs under my butt and crawl closer, rubbing his shoulders.

“Honey, what happened?”

“Lili, please.” His voice cracks with strain.

“Talking helps.”

Jerking out of my grip, he gets up and holds up a hand.

I drop mine slowly to my side, hurt, confused, and scared out of my head. I only want to help him, want to be there for him, to tell him this is okay, that he isn’t alone… but he looks like a cornered rabbit, terrified by the hot breath of the big bad wolf breathing down his neck and I don’t know what to do.

He closes his eyes, tossing on some pants for Javi’s benefit. “I’m fine. Really. Just a dream. Go back to sleep, okay. Please.”

Pausing to stroke the cleft in my jaw with his thumb, he heads to the door.

“Are you leaving again?”

Hesitating with one foot outside, he shakes his head and then walks out. The bathroom door closes a second later and then the sound of the shower echoes through our room.

I wrap the sheets around myself, just in case Javi’s heard and come’s looking, then clamp my teeth down on my fist. But the distraction doesn’t work, the tears fall hard. Plopping great big drops off the tip of my nose.

He’s shutting me out again.

Jaw trembling, I try to tell myself it doesn’t really hurt. That I’m overreacting. All the things I’ve told myself before, but I’m not buying any of it anymore.

Running a hand over my face, I look at the door.

At my house, sometimes I’d catch him singing in the shower. Those were the good days, the days I knew his ghosts were leaving him alone. But when I didn’t hear the noise, when all I heard was the vast silence, I knew it was bad.

Those are the nights I dread.

I could have heard a pin drop.

I know he doesn’t want me to see.

The first few times he’d showered at my place I’d been jumpy, always putting my ear to the door to make sure he was still moving, still breathing and warm and alive. I haven’t felt this level of anxiety for a while.

Stomach twisting, bile working through my throat, I scoot off the bed and tip-toe to the door.

“Please, please,” I whisper beneath my breath.

I hear movement, the scraping of feet, or the sliding of hands, I’m not sure what, but I know he’s alive and an exhausted sigh escapes me.

Licking my lips, I walk to the next bedroom, cracking Javi’s door open just a little. He’s asleep, thumb curled gently around his lip, as if he’d been sucking on it. Needing the touch, and his strength, I walk to him and sit on the corner of the bed.

Just looking at my baby.

He’s so strong.

A born fighter.

So many odds stacked against him, and still he pushes on. Fought through it all. Brushing away his curls, I lean in and kiss his soft forehead.

Was that why he liked Ryan so much?

Because, in so many ways, they are similar?

“Javi, I don’t know what to do, baby? I don’t know what to do?” I pour my heart out to him, say all the things I haven’t said to another. “I love him so much, and I know he loves us. But he’s so broken, he’s so messed up, and he won’t let me in. How can you fix something that doesn’t want to be fixed?”

I wait, praying for an answer, a miracle. For him to open his eyes, look me in the face and tell me, Ryan will be okay. He’ll snap out of it, just give him time. Because everyone knows time heals all wounds.

But he doesn’t open his eyes, and the words never come.

“I’m losing him, Javi. We’re losing him.”

Fighting the tears, I kiss my fingers, touch his cheeks, and then get off the bed, closing the door behind me.

Maybe I should just dress, and go home.

But I didn’t come in my car.

Go back to the bed and pretend nothing’s happening? Fall back asleep and wake up tomorrow morning and not talk about it.

I think that’s what Ryan would prefer I do.

But I won’t..

Stopping in front of the bathroom I debate whether to knock, but know if I do he’ll just tell me to go away.

Opening the door, steam swirls around my ankles and a horrible sense of déjà vu takes hold of me, making me sick. Tripping over my sheet, I rip the shower curtain back and for a second I see the blood, see his body laying still and pale.

When I blink, he’s looking up at me, a little boy staring through a man’s face. Water fall’s down around him, soaking the pants he’s wearing to his red, raw skin. His hands are tucked beneath his legs.

“Lili,” he croaks and I can’t see through my tears.

I don’t know how, but I fall into the shower with him, grab him by the shoulders and haul him to my breast, wrapping my legs as tight around his body as I can.

His fingers dig into my back as his body shakes.

I hold him.

I hold onto him, closing my eyes and praying to God that he won’t fall, that he’ll keep fighting, keep getting up and battling, that someday he’ll conquer, someday he’ll look at me and tell me everything.

“I love you, Ryan, I love you.” I pat his head, repeating it over and over; hot water mingles with the tears from my eyes.

“Don’t leave me, please God, don’t leave me.”

If he hears, he never says.

***

Ryan

Today’s Christmas. We haven’t talked about that night, like we don’t talk about so many others. I’m beginning to think that Alex is wrong after all.

Lili has seen me; she’s seen the blackest, foulest part of me and doesn’t ask.

If she’d really wanted to know, she would have asked.

He’s wrong.

And if she wants to pretend, I’m good with that. I feel freer than I have in a while. Because now she knows and she still stays.

She does love me.

Opening my dresser drawer, I pull the small black box out and crack the lid open, heart stuck in my throat.

Yesterday, I’d helped her set up the tree in her house. Kind of late to be putting up the Christmas tree, but she’d assured me her family always put it up Christmas Eve.

We didn’t cook a meal, Lili had said it wouldn’t feel right with her mother not able to participate. So we’d sat around the tree, her, Ade, Javi, and I and opened a few small gifts. I’d gotten her a bottle of perfume I liked and thought smelled like her. Javi had made out like a bandit, Lili and I had hit up a comic book store last week and bought the entire stack of used Spiderman comics.

In five hours I have a fight, an hour after that I will be dropping to my knee and proposing. My mouth is dry, I’m nervous as hell, but excited too.

A sense of urgency takes hold of me. Our lovemaking is still intense, but I feel something happening between us. Something foul and it makes my stomach ache.

Maybe it’s all in my head.

But her smiles never seem to reach her eyes anymore. We hang out all the time, she still caresses and tells me how much she loves me, but those green eyes of hers I love so much don’t sparkle.

Mama’s doing worse.

She barely leaves her bed anymore and that’s probably the real issue. Not me, not that night in the tub, me moaning against her shoulder as the terror churned hot and sick inside, demanding I remember.

I tuck the box into my shorts, and slide the drawer shut.

Heading into the kitchen I find Alex already at the table, eating a bowl of cereal. He doesn’t bother glancing up.