Hard As Rock (13 page)

Behind me, I heard him wailing, “YOU WALKED OUT ON
ME,
KAITLYN!
YOU
WALKED OUT ON
ME!”

Once inside the house I collapsed, sobbing, facedown on the sofa. At some point I vaguely remember a car door slamming, followed by the rev of a motor. Then the house door closed, and Ryan’s strong hands draped a warm blanket across my soaked, shivering body.

But I was inconsolable, because all I could remember was driving away, with Derek receding in my rearview mirror, and over that image the heartrending words:

You walked out on ME, Kaitlyn!

YOU walked out on ME!

Twenty minutes later, I sat at the dining room table in dry clothes and wet hair, a cup of hot tea and brandy in my hands. Ryan sat across from me and recounted what had transpired in the final moments before Derek had left.

There were a few more choice words between the two of them. ‘Traitor’ and ‘backstabber’ got tossed around a little bit more, no matter how many times Ryan insisted that nothing had happened.

Ryan asked him how he found out I was here.

Turns out Riley’s sister Megan had told him.

Derek had called Riley’s cell phone that morning, but she didn’t answer. That was expected, since she was normally drunk off her ass (or tapping somebody else’s). She was legendary for going out of contact for weeks at a time when left to her own devices, which was the whole reason Miles wanted Megan’s phone number before Riley left Vegas.

Derek got Megan’s number from Miles and called around 10AM. Megan answered and said Riley was sleeping.

Could you wake her up?
he’d asked.
I can’t get ahold of my girlfriend Kaitlyn. I’m trying to find out if she’s okay, and I was wondering if Riley knew anything.

Kaitlyn? We just Skyped with her the other day. She’s with Ryan. Out in South Dakota, I think.

The next thing you know, Derek was on a flight to Rapid City.

I sat there with Ryan and tried to puzzle out why in the world Megan would give us up. She’d seemed so nice; why would she
do
something like that?!

But as we went back over the Skype conversation, we realized that Megan had left for her hospital internship before any revelations about me and Derek were made. And if Riley had proved as reliable a communicator as we thought, then Megan had probably heard nothing about it.

That was all confirmed the next morning in a panicked voicemail from Riley.

“Oh shit, Ryan, pick up – pick up, fucker, it’s Riley! …oh, yeah, this is a cell… fuck, call me back when you get this. I think I fucked up… I didn’t tell Megan about Blondie and Derek and you and the whole keeping it on the down-low thing, and she talked to Derek while I was asleep. She didn’t know, Ry, don’t be mad at her, it was my fault! Anyway, I think Derek might be coming out there – fuck, Fuck, FUCK – call me back, man, call me back!”

Anyway, after Derek had revealed how he’d found out about South Dakota, he and Ryan continued to argue out in the rain. Ryan told him he was drunk and that he should go into town, get a hotel room, and sleep it off. We could all talk it out the next morning when he was sober.

Derek’s response was basically ‘Fuck you.’

It was a good thing Mr. MacCruder was there. Mr. Remington was pretty persuasive, and so Derek finally got back in the taxi, which turned around and sloshed its way back through the mud to Deadwood.

I sat there numbly as I listened to the whole thing.

Ryan eyed me carefully. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled.

“You don’t… seem okay.”

“It’s just… a lot.”

“I know. Do you want to talk about it?”

I sat there for a long time in silence. Finally I said, “I don’t think it’s fair to make you my therapist. Not about this.”

And it was true.

I knew Ryan had feelings for me. Maybe was even in love with me.

It was unfair to make him listen to me pine after Derek.

But he just looked me square in the eyes with that unwavering gaze and said, “If I didn’t want to talk about it with you, Kaitlyn, I wouldn’t have asked.”

I half-sighed, half-sobbed, and finally began to talk.

About how his last words to me –
You walked out on ME, Kaitlyn! YOU walked out on ME!
– had torn my heart in two.

About all my guilt and shame and sadness over leaving him four years ago.

About how I knew he was right.

“He’s not,” Ryan insisted. “He’s
not
right.”

“But I
did
walk out on him.”

“No. You went back to the life that was waiting for you, that’s all. You had two great weeks together, and then you had to get back to your life. That’s all.”

“You can spin it however you want, but I walked out on him.”

He sighed. “Fine. So you walked out on him. So?”

“But I was in love with him.”

“…so?”

I stared at Ryan. How could he not understand?

“I was totally in love with him, and I walked out on him to go back to a guy I
wasn’t
in love with.”

“Who said that just because you’re in love with someone, you owe them the rest of your life?”

Whoa.

I gave him a wry look. “That’s not exactly the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”

Ryan was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “I saw this great cartoon once. The top of the panel says, ‘Disney and porn have ruined more relationships than anything else.’ And beneath that are two little figures, a guy and a girl, looking in opposite directions. The girl says, ‘Where’s my Prince Charming?’ And the guy says, ‘Where’s my insatiable whore?’”

I chuckled at the idea. And at the incongruity of Ryan using the word ‘whore.’

But I raised my eyebrows as though to say,
…and?

“Whether it was Disney, or your upbringing, or society, or whatever,” Ryan continued, “somebody put it in your mind that you meet a guy, you fall in love, and then you go off with him and live happily ever after. It’s a great fairytale… but, in the end, it’s a fairytale.”

My logical mind knew that… but my heart believed otherwise.

“What if I
want
the fairytale?”

He paused to think, then shrugged. “Then go after it. But stop thinking Derek was your Prince Charming, because he’s
not.
”

“I know that,” I said – although, again, my mind knew it, but my heart felt differently. “But… I hurt him. I hurt him bad.”

“That gives him the right to torture you now? That gives him the right to act like an asshole, and push you away, then cheat on you, and then make
you
feel bad about it?”

“No, but…”

“Showing up here and complaining you walked out on him was an asshole move. Especially after what he did in Vegas. When you really love somebody, sometimes you let them go. You don’t hang on to them because
you
want it; you let them go live their life and wish them the best, and hope someday things work out and you can be with them again. You don’t show up and try to guilt them into coming back to you.”

His words were like prickly thorns across my heart. Partly because I could hear the harsh truth behind them…

…and partly because I knew Ryan was describing himself.

When you really love somebody, sometimes you let them go…
you let them go live their life and wish them the best, and hope someday things work out and you can be with them again.

It hurt me to hear him speak that way.

It hurt worse to think that, in regards to Derek’s behavior, maybe he was right.

Because it hurt, I resisted. “Shouldn’t you fight for someone you love?”

“Sure. If you didn’t cheat on them first.”

OUCH.

As I sat there in silence, recoiling from that blow, Ryan sighed. “Look… I’ve hesitated to say this… but you seem to think that if you’d just stayed with him four years ago, everything would’ve been perfect. That you’d both still be together and incredibly happy, and he would be the perfect guy, and he’d be a hundred percent devoted to you. But… I’ve known Derek longer than you have. I’m sorry to say it, but I think he would have eventually acted exactly the same, even if you
had
stayed with him.”

I stared into the distance, heavy-hearted, as I remembered our last conversation in Vegas.

I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to tell me the truth… Would you have cheated on me? Maybe not in two weeks, maybe not in two months… maybe not even in two years… but eventually?

…yes. Probably. At some point, yes.

You would have cheated on me before you got famous?

…probably.

Just with… somebody you met in a club?

Maybe.

Tears trickled out of my eyes and ran down my cheek.

“Oh shit… I’m sorry,” Ryan said, and leaned forward to take my hand. “I didn’t mean to make you feel
worse.
I shouldn’t have said that, I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s not that.” I shook my head and smiled sadly. “He basically told me straight out what you just said.”

Ryan looked bewildered. “He
did?”

“Yeah. I asked him for the truth… the
real
truth. If I’d stayed with him, would he have still cheated on me at some point? And he said yes.”

Ryan took a moment to take that in, then exhaled. “Wow… I didn’t think he had it in him to be that honest.”

“Yeah, well…” I wiped away my tears and exhaled deeply. “I think that’s all the honesty I can take for tonight.”

He searched my face, and must have agreed I’d had enough. “Yeah, I think the best thing to do right now is take a hot shower and go to bed. We’ll deal with whatever happens tomorrow… when it happens.”

When he said that last part, my heart and stomach both did backflips.

Because I knew that he meant
Derek will be back.

And I wasn’t sure exactly how I felt about that.

“Yeah, that’s probably wise,” I murmured.

He was still holding my hand, though, as he looked into my eyes. “Will you promise me one thing, though?”

Fear surged up inside me.

I was waiting for him to say something along the lines of,
Will you give me a chance?

That was one thing I
didn’t
want to hear right now.

“…what?” I asked hesitantly.

“Will you stop beating yourself up for choosing real life four years ago instead of a fairytale?”

Whoa.

Not what I’d been expecting.

I smiled sadly. “I’ll try.”

He smiled back at me. “That’s all I can ask.”

I tossed and turned for hours, replaying the evening over and over again in my head, Derek’s last words to me echoing in my ears.

Could I have done something differently? Something that wouldn’t have ended up with him breaking my heart yet again?

I could have gone with him… but I knew that was the wrong choice. I knew it in my bones. Derek was a wreck, a walking disaster. I had seen it tonight firsthand. Whether that was because of me, or because he was a time bomb waiting to explode and I had accidentally lit the fuse, I didn’t know.

All I knew was that leaving with him would have been a mistake. And that it would have killed Ryan to see me get in that taxi with him.

I knew I couldn’t live my life basing decisions on what would and wouldn’t hurt Ryan… but I didn’t
want
to hurt him. He had been so kind, so good to me… everything inside me rebelled at the thought of hurting him.

All I knew is that I had no idea what I would do the next day when Derek came back.

If he came back sober and in his right mind… if he came back like he had been four years ago, funny and confident, playful and yet vulnerable… I didn’t know if I could stop myself from hurting Ryan.

As it turns out, though, Derek didn’t come back.

We went to him.

I woke to a gentle tapping on my door.

I opened my eyes groggily. The window was still pitch black outside, though the rain had stopped.

“…wha…” I mumbled.

“Kaitlyn,” a voice whispered.

For a second, in my sleep-induced stupor, I thought it was Derek. Both fear and desire shot through my body in equal measure.

“You awake?” the voice whispered again, and I knew it was Ryan.

The fear was replaced with safety and relief.

The desire…

…curiously, the desire didn’t go away. Abated, a little… but not much.

I clutched the sheets to my chest. Which was funny, since I was wearing my customary t-shirt.

“What is it?” I whispered.

The door opened wider, and I could see Ryan’s silhouette against the hall light.

“I just got a call from the police. Derek got arrested. I’ve got to go bail him out.” Ryan paused. “I thought I should tell you… in case you wanted to go.”

I didn’t know if I
wanted
to or not…

…but I knew I
had
to.

“Give me a couple of minutes to get dressed,” I said.

He nodded wordlessly and closed the door.

The drive to the jail was a long one. The truck sloshed through mud for what seemed forever until we got to a paved road. In the night sky above, the clouds covered all the stars and mostly obscured the moon.

“What did he get arrested for?”

“Bar fight in the casino,” Ryan said grimly. “Drunk and disorderly. Thank God he had enough sense not to assault the police officers who arrested him.”

I sat there, feeling guilty, wondering if somehow I was to blame for all this.

Ryan knew
exactly
what was going through my head. “
Don’t.
Don’t think this has anything to do with you. Normal, well-adjusted people don’t get drunk, stalk their ex-girlfriends, barge onto their friends’ properties screaming at the top of their lungs, get escorted off at rifle-point, and then go get even more wasted and start a bar fight. He fucked up on his own. You had nothing to do with it.”