Pulled Within (38 page)

“You think that’s a reason for me to talk to you—because you’re dying?” My voice sounded even angrier as it came through my lips than it had sounded in my head for the last five years. “You can’t possibly believe that I care about anything you have to say.”

“You’re right,” Gerald replied. “I don’t believe that.”

Hart kept his eyes locked on the old man. “Say the word, and I’ll drag him out of here before he can say anything else.”

Hart was trying to protect me. But as much as I despised that man, I needed closure. I would hopefully get that by hearing
whatever he thought was important enough to track me down and say. From the looks of him, this was probably going to be my last chance to hear it.

“It’s okay. Let him talk.”

Gerald put his inhaler back in his pocket and crumpled the
handkerchief. His face spoke of his physical pain. In anyone else, it would have inspired sympathy. I had none for him. “I understand why
you hate me, and you’ve got every reason to feel that way. There’s nothing I can say to defend myself.” He took long, deep breaths between thoughts. “I live every day knowing what I did to that poor, innocent boy.”

“So do I,” I told him. I gazed at Darren’s headstone. “He doesn’t, though. He doesn’t live any day knowing anything anymore.”

Gerald shook his head, his eyes softening and gleaming. “I
deserve
what’s coming for me. I’m dying, slowly and painfully. And alone.
No one feels bad for me, and no one should.”

“It doesn’t seem like enough,” I said, taking another step toward them. By Hart’s posture, I knew he wouldn’t let me get much closer.
“I’m actually relieved to hear that you’re dying.” It sounded so gross coming out of my mouth, but I did nothing to stop myself from saying it.

“I understand that.” He wobbled on his feet. Hart noticed and tightened his grip to help steady him. “I’ve been calling so I can
apologize. Thought I might catch you here today.”

“Wow…that’s quite a coincidence.”

“No. I come here every year on this day.”

Suddenly, even Darren’s grave felt tainted by this man’s presence.

“What makes you think you deserve to mourn for the boy who
you
drove to suicide, Gerald?” It barreled out of me.

“I know I can’t fix the damage I’ve done, and I can’t bring that
boy back to life and make him hurt any less. But there hasn’t been a day I haven’t punished myself for what I’ve done.”

“You want to punish yourself? Then call the police and tell them
you molested and raped Darren Ryan before he committed suicide. And tell my mother what you really did, while you’re at it.” He said nothing. “Tell her that her daughter isn’t a liar, and that her son
didn’t
just kill himself out of
teen angst
, as she calls it, but because her father was sexually abusing him.” The words brought tears to my eyes again.

His stare dropped to the ground and he fell into another
coughing spell. This time, he used the back of his hand to wipe away whatever
rose. There was blood on his lips when he finally pulled it away. “I
can’t. And that makes me weak, I know.”

I had no sympathy for him whatsoever. “No. It makes you evil.”

“That, too.”

It still seemed so casual to him, so removed. It was tornadoes and typhoons tearing my life apart on a daily basis, and it just didn’t seem to be the destructive force for him that it should have been. I
needed him
to know exactly how much it had impacted me. “I was going to kill you, you know.” The sound of my confession shocked me. It was something I never intended on telling him, or anyone. It finally felt like something I needed to admit out loud. I couldn’t carry it out, but I could make sure he knew that the thought had been with me. “The night Darren died, I was coming back to the house to put a knife in
your chest.”

Hart cringed when I said it.

My voice was getting louder. I didn’t stop it. “I knew what you had done to him, and I wasn’t going to let you ever do it again. But I didn’t get there in time.” My whole body had gone numb. I couldn’t
believe I
was still standing, or that the tears hadn’t started streaming. “It should have been
you
with that belt around your neck.
You
should have had the blue lips.
You
should have had the lifeless body.
You
should have died
for what you did, not him…not Darren.” I reminded myself to breathe, drawing huge gusts of frigid air into my lungs to steel
myself. “I
thought for sure if I ever saw you again, I would do it. But I don’t have that impulse anymore.” I sized up his withering form. “By the looks of it, you’ll be gone soon anyway. You don’t deserve my concern, or my vengeful thoughts. You deserve nothing from anyone
anymore.”

He nodded, as if he knew he couldn’t argue any of what I’d said. “I hope you haven’t let the past stop you from living.”

I wasn’t even going to dignify his comment with an answer.

“You will never come and visit my brother’s grave again, do you
understand? You will die with this as your last memory of him, and me.” Hart’s fists clenched as he waited for Gerald’s response.

But the old man did nothing. He just nodded and turned on his heels, dragging his body slowly down the sidewalk in the direction he’d come from. The tension broke, and Hart’s arms were suddenly around me again, pulling me into his chest. The tip of his nose
circled around my cheek as he kissed the center of my scar. “Are you all right?”

I kept watching the back of Gerald’s head until he disappeared
from my view. Then I tilted my face up to Hart. “I’m not sure.” If the storm I lived in still had motion, I was now in the eye. Everything
had fallen still and silent. “I think I’m okay.”

Hearing Gerald admit what he had done did give me some relief. Knowing he was dying and probably would be gone soon helped a little bit, too. But something still felt unfinished.
Unresolved. It had nothing to do with Gerald. It had everything to do with me.

And Darren.

“I need you to take me somewhere,” I said.

“Anywhere you want, we’ll go.”

It was the second time that day my choices had taken me by
surprise. “I want to go to my mom’s house.”

“ARE YOU SURE
you want to do this?” Hart asked.

We were in my mom’s house, where I’d only been briefly in the
five years since Darren had died. I came home briefly to recuperate
after
the accident, and I left once I could walk on my own. And now, I
was outside the door to Darren’s bedroom.

It was time.

I’d called my mom on the way over, to tell her I was coming. Finally. She’d wanted this for so long, and I hadn’t been able to bring myself to do it. I’d kept my key and let myself in. I was relieved she
wasn’t there; it
made things slightly easier as I got past the initial shock. There was only one person I wanted with me, and he held my hand the whole
time.

“I’m sure,” I answered Hart as my fingers clutched the knob. “I have to do this. I have to go in and face what I ran away from. It’s
the final step, I think.” I hoped.

I truly thought it would be the closure I needed, something to stop the countdown from repeating each upcoming year, and the dread…and the hurricane of guilt and pain that overtook me every
December. I
needed to move on. And to do that, I needed to stand in the two
places I’d been avoiding all this time. I’d already been to his grave.

Now I needed to be where he’d lived…and where he’d died.

Slowly, I opened the door, letting the air rush out before I stepped
inside. I scanned the whole room. It was as if time had stood still.
Nothing had changed, really. The blinds were still half open.
Two of the posters drooped; their tape had worn off. His clothes were on the floor in his
closet. His math book sat on his desk, loose-leaf papers next to it,
with
equations written all over them. I’d avoided looking at the bed, the
last place I’d seen him just before I’d run away.

I couldn’t run again.

I took deep breaths, squeezed Hart’s hand, and lifted my gaze.

I thought I would see him as I had that night. His body in the
middle of the mattress, the spot where Gerald had told the paramedics he’d placed Darren after lifting him off the rafters. His bluish skin and his eyes lifeless in his swollen face.

That wasn’t what I saw at all.

***

Darren and I sat on his bed, talking about Driver’s Ed and how he wasn’t ready for that quite yet, even though he’d be eligible in a few months. “I’d rather have you drive me around,” he said. That made me feel
necessary, and loved. Then he randomly placed his hands in the air as if they were on a steering wheel and rested his foot on an imaginary gas pedal. “Guess who I am.” His hand dropped from the steering wheel and reached across me as though I were a passenger.

“You’re not mocking Mom, are you?” I asked.

“Of course I am.” He even mimicked her voice and pretended to dig around in something that was supposed to be on my lap. It was her
purse…she always kept it there. “Did you take my makeup out of this bag, Rae? How many times do I have to tell you to put my makeup back after you use it?”

“Mom…” I said, playing along. “I didn’t use your makeup.”

“Never mind,” he said. “I found it.” Holding an invisible tube, he lifted it to his eye and drew a line on his bottom lid. Using both hands now, he steered with his knee, his attention not even on the road.

I laughed so hard, I snorted. “Darren, she did that exact thing the last time I was in the car with her. She didn’t even wait for a red light!”

“Watch the wheel while I blend my shadow, won’t you, honey?” he said.

My laughter only got louder. Darren had her mannerisms down, and he sounded so much like her. He even puffed the back of his hair when he
finished with the eye shadow like she constantly did when she was driving.

“Darren, stooooop,” I yelled, gasping for breath.

He finally dropped the act and glanced over at me, his giggles almost as loud as mine. “Will you teach me when I’m ready, instead of her?” he
asked. “So I can avoid the whole makeup lesson?”

I smiled at him. “Whatever you want.”

His face fell, and he grew solemn. “I love you, Rae.”

He could always surprise me by saying that.

***

“I love you too, Darren.” It was a murmur.

I shook my head and blinked as hard as I could, coming back to the present. Seeing once again the dent in the comforter that his body had left reminded me of the moment I had found him there
that night. There was no laughter then.

But there had been laughter. In this room, in this house.

In our lives.

I had to carry the laughter forward now, and the love. I had to
leave the rest in the past.

“You’re so strong to be doing this,” Hart whispered. He stood
behind me, his hands on my waist, holding my body against his. That was exactly where I wanted him. Comforting me. Calming me.

Healing me.

“I really wasn’t, until you helped me find the strength,” I replied.

It was true. I wasn’t sure I would have gone to the cemetery or come back inside this house again if I hadn’t been with Hart. Brady gave me the comfort I needed to hang on, but neither he nor Shane
had been able to get me to go there. Hart gave me courage to move on.

With his help, I was starting to find myself again. Or maybe I wasn’t finding myself at all…maybe I was becoming someone new.
And in the
exact spot where I’d left myself behind all those years ago, I was
meeting her for the first time.

I glanced around his room as more and more happy memories returned. I knew it wouldn’t take another five years for me to come back. This was our home, and Darren’s room, the place where those
memories had been made. I’d said good-bye to all of it once, allowing Gerald’s vile influence to take it away, my guilt robbing so much of my time and happiness.

I wasn’t going to allow that anymore. I deserved happiness.

My mom had been in the house for a while, but hadn’t come to
find me yet. I knew from her hanging back that she was giving me space
to process all the emotions I would feel when I finally opened
Darren’s
door. I appreciated that. But now I needed some closure with her,
too.

I slid my fingers into Hart’s grasp and walked into the hallway, stopping in the doorway of the kitchen. Mom was standing at the
coffeemaker, waiting for the pot to fill. There were three mugs on the counter, next to a bowl of sugar, creamer, and artificial sweetener.
She didn’t know how I took my coffee
—
I learned that when I’d met her at the café
—
but at least she was trying.

“I saw his grave today, Mom.”

She hadn’t heard that word in her house in so long. I watched her eyes close, her chest rising and falling as she turned toward me.
“It’s a
nice stone, isn’t it?” We were easing into things. I could almost see
her thoughts processing. “Hart, I’m so surprised to see you.” She smiled as warmly as she could. “You’re all grown up.”

Hart smiled at her. “It’s nice to see you again.”

My mom beamed at him, and at me. There was a gentleness to her that I hadn’t seen in a while, a streak of vulnerability in her eyes.
It felt wrong to have spent so much time resenting her, so much time away
from her. Anger and guilt had caused that. But I’d dropped my
shield the second I’d walked into this house.