Page 12 of Four Times Forever

It was that panic that had me hurrying through the house looking for him. Matt didn't answer to his name. Neither did Ryan. Matt's bedroom was empty, but what do you know? I found Ryan on his bedroom's porch with an almost empty bottle of flavored vodka in his grip. He was staring out at the lake with tears streaming down his face. The need to yell at him dulled into a belly-twisting ache.

"Ry..." I gasped at the overwhelming need to wrap him in my arms and comfort him, even though he'd fucked up. Then again, I couldn't blame him. He was only standing up for me.

He jumped at me coming up behind him and wheeled around, stumbling out of the bamboo chair. "Lily." He staggered toward me. My own eyes burned.

"What happened to you?" I asked, steadying him with my hands.

The alcohol on his breath launched me into a flashback of my father, many memories compiled into one. Terry had beer breath, but in this flashback, it didn't matter. I shook my head against the blurring image of my father and Ryan's face. Despite the similarities in this moment, Ryan was not my father. Ryan was the man I loved, the man I knew loved me so much he got angry at my mother, FOR me.

But he wasn't the man I fell in love with. I wanted the man I fell in love with back.

"Please, Ryan. Talk to me. What's going on? Let me help you." I sobbed, the emotion wrecking my body so that I had to fight to keep myself standing, to remain strong enough to hold him up.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." His body shook and he fell into me. All I could do was hold him, with all of me. How did I end up here again? This was how it started out with Marco.

My heartbeat hammered my tightening throat. This could not be a repeat of Marco 2.0. I wouldn't let it be that. Damn it, I should have pulled myself away, told him he needed to get himself fixed and walked away from him. But I loved him. And I knew deep down in my heart, that he was no Marco. He wasn't pretending when we first met. Don't forget, I'd been with a lot of men since Marco and I'd been able to spot a user and abuser since then. I knew Ryan was different from that moment we spoke in the park. The goodness in him poured out onto me and it was undeniable. He could have walked away from me when he realized who I was. He wanted to. But he didn't.

My eyes leaked from the memory. That was the man I fell in love with. The man, who, despite not knowing whether or not he could have me, sat with my mother and combed her hair, fed her when Eric and I had our first 'date' in the backyard of that nightmarish house, which together, all four of them transformed into something magical before Terry returned and ruined it all. That's the moment he changed. When he thought he might lose me forever. This man was no Marco, no Terry. He was Ryan, my love, my heart. And he was broken.

I couldn't walk away from him after all of that. Not when this was of no fault of his own. But I couldn't be with him when he was like this either. I had my sobriety to think of too. It wasn't easy for me, you know, dealing with everything, reliving every moment of my kidnapping. Every day I thought of how easy it would be to take something to numb the pain. For years I'd managed to remain sober, cope with other people drinking around me, living with liquor in the house. I'd been doing well.

But all of this, it wasn't easy. Watching Ryan like this, it brought up a lot of the shit I lived with suppressing every day.

Walking him toward the bed, my heart broke when he fell over onto the floor and almost took me down with him. He laughed. I didn't. Memories of the way I'd sway and delight in the carefree recklessness of not being able to hold my own weight, not giving a damn whether or not I had vomit all over myself, not giving a fuck whether I lived or died, waiting for that day, actually, going until I was no more. It was a painful type of dangerous serenity. Dangerous, because it trapped me into ruining my life and feeling good about it, until I didn't, and needed the drugs to survive.

Fuck, I didn't know there was a fucking way out and every time I think back to those moments, I get chills.

"Why are you doing this, Ryan?" I fell to my knees and grabbed him by the shoulders. I wanted to slap him across the face, shake some sense into him, scream at him, make him see how much he was hurting himself and get him to stop.

His smile fell away, his hazel eyes, so similar to mine, became black and distant. His lips moved, but no words came out and I knew there was something he wanted to say to me. Damn it, Ryan, just say it! My fingers dug into his shoulders. His breath deepened.

Fuck, Ryan. Let me help you.

Even as I thought that thought, I remembered it took a whole team of people to help me. Therapists, medical doctors, support groups at the Women's Shelter. That's what he needed. A team. More than just me and his best friends. That's what I'd do. I'd get him help. Where was my damn phone?

Chapter 9

Ryan

That hug. Fuck, I needed that. It wasn't what I was expecting her response to be. And man, did I need more of it. She started to get up from the floor, but I took her hand and stopped her.

"I need to go find my phone." She tugged away from me, but I didn't let go.

"Wait. Please. Stay. I haven't shown you how sorry I am yet." I attempted a smile.

"Ryan, what are you..." She groaned as I moved in closer. "No. You're drunk. You need help."

My gaze found her lips, and now I couldn't pull my eyes away. "I need you."

And I did. All I'd been doing since leaving her alone with her mother was beating myself up, going over ways I'd make it up to her, expecting that when we met face to face, I'd be groveling at her feet, waiting for her to buy what her mother said and kick me to the curb. I'd been replaying the scene of her tears on repeat and punishing my body with liquor to make up for the pain I caused her. She'd be well within her rights to not speak to me again.

Instead, she came in all Lily, floral scented, firm and soft all at once, reminding me that time was of the essence and I'd rather savor every second we had left. Because it would come crashing down soon. If not with her mother's accusations, I knew I couldn't live with it. But before I couldn't do anything about it, I needed her, more of her, as much of her as I could take that would leave me with memories that would warm my cold nights once everything came crashing down around us.

She nibbled her bottom lip, the swell of her breasts beneath her fitted T-shirt rising and falling.

"Ryan." She breathed against my lips and shuddered as my hand crept up her shirt. "I've still not forgiven you."

"I'll apologize to my mother-in-law-to-be later." I groaned as my hand moved under her bra and her very hard nipple bored into my palm. "I'll even make her dinner." I rolled her nipple between two fingers and she hissed.

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