Page 15 of For Puck's Sake

“Tor told me he and Alexis were coming next week. I thought the camp started then as well,” I continue, clearly baffled by Ridley’s presence. Yes, he came to Red’s tonight, but I assumed . . . I assumed. Oh hell, I don’t know what I thought, but him showing up here in the middle of the night wasn’t it. How the hell did he know I was here?

“Paris,” he mumbles, then clears his throat. “Tor took Alexis to Paris. I’m here to run the camp for him. It was last min?—”

“Nope” Obviously I’ve slipped, hit my head on this deck, and now I’m having a bad dream. “No. You can’t be here, Ridley,” my voice squeaks and I sound a little too whiny for my own liking. He can’t be here. Not now.

Ridley narrows his eyes at my reaction and steps forward. But I don’t move. One: because I have the lake at my back and a late-night swim is not on my agenda. Two: because I’m feeling like a cornered, wounded animal with nowhere to flee. I guess I’m gearing up for a fight, because flight is not possible.

“Well, I’m here, Brea. I’m here until the camp is finished for the summer. Like I said before you chimed in with your displeasure, it was all very last minute, and no, before you ask, I didn’t know you were going to be here. I was just as surprised to see you performing at Red’s tonight.” He pauses then looks back over his shoulder as if searching for something, then turns his attention back to me. “Am I to assume you are staying in the guest house next door?” he asks, taking another tentative step toward me, slowly closing the distance between us. I don’t think my body can become any more rigid than it already is. I’m trapped with no exit. I need him— Why can’t he just stand still, stop moving damn it? I feel like I’m having a panic attack, struggling to push air up and out of my lungs. My emotional foundation is shaky, and it may all come tumbling down aroundme with one touch from him. It dawns on me then that we haven’t been in close proximity for almost two years. Yeah, we’ve shared the same room, at a distance, but we haven’t been this close since the night I left.

I do my best to hold my hands out to stop him to no avail. I definitely need to decide what is a priority in my arms because this is not working. “I didn’t want to stay in the local B & B my record label booked for Dean and me. My parents . . . well, do I need to say more?” I finally say with a shrug, but I don’t miss the tick in his jaw at the mention of Dean’s name, followed by a sympathetic lift of his lips toward my parents. “I assumed Tor and Alexis would be here this summer. When I asked if he had room, he said the guest house was available. If I had known?—"

“If you had known it would be me staying instead of Tor and Alexis. What then, Brea? Would you have cozied up with your boyfriend at the B & B in town?” he scoffs, throwing his arms in the air. “Fuck, Brea,” Ridley whispers under his breath and turns his back on me.

I watch him, not sure what he wants me to say. If I had known, yes I would have found other accommodation, or hell, stayed with Red. At the time, I just wanted somewhere secluded and quiet. Tor’s lakeside house is the perfect location, equal distance to and from the main drag of town. Does he think I would leap at the chance to be in his presence? Too much time has passed and there is too much distance between us to be that kind of comfortable.

I bristle when he hangs his head and takes a deep inhalation of breath, as if he has a right to be frustrated. His shoulders sag as he slowly turns towards me once more. Before he opens his mouth, I beat him to it.

“My choices are my own, Ridley, and no, I wouldn’t have stayed with Dean. He and I are not together.” I wait a beat and watch as his body relaxes. Yep, there it is. I purse my lips andcontinue, “Yeah, I didn’t miss you calling Dean my boyfriend. You just can’t help yourself. Do you feel better knowing my relationship status?” I ask, feeling my anger rising, because how dare he? Who does he think he’s fooling? Did he forget, I know him? “What I would have done is inconsequential considering I didn’t know you were staying next door. But if you want to know the truth, then, yes, I would have opted to stay somewhere else and given you a wide berth,” I say as I make my way down the dock as quickly as my feet will carry me. As soon as solid ground comes into view, I jump down, by-passing Ridley, cutting through the back garden toward the guest house. I can hear him following me, but I don’t turn around to acknowledge him. If I look at him, really look at him, then I will be reminded of what I heard today and how it affected me. I don’t want to think about us, about him, or about . . .

“Can you not look at me, Luna?” he pleads softly, making me pause at his use of my nickname. My legs feel heavy with the weight of his words, because, no, it hurts too much to look at him. Everything involving us is too much.

“Ridley, it’s late. I need to get some sleep. I have a scheduled photo shoot tomorrow to promote the tour and several interviews to do. Then I’m off to Red’s in the afternoon. I can’t do this now,” I say with a sigh, keeping my back to him. I can see the guest house from here, in a few more paces I can escape behind a closed door.

“You were outside playing Bessie on the dock, Brea. Did you forget that I know when you’re struggling to sleep? I heard my song. It woke me. I heard your voice. I thought, I thought I was dreaming. But I ran out here and there you were, singing to the moon.” I can hear the smile in his voice, and it only makes my chest ache. My throat burns, and like always, he invokes emotions in me that need to remain buried. “Look at me, Brea,” he pleads again. “Can we at least?—"

“Stop!” I plead. “Please, stop! I don’t see a need to talk, Ridley. I couldn’t sleep, yes, sorry to have disturbed you. If I had known someone was next door . . . I would have kept the noise down. But, honestly, I—I don’t owe you anything.” I shake my head and find the will to move my feet. I hurry up the path and relief fills me, I’m almost there.

“You don’t?” he asks, and I pause again. Two words, full of sorrow, hurt, and anger. Two words that fill me with so much regret, I’m drowning, right here in the middle of the walkway. “Disturbed me? Since when have you ever disturbed me? Have we really fallen so far?” Each softly spoken question is a blow, one hit after the other. I realize something then, I’m intentionally hurting him. Haven’t I hurt him enough? Regardless of what happened afterwards, or if he would argue who let us fall apart first, it was me.

“Ridley, I?—"

“You walked away from us. You walked away from me. You walked away without giving me a chance to make it right.” He sucks in a sharp breath. I don’t need to look at him to know he’s rubbing his chest. I can feel his anguish from here. “I didn’t follow, because somehow, through the heartbreak, I understood why. I tried to be strong enough to let you walk away from me and hold on to my love for you from afar.” He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “There was never an end between us Brea. We didn’t walk away amicably. Everything between us is an open wound that refuses to heal. Fuck, Brea, you can’t even look at me. Make it make sense, baby.” I hear his footsteps behind me as my vision blurs from unshed tears. I’m not in the right headspace to unpack any of the baggage he placed in front of me. I’m a mess of regrets and indecision, especially when it comes to matters of him. I can’t look at him, because it hurts to see someone I don’t recognize anymore. Even though I know this man like the strings attached to Bessie’s fretboard.

“You’re right. I did this,” I finally say, wanting to throw everything in my arms to the ground, sans Bessie, to gesticulate along with my words. “I left the door open between us, and that’s my fault for not being brave enough,” I take in a shuddering breath, “to let you go. Walking away at the time was the best I could do. I didn’t communicate. That’s on me. I was suffocating and I didn’t allow you to save me. Not when I needed to save myself. But you, you moved on without a backward glance. Or at least that is what the world saw, Ridley. What you made me witness every day.” I close my eyes and blow out a breath, but I only feel the fire in my veins. “So, excuse me if I can’t look at the man who’s spent the past two years, using women and screwing everything with a pulse. It’s like a fucking slap in the face. Like what we had meant nothing, like I was nothing. To add insult to injury, now you’re going to be a father.” My voice cracks. “Abso-fucking-lutely fantastic for you.”

I know that’s my cue to leave. Because I’ll be damned if I let him see me cry. With my arms full and my heart heavy, I run the rest of the way to the guest house and slam the door in his face. With my back against the wall, I drop everything at my feet and slide into a sitting position. I listen for movement outside the door, but it doesn’t come. I wait for his excuses, his apologies, his reasons for handling things the way he did. But they don’t come.

All that remains as my tears fall is silence and the weight of it is too much to bear.

NINE

RIDLEY

There was no way of preventing the exchange between Brea and I three nights ago. There was nothing I could have said to ease the pain her last words caused us both. Ultimately, she was right. I watched her run away from me, the door slamming with finality, leaving me speechless. I knew knocking on the door and pleading with her to hear me out would have fallen on deaf ears. My potential baby news triggered her, and I saw the pain, the hurt, fuck, the betrayal in her eyes. Here I was thinking I had a right to be upset about her falling into Dean’s bed, but what I’ve been doing is exactly what she said it was. A big slap in the face.

I can argue the catalyst of our downfall had nothing to do with her. Brea leaving was just the end result of a series of unfortunate events. How I handled the fallout though, oh, I took a bulldozer to my morals and let everything my mother and father taught me about respect and decency crumble to the ground. Somedays even my own sister looked at me like she didn’t know me. My justification to my teammates and friends is I’m protecting my heart. I confessed to Tor, Bast, and Devan thatI have no space left for love and relationships, I tried it and look where it got me. Now though, now that I’ve seen the way it has affected her, seeing me like this, the fuckboy persona I presented to the press, I’m ashamed of myself. Because that Ridley, the one women fawned over to get attention, the Ridley who treated fucking puck bunnies like a sport, who didn’t care who’s heart he trampled on, that Ridley is not me. Not me at all. Subconsciously I wanted Brea to hurt like she hurt me. My actions over time, my prolonged salacious behavior, I took it too far. Now the woman I never stopped loving wants nothing to do with me and I don’t know how to make it right.

My parents always told me to ask for help when I am lost. To leave my pride at the door and seek guidance. I need advice. For the first time in a long time, I need my best friend to talk me down from the ledge. Although, I can argue this is his fault. His attempt to help me only made things worse. But it’s not his fault, he doesn’t have the complete picture of what happened between me and Brea. So, as I watch Brea getting into her jeep without a sideways glance at the main house, I know what I have to do. With a quick glance at my watch, I pull my cellphone from my back pocket with hope. After some sketchy time zone counting, I do just that. I hope for a lifeline and dial a friend. Well, text him.

Me: Put the baguette down, the carbs will only slow you down in a few weeks. I need your help.

Bailey: Oh, I’m not eating carbs. (winky face emoji)

Oh hell no. I don’t want to think about what he is actually eating. Gross. Well, Alexis is not gross, but, okay, never mind.

Me: Holding up my hands in surrender. I don’t want to know. (dead emoji)

Bailey: Why are you up so early? The point of summer break is to literally break, Rid. I know that’s rich coming from me. But you still have the weekend before the camp starts.

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