Page 2 of Dearest Ronan

Spotting Carolyn with her perfectly straight blonde hair, I hold my breath, hoping that they don’t notice me.

“You baby her,” she says. “If Anika misses her biological parents, she can talk to us about it.” Biological. As if I compare the Steele’s to them.

“Therapy isn’t a form of babying.” His eyes narrow at his wife. I’m the reason they fight so much. I bet they never did before. “And while I agree she can always talk to us about anything, she also needs someone trained in mental health. Sneaking out at midnight and sleeping all day aren’t good coping skills.” Reason one-hundred and twenty-one why I’m crushing so impossibly hard on Ronan: he actually tries to understand me. Last week, I caught him reading an article titledSupporting Teens Through Grief.

“You’re too easy on her! That’s the problem.” I’m a tangled mess of feelings, because the true “problem” is that my parents crashed into a tree after a truck driver crossed the center line during an active seizure.

Ronan has nothing to do with my sleeping in. If anything, I find solace in the warmth of his gentle touches, having learned that tactile connection services as a lifeline to my raw emotions.

Ronan seems to think the same thing. “I’m the problem, huh?” He crosses his arms, eliciting the veins on his forearms to torture me with what I can’t have. If I wasn’t so broken up by my loss, I’d beg him to wrap me in those wide-spanned arms.

“Well obviously it’s not me.” Carolyn’s eyes widen in comical shock. “I cook her meals and give her smiles. I’m the perfect mom. She even calls me so.”

Ronan slams his palm on the wall next to him, making drywall thud under his powerful hands. “Because you force her! Teens need more than food and smiles, Carol.” Slowly, he retracts his hand before changing to a softer tone. “Come on, you know that.” He sounds pleading with a touch of exhaustion. He’d never hurt her, nor does he raise his voice often, but it’s like she knows it. She’s always goading him.

Carolyn taps her finger to her chin, and I want to stick my tongue at her for it. Carolyn—sorry,mom—slips sometimes, showing the metaphorical metal pieces behind the robot.

“Sure,” she sarcastically starts, “you’ve got a point. Clearly, she needs some discipline.” I roll my eyes. She blames me for not getting a baby yet, claiming it’s because I’m a wild teenager who can’t sit still. Likewise, she blames Dearest Ronan for my unacceptable behavior, saying he’s too soft.

I’m not the wild child she portrays me to be, but I’m also not innocent, either.

You see, my feelings for Ronan have developed further than they ever should have. It’s not like I want to love him, or that I mean to make his life harder with his wife, yet here I am.

I sneak out in part to avoid them at night. No fickle teen wants to hear the man she’s in love with having sex with his wife—especially after they argue. So, I wait down the road I now call home. I don’t even party or anything. I just wait.

Except, here in-lays the problem: I don’t know when to return. So . . . sometimes I get caught sneaking back in or caught when Ronan checks up on me and finds me not in the house.

I can’t take the risk of hearing them together, but it also gets me in trouble because of it.

Anika

Now: age 20

Mom always told me I feel too much. Her hazels implored into my matching own, begging me to love as deeply as I feel.

She nurtured my heart like growing plants and gave me the tools to cultivate my own emotions into good.

So what I cry during the sad parts of movies, whether they’re cartoons or live action? There was this one time she, me, and dad watched that third Disney-Pixar movie featuring toys that come to life when humans aren’t around. Anyway, I totally cried when the cowboy and all the other toys held hands as they were aboutto be crushed into a trash incinerator. These cartoon characters deserved the tears that blinded me.

From that point forward I squeezed my eyes closed until my dad had to shake me and point at the miraculous save moments later. If he hadn’t pulled me out my grief, I never would have seen the hope and eventual rescue.

Imagine if I had shut down the movie and refused to watch the rest! I would have gone my entire life thinking the toys had died in that incinerator.

Dad taught me this.

That’s exactly why I still open myself up to love. My parents passed in tragedy, but I can’t keep my eyes closed and miss out on the love that still exists.

Even so, just like back then, sometimes it feels like my heart drips into my bones, and I’m always looking for something to absorb the blood.

Pushing an unruly curl from my face, I pace around my apartment. I’m an adult now, but I still keep in contact with my ex-guardian—Ronan Steele.

Though I restrained my feelings for him by running from his home in the middle of the night, just a day after my eighteenth birthday, I still couldn’t force myself to cut him from my life completely.

My phone buzzes, and I pause. It’s six pm and Ronan always texts at six on Fridays.

Ronan:

Hi.

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