Page 29 of Leave

There wasn’t a lot of conversation, though. Which, I mean, long periods without talking weren’t that unusual with us. I wasn’t the most talkative person.

The weird part was when Riley was the one being quiet. He’d been polite to our server, of course, and he hadn’t been curt with me or anything. He was just… someplace else.

I could guess where his mind was, and he confirmed it after he’d polluted his umpteenth cup of coffee.

He checked his phone and sighed. “Still feels like I should be going to Easter service this morning.”

Oh, that was today, wasn’t it? Damn.

“We can, um…” I fidgeted on the bench. “Do you want to go to one? Like, at another church?”

Staring sadly into his coffee, he shook his head. “No. I’m really not religious. It’s…” He sighed as he sat back. “Just weird to be in town and not going with the family.”

“I bet.” I had no idea what to say.

“God, this is so fucked up,” he murmured, almost more to himself than me. “I just cut off my parents. Maybe my brother, too.” He swallowed hard. “Probably permanently. I’m…” He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know how to…”

“Process it?”

“I guess?” He made a frustrated gesture, then wrapped his hands around his coffee cup, as if searching for warmth. “I’ve worked with a few people who’ve gone no-contact with their families. But like, their families werereallybad. One guy’s parents beat the shit out of him until the day he left for boot camp.” Riley gave a harsh, bitter laugh. “There is no one in the world less intimidated by a drill instructor than a kid who’s still got belt marks on his back from his dad.” His shoulders fell. “My parents…”

“They don’t have to beat the brakes off you to be shitty parents.”

Riley’s head snapped up, his eyes wide.

I half-shrugged. “Man, they fucked with your head so much, you had to bring a guy home and say ‘here’s my boyfriend’ just to try to get through to them that you’re really gay. And theystillwon’t accept you.”

The cracks in his expression made me wonder if I’d been too blunt.

I softened my tone a bit. “I worked with someone whose husband was an abusive asshole. Never laid a finger on her, but he was awful to her.” I turned my own coffee cup between my hands. “Just because it isn’t something you can put on a police report doesn’t mean it’s not abuse.”

Riley jumped like I’d kicked him, but then he sighed and nodded. “That’s true. It’s… I know it is.” He reached back and rubbed his neck. “I don’t know. Part of me thinks I made the right decision, but part of me—I mean, if it was the right thing to do, why the fuck do I feel like shit?”

“People feel like shit after breakups, even when they know it was for the best,” I offered.

“Yeah. True. I…” He stared into his coffee again and murmured, “I don’t fucking know.”

I watched him, completely at a loss for what to say. There were people in my life who I was so desperate to go no-contact with, I’d give up my left nut without a second thought if it meant we never crossed paths again.

But this was different. Riley had come to California wanting to hold on to and fix the relationship he had with his parents. Going no-contact had been a last resort, and it obviously wasn’t easy. From where I was standing, it was obvious he’d done the right thing, but in his shoes, maybe I’d be questioning it too.

I absently rubbed my heel against the bench. “So, a couple of years ago, there was a Marine in my platoon who finally realized he needed to get a divorce. Their marriage was miserable, and divorce was the best—honestly theonlyoption at that point. Like, anyone who knew them could see it.”

Riley watched me through his lashes, probably wondering where the fuck I was going with this.

I shifted a little. “He filed the papers and she went back to the States, but he was a mess over it, you know? And he thought maybe that meant it was a mistake.” Thumbing the handle on my coffee cup, I went on, “Another Marine told him, ‘Just because cutting off the gangrenous limb is the best thing don’t mean it won’t hurt.’”

Riley’s eyebrows climbed.

“So, maybe that’s what’s going on here,” I said, hoping I wasn’t making things worse. “It doesn’t hurt because it’s the wrong thing. It hurts because cutting off a limb is going to hurt whether it’s gangrenous or not.”

His eyes lost focus, and he was quiet for a long moment. I chewed the inside of my cheek. Had that been the right thing to say? Or, like, in the same ballpark as the right thing to say?

After a moment, Riley released a long breath, and he finally picked up his coffee. “You’re probably right. I guess it’s just gonna take time.”

I tried my level best to hide my relief. “Probably, yeah. I don’t think anybody expects you to get over it overnight.”

That seemed to shake something loose in him, and he closed his eyes for a moment. Opening them again, he nodded. “Yeah. Thank God for that.” He sipped his coffee, then looked out the window. “I guess we should go figure out hotels and our rental car for the trip north.”

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