Page 32 of Finding Home with You

“Obviously I do or I wouldn’t still be standing here.” His hands are on his hips, and there’s tightness around his eyes. He’s obviously not leaving.

“You know everything you need to know, Ryan. I told you, he’s my fucking father. What more do you want me to say?” I throw my hands in the air, and turn away from him. I can feel my heart beating in my chest, slamming against my ribs as it pulses loud in my ears.

I can’t stand being in this bedroom with him any longer. The room feels like it’s closing in on me, like it’s far too small for both of us.

I push my way past Ryan, leaving the room and heading into the kitchen for another beer, but as I open the refrigerator, he’s standing behind me. I feel Ryan’s hand close around my wrist as he practically spins me around to face him.

“Cut the shit, Erin!” he shouts. “Tell me what the fuck is going on!” He’s frustrated with my lack of response, but what he doesn’t understand is that talking about it is going to break me. And right now, for some fucking reason, Ryan wants that.

“I can’t!” I scream back, pushing up on my toes so my face is inches from his. “Don’t you get it? I can’t fucking talk about it!” I can feel the tears well up in my eyes and I swallow hard. I won’t cry in front of him.

I can hear the sound of Ryan breathing, feel his warm breath against my overly heated skin and I want to push him away, yet I also want to wrap my body around him and remember when I felt safe in his arms. I want to forget how we ever got to this point.

I’m a fucking mess.

I take a deep breath and in that moment I can smell him, I can feel the warmth radiating from his body and it’s nearly my undoing.

“Can we stop the hostility?” I ask, my hands over my face knowing that if I look at him I’ll start to cry. “I know you’re confused and want answers, but we need to stop yelling at each other. It’s getting us nowhere.”

I’m trying to be rational, but my body is so wound up and all I keep thinking about is that picture and Ryan getting shot and wondering if any of this has anything to do with my father.

Ryan hasn’t spoken to me yet, but I can see just my words have settled him down, even though I have yet to make eye contact with him. He takes a beer from the refrigerator and leans back against the counter.

He looks defeated and exhausted. We both do.

With a beer in my hand, I fall against his body, letting the weight of him catch me as his arm wraps around my waist.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur, knowing that this whole thing is just as much my fault as it is his. We’ve kept things from each other, and it’s now led to this.

“I am too,” he answers back, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. It’s a gesture that’s so simple, yet it means so fucking much to me right now. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the shooting,” he adds pulling me closer to him, his hand gripping my hip tightly.

“It scared the shit out of me to see you with that bandage on your arm, to know that you could’ve been seriously hurt or…” I trail off not finishing my sentence. I can’t bring myself to say it out loud.

“Killed,” Ryan says filling in the word I couldn’t bear to say. “Imagine what it felt like for me to see you in a picture with William Fitzgerald.”

His words hang in the air as I process them. I know exactly what it felt like. I’m sure it felt eerily similar to the way I felt every time I told someone my last name, told them who my mother was, who my father was, and watched them then slowly disappear from my life.

There’s fear in it. There’s anger and hatred, and then there’s denial. I’ve felt them all, and then I just disappeared like it never even happened.

I want to tell him that I’m sorry for not telling him about my father, but I’m not sorry. I never wanted to involve him in any of this.

“I’m not his daughter anymore,” I say, hoping he remembers the person I am and not who my father is.

“You’ll always be his daughter, Erin,” Ryan shoots back and I hear that original harshness in his voice.

I choke back the lump that forms in my throat, knowing what comes next. He’s gone. He doesn’t want to be a part of this fucked up situation.

“But that doesn’t change the way I feel about you,” he says, softening a little. “I just wish you wouldn’t have lied to me and let me find out on my own.”

“I didn’t lie, Ryan,” I add immediately, cutting him off.

“Whatever you want to call it, but it doesn’t matter. You left me in the dark and I was fucking blindsided by you and…” This time it’s Ryan who doesn’t finish his sentence, and I run through the different number of things he could’ve said.

“I left that life, and to be honest, it never fully occurred to me to tell you. There are times I forget that it even used to be my life. I just want normal. I had normal with you.”

Ryan pulls away from me, and his fingers rest under my chin, tipping my face up to look at him. “You still have normal with me, Erin,” he whispers, his lips nearly touching mine. “I will always be your normal, your constant. I will always be here.”

I want to believe him, and I want to have a life with him that doesn’t revolve around my past, but I can’t help but think it won’t ever happen. I have that fucking subpoena stuffed in my kitchen drawer, beating like the “Tell-Tale Heart” just waiting to ruin my life all over again.

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