Page 112 of Light Up The Night
Riley covers me before I can bounce a second time, anchoring me to this world before I float away on clouds of joy, so happy, so eager am I to be reunited with the man I love.
I can hardly believe that to be the truth, that I am so blessed as to have Riley in my life. To be able to call him the man I love. I'd all but given up on ever finding love, and then it finds me—hefound me—when I least expected it.
I cup Riley's face as he hovers over me. My eyes burn with unshed tears of pure, overwhelmed emotion. "I amsograteful for you, Riley," I whisper. "You have changed my life. You have changed me. You are the greatest blessing I have ever known."
He barks a huffed laugh of disbelief, squeezing his eyes shut and pressing his face against my breastbone. "Fuck, honey. You're killin' me."
I feel something hot and wet on my skin; frowning, I pull his face up so he has to look at me. He tries to pull away, to hide. I refuse to let him.
"Riley, youmay nothide from me." I cup his face in both hands and kiss his eyes, tasting salt—kiss and kiss and kiss his eyes. "Trust me, Riley.Show me. Please."
He opens wet eyes and looks at me. His voice is thick and low. "Fuck." He growls wordlessly, blinking hard. "Fuckin'…sissy shit."
"Stop that!” I snap, and then soften my voice. "There isnothingstronger and manlier than a man who can weep when he feels powerful emotions. It is a gift, Riley." I kiss his damp, hot eyes again and again. "Trust me with all of you, as I trust you with all of me. I have given you everything I feel. My worries, my fears, my tears, my silence, my weirdness. Do you love me less for any of that?"
"Fuck no," he growls. "Of course not."
I palm his cheek, brush a thumb under his eye. "Then why should I love you less for the same? Because you are a man? Are men not humans, Riley Crowe? Do you not feel sorrow? Do you not feel joy?"
"Yeah, but—
"Then, if you love me, you will bless me withallof your emotions. I do not want only the good ones, or the ones our society has labelledmanlyones. I wantallof you. So do not hide your tears. Not from me."
"You wanted to be distracted, not burdened by my dumb shit."
"Nothing about you is dumb shit!” I protest vehemently, cupping his nape in a strong grip. "Nothing! This is what I need. This is what I want. You and me. Together." I cling to his waist with my legs. "Now." I cup his face in both hands and kiss his lips. "Share your heart with me, my love."
He chokes on the last two words. "I never wanted to fall in love," he whispers. "I fought it fuckin tooth and nail my whole life."
"Why?"
"Because I saw what it did to my parents," he answers. He sees the question in my eyes, sighs, starts over. "As a little kid, my parents were in love. They laughed together and were playful. They took Fee and me to the park and whatever. I have a few pretty vivid memories from that time. Mom in the kitchen, laughing like a crazy woman as Dad chased her around the island."
I push at his shoulder, and he topples to his side, tucking me against his waist and chest. "What happened?"
He shrugs. "I don’t know. It just…soured." He sighs, and I can feel him thinking. “I’m only guessing, but I think it started when Dad got hurt on the job. Freak, stupid accident. His foot slipped as he was climbing down from a bulldozer. It was a wet, cold, rainy day in October, I think. Maybe November? Hard to remember since I was only, like, seven or eight, maybe. I just remember the house phone ringing and Mom freaking out. Must've been a Saturday, since Fee and I were home. Something happened to Dad, she said." He is quiet a moment, and thenresumes. "His foot slipped and he fell. Landed on his back and fucked it up. I'm sure you can guess where it went from there."
I sigh, bitterly aware indeed where this story goes. "He was prescribed an opioid."
"Ding-ding-ding," he mutters. "Got it in one. I'm puttin' this together from hindsight, mind you. Back then, all I knew was Dad got hurt and he wasn't the same. Weird moods, mood swings. Angry one second and way too mellow the next. Then the fighting started. Mom yelling at Dad, Dad yelling back. One of 'em would storm out, usually Dad. It gotreallyfuckin' bad. The fights got seriously ugly. Dad would come back stinking of booze and stumbling around. Mom would lay into him. He'd slap her, she'd hit him back. Sometimes Mom hit first—just so you don't think it was all Dad. It wasn't. Mom was…I dunno. Maybe she got into drugs too. I dunno. Maybe it was just Dad fucking with her head. She just…she turnedmean. Really, really fuckin' mean. To Dad, to Fee, to me. To everyone. She just…soured. Everything soured. I think eventually Dad kicked the pills, but he never kicked the booze. But by the time he got off the pills, it was too late for the marriage, I’m thinkin’. Too much nasty shit had happened between them. And it just…escalated."
"My god, Riley. I’m so sorry."
A sigh, a shrug. “Yeah. My memories after Dad's accident are all centered around them fighting. Dad coming home at three or four in the morning, wasted, and Mom greeting him by hucking plates at him, or mugs, or silverware."
I blink into the silence, stunned. "She threw things at your father?"
"Fuck yes. Anything she could get her hands on. Fortunately for Dad she had shitty aim, but she'd catch him once in a while. They'd just scream and scream andscreamat each other. Fee and I would huddle under the blankets in Fee's bed and try not to hear. Eventually, Fee got his hands on one of those tiny radiosand when they started up he'd turn on the radio and we'd listen to music or a football game instead of the screaming."
"You have not mentioned either of your parents until now,” I say. "So what happened?"
I hear him suck in a long, deep breath, hold it, and let it out with a growl. "Mom happened. I don't know what prompted it, other than she'd finally had enough of Dad's shit and decided to do something about it. Dad came home from work one evening. Fee was fourteen and I was twelve, I think. We were at school for football practice, as I recall, so we didn’t witness it, but we got the story from neighbors and the cops."
"The police?" I breathe.
"Oh yeah. When I say it got ugly, I mean really fuckin' nasty. Dad came from work at the usual time. A UPS truck was parked on the curb, but that wasn't super unusual, as Mom had a bad spending habit, which was a constant factor in their fights. Point of interest here is that our usual driver was…not a friend of Dad's, exactly, but someone he'd known all his life. He walked in after work, cracked a beer, and headed to their room to change. Found the UPS driver fucking Mom. She calculated that shit, Cadence. It was no accident. He walked in and there was Mom on all fours, facing the door, taking Bert the UPS guy's dick from behind. I mean, he was pounding away like Ramjet the Rookie, to hear Dad tell it."
"My god. How cruel."
