Chapter 23
“That’s… I don’t know what to say.” Ryan rubs his temples. “This is a later-in-life second chance.”
Normally, I’d be thinking the same. But it’s more than I can handle at the moment. First, my mother talks about her entire life as if she’s in a play, and now Ryan is referring to a romance trope.
“This is real life!” I raise my voice and jerk back in surprise.
I’m not in the habit of yelling but now I’ve done this twice with Ryan. I remind myself I’m no longer going to make myself smaller. I can be loud if I want to be. And in this setting, the warm fire crackling, the rushing sound of the rain falling outside, it’s soothing. I’m starting to feel safe.
“Sorry. You’re right. But I studied this and it always surprises me to see how it has a basis in real life even if it’s never as clear-cut.” He clears his throat. “I thought you liked your uncle. He seems like a nice guy.”
“He is, but he’s my father’s brother,” I say slowly, like I’m talking to a four-year-old.
“Yeah, that’s usually what uncle means.” This time, there’s no condescension in his tone, and he gives me a little quirk of the lips.
“Don’t you think it’s strange?”
“Yeah, sure, but it’s not like they got together right after he died, right? Your mother married and divorced someone else.”
“Ugh, I thought you of all people would know how I feel. You had a great love, and so did my parents. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. The kind of love that comes along once in a lifetime if you’re lucky.”
A flush goes up Ryan’s neck. “You’re wrong about me. I didn’t have this great love, Luci. Don’t put me in that category. The book has made you think of me in a different light and that’s not fair. It was a book, not my reality.”
“Look, my entire life I’ve had this picture of my parents and their perfect marriage. My memories are all good. They adored each other.”
“First, there’s no perfect marriage, but how has this view of your parents changed? It isn’t like they divorced or ever stopped loving each other.”
He’s right, of course. At least they never grew to hate each other. He never had to wonder whether she’d have been happier with Eddie. It’s the upside in all of this.
“I hate thinking someone else was her first love. Especially Eddie. The truth is I’m sad for him. All these years, he never found someone. Maybe my mother was his only chance.”
I’m being childish, and some part of me knows this, but it’s tough to look through another lens when the one you had worked beautifully.
My lens had colors, vibrant, bright, and shimmering.
It had memories of love, sharp and clear.
Now there’s a gray film over my lens that comes with a dullness I can never dust off.
“It’s silly but my illusions are shattered.”
“No, it’s not silly. We only have to make sure we see things as they are and not how we want them to be.”
But if I haven’t seen life the way I should have been all along, it means I’ve fed my own illusions. The picture I have in my mind, that moment in time when everything was perfect…maybe it wasn’t real.
I know Ryan is not wrong, and something in his words, the gentleness in them… I burst into tears.
Ryan is at my side in an instant. “Luci…no. Look, listen, everything is going to be okay.”
He’s not one of those men that runs the other way when a woman cries.
Or worse, gets angry and uncomfortable and begins to question what he did to cause the outburst as he desperately tries to stop it.
Ryan understands he’s not at the root of this problem, or the center of the universe.
That’s another way he’s different from all the men I’ve met before him.
He’s holding me, and it feels so perfect, small strokes of his hand up and down my back while I’m sobbing into his chest. I thought I was done with crying and I’m generally not an overtly emotional person except when I’m writing.
I’m humiliated by my actions, but I can’t stem the dam.
It could be I’m crying about more than my mother and Eddie.
Maybe it’s my father, and the staggering loss of him, which is still such a deep ache, or maybe it’s Chris, and my disillusionment with romance.
Either way, it’s Ryan who’s got me in his arms and is ignoring the knocks and rings of the doorbell.
As I’ve said before, his powers of concentration are enviable.
“I bet it’s the pizza,” I say, sniffling and pulling away.
“Right.”
He heads to the door and I vaguely hear sounds of him speaking to the delivery person, then making his way back into the living room.
I’m curled up on his sofa in the fetal position when Ryan comes back into the room.
“Why don’t you stay here tonight?” He hooks his thumb to the hallway. “Take the guest room.”
“Thanks, I’m not ready to go home.”
Eddie and my mother both now want to talk to me and I don’t want to listen. I’m still busy rewriting history.
The smells of fresh-baked dough, melty cheese, and spicy pepperoni are enticing. And distracting. Mami and I skipped dinner, which is something she probably does often.
“I guess that pizza won’t eat itself.” I sit up, wiping my eyes with the backs of my hands.
“Hungry?” His smile is easy. Slow. “Those tears must have worked up an appetite.”
“Well, I will never turn down a carb.”
Ryan walks away and comes back with a pair of sweats. “They’re probably too big but you don’t want to stay in your damp clothes.”
“Thank you,” I say, and head to the bathroom to change.
When I come out, dressed in the comfy sweats that smell like Ryan, I catch his quick, appraising look before he motions for me to sit down to have some pizza.
For the next few minutes, we eat while watching While You Were Sleeping on a streaming network.
It’s a weird combination of hanging out with someone who is part Sofia, arguably my best friend, and part super cute guy I’m attracted to.
In a romance novel, Ryan and I would be the classic workplace romance if we ever got that far.
Not that I think we ever will, but the more time I spend alone with him, the more I fantasize.
Now that I’ve been in his arms, my imagination has gone into overdrive.
His arms are strong, and he smells clean and fresh.
Sofia keeps texting me and I know she won’t stop until I respond:
Don’t worry, I’m fine. You can tell everyone I walked to Ryan’s house and I’m going to stay the night in the guest room. I’m not ready to talk to them yet.
Sofia:
Get it, girl!
I roll my eyes and put my phone away. Enough with the sexy-times innuendos.
No more texting tonight. A few minutes into the movie, I nudge Ryan, who is sitting beside me on the sofa.
At the appropriate time, such that I couldn’t have planned it better were I writing it, we simultaneously say, “The lean!”
“I don’t know how I ever forgot about this movie. It’s like my favorite of all time,” I say. “And her name is even Lucy.”
He quirks a brow. “Interesting, too, that it’s an almost love triangle. Two brothers.”
“But one is in a coma, so it doesn’t count.”
“Why do you think she loves him?” Ryan says.
I know he means the brother in a coma because at this point in the movie, he’s the only one Lucy thinks she loves.
“I guess it’s his good looks that attract her, and a certain je ne sais quoi. A quality about him, the suit, the confidence. She doesn’t love him, though, because she doesn’t even know him.”
“She thinks she does. You have to get to know a person to fall in love with them. While she’s waiting for him to wake up, she falls for the brother.”
“Because c’mon, he’s adorable. The whole skating scene?”
“It’s called slipping over frozen cement, not skating,” he deadpans. “Winters in Chicago.”
“Very sexy, falling into each other’s arms, holding each other up.” I’m probably smiling dreamily as I take another bite of pizza and wash it down with water.
“I think she loved the first brother because it was all smoke and mirrors. A fantasy. In the end, she loved an illusion and those slip through your fingers. It’s not real. Anyway, women like Lucy don’t usually fall for men like Jack,” he says.
“What are you talking about? You mean the hunky woodsy guy wearing flannel and boots? He’s practically a Hallmark movie hero.”
“Yeah, as opposed to the rich businessman in a suit.”
“Not everyone goes for those types, Ryan.” I stretch my arms. “I would love to see you write a take on this movie but set during World War II. Where she’s a nurse and falls for an injured soldier in a coma but when his brother shows up to visit him, they spend so much time together, she falls for him instead. ”
“That would work, but the brother who visits has to be a spy who needs vital information from the one in a coma.”
This makes me laugh because Ryan sounds so serious. Before long, he’s laughing too. I’m glad he doesn’t take himself seriously all the time.
“And of course a lot of bombs dropping and explosions,” I chuckle.
“Naturally.”
The movie over, I want to go to sleep with this buzzy happy feeling of warmth and coziness floating through my body. Had this been a book first, I wish I’d written it. It’s like a hug. And we all need more hugs. From both books and people.
I’m left with the knowledge true love will prevail, even with a few hiccups along the way like comatose brothers and large interfering families who mean well.
Love wins even when you don’t realize your dream has been right in front of you the entire time.
It’s comforting to know there’s still a hint of the romantic in me.
I suppose given everything that’s happened, no one will be able to beat it out of me no matter how hard they might try.
I catch Ryan looking at me before he quickly glances away.
“Hope I didn’t interrupt any plans you had tonight. I don’t imagine there are many thirty-somethings like us who prefer pizza and a classic romcom movie at home.”
“No plans and if I did I’d have canceled them.”