12. Crazier Things - Chelsea Cutler – Stella
“Somethings never change, I guess,” Josie, the owner, says with a smile, looking from Riggs to me.
I smile at her before grabbing what she hands me and walking out the rear exit until we’re in the early summer cool night air.
“Sit,” I say, pointing to a curb.
“Stell, it’s not necessary?—”
“You keep throwing the wife thing in my face, so let me return the favor. You’re my husband. Let me take care of you.”
Something flares in his eyes, something I don’t want to notice, address, or even see, but he sits and holds his hand out to me, so let’s call it a win. I kneel before him and turn his hand over, looking at the knuckles before shaking my head.
“God, did you have to do that?”
“Yes,” he says simply.
“I was fine, I—” I start, and Riggins lets out a laugh.
The man laughs!
“Yeah, you had it totally under control,” he says, and honestly, I can’t argue much. Instead, I grab an alcohol swab and wipe it against a cut with not a hint of gentleness because he’s an idiot who doesn’t deserve it.
“Somethings never change,” Riggins mumbles, and I know exactly what he means. That night at the bonfire, he had to save me in a similar manner, back before we were anything and then right after when we became everything.
I ignore that because I don’t have the mental strength for those kinds of memories.
As I dab the cut on his pinky with an alcohol swab, he hisses, and I roll my eyes. “Such a baby.” I use a butterfly bandage to pull a cut on his pointer finger shut. I hope it won’t scar—we both have more than enough scars, inside and out.
“You’ve come far,” I say, then pause and hope he’ll pick up what I’m saying or fill in or let me off the hook, but I’ve never been a very lucky person. “From where you were last time I saw you.” He sighs as I clean up the last of the cuts before he answers.
“Yeah, last time you saw me, I was a mess.”
“Hmm,” I hum, keeping my eyes away from him, not sure what I’ll see there and not sure I want to know.
“You know, when my dad was alive, I thought he was weak. Stupid, to spiral like that when my mom died,” he says, filling in the void with something I already knew, the words so low I almost don’t hear them. I keep my eyes on his fingers, pretending to fiddle with the bandaids even though it’s all done.
“As I got older, though… I got it,” he whispers, and I can’t help but look up at him. His eyes meet mine, and it feels like they burn down to my soul.
They say everything I can’t say, everything he clearly wants to say but knows I won’t take well.
I don’t tell him that I understood it too. How, after I left the tour, I understood Mr. Greene a bit more, understood what sent him over the edge, what sent him spiraling. I didn’t get it when we were kids: I thought it was selfish and irresponsible and ridiculous, but now I get how you could drown in that kind of sorrow.
I just learned to box it up, lock it tight, and bury that shit along with any other form of feelings and emotion.
“Yeah. I got it too, eventually.” The silence hangs between us as I finish his bandage, close up the first aid kit, and press the bag of ice to his hand before sitting on the curb next to him. We sit there in silence, side by side, facing the back of the bar.
“It was a wake-up call,” he says. “Him dying. I was going down that path, but worse. Faster. He was too young, but I was going to be younger.” I can’t bear to look at him while he confesses this. “I’d lost too much already. I thought… I don’t know. After you left, I tried to get sober. I thought I had it, could do it myself. I don’t think… I don’t think I knew how deep I was in. I went to treatment after he died.”
More silence and I realize that he’s done speaking, lost in his thoughts or afraid to say more, it doesn’t matter.
He’s done letting me peek into his closet of rattling bones.
“I’m happy for you. I know it doesn’t mean much?—”
“It means everything, Stella,” he says, cutting in, his hand reaching out and twining with my fingers.
I don’t look at that either, my hand in his.
Like the feeling of the bass in my belly, it’ll bring back too much. At least like this, holding his hand, it feels different. His hand is more calloused than I remember, more weathered, The bandages I placed making it feel even less familiar.
“I’m proud of you, Riggs. That’s not easy,” I whisper into the dark, and I mean it. He may have broken me, but he is still my first love and was once my best friend, my closest confidant.
“You keep calling me that,” he says after a beat. “Riggs.”
“Don’t get used to it.” I didn’t realize I was doing it, not really.
“I missed it.” I don’t reply to that, instead keep staring at that rear door, my mind lost in a flurry of memories I thought I had chained up tight in the dungeons of my mind.
A reprieve comes when the back door opens, Reed popping his head out.
“There you are,” he says. He looks the same as when I last saw him, but still wholly different. His longish hair that’s short on the sides, his bright blue eyes, his wide, open smile. It warms something to see him again, and his eyes go wide when he sees me.
“Oh! Stella Bella!” he says, moving to me quickly and then reaching down, lifting me from my seat on the curb and pulling me into a tight, familiar hug. I swallow the lump in my throat. This night has been just… too much in so many ways. Too many ways. He loosens his grip, leaning back to look at me, his smile going softer. “Oh, Stell.”
“Please don’t make me cry,” I whisper for his ears only, and he rolls his eyes the way he always used to.
“Such a girl,” he says, and I step back finally, slapping him in the chest.
“I am a girl, thank you very much,” I say with a smile, a common refrain when we were kids. The door to the bar opens again, letting in a loud burst of music before slamming shut, Beckett walking toward us.
“What the fuck happened?” he asks, staring at the ice on Riggins’ hands.
“Stell got cornered by some ass who didn’t know no means no.”
Beckett’s dark eyes burn as he turns to me, anger there. “You good?”
“God, nothing has changed, has it?” I ask. “I’m fine, and he’s gone. All is well.”
“Because Riggins beat his ass?” Reed asks. I don’t respond, and neither does Riggins, but his smile says it all.
Beckett gives a disapproving head shake before speaking. “Good to see you, Stell.”
He takes three steps closer to me, the tallest of all of the boys, and tugs me in, giving me a huge hug.
If Riggins was my soulmate and Reed was my best friend, Beckett was my big teddy bear of a brother.
A part of me both heals and breaks with the move, and I bite the inside of my cheek so hard it bleeds, trying to fight off the wave of emotion. He moves his hands to my shoulders, leaning me back to look at my face and read I don’t know what there.
His brow furrows at whatever it is he sees, clearly not liking it, but doesn’t say anything else.
“I’m gonna head out, I think,” Riggins says, then stands, moving to where Beckett and I stand.
“How’d you get here?” he asks. I shake my head.
“I’m gonna call a cab,” I say, not giving a real answer.
“He drove you?”
“It’s fine; I’m going to take a cab home. Easy peasy.” Riggins shakes his head, and behind him, I see Reed smile at Beckett.
“I’ll drive you.”
“No, I’m fine, really,” I say, shaking my head. He gives me a stern look, irritation brewing in his eyes.
“Stop being stubborn; you’ve had a long night; let me drive you home.”
“I’m in the most inconvenient part of town. I’m fine.”
“Jesus, some things really never change,” Reed says with a laugh. I glare at him, but that only makes him laugh more.
“Humor me, little star,” he says under his breath. “I just saved you from a sketchy spot. Humor me so I know you get home safe. It’s the least you could do, and then I can make sure he’s not a bigger ass and at your house.”
I don’t think it would happen, but it would really fucking suck if it does. Begrudgingly, I nod.
“Fine,” I grumble.