Ronan
I’m used to fractured sleep and waking up several times at night, usually because of the nightmares that have been an almost nightly occurrence since I woke up in the hospital last September. But tonight, I wake up when I feel movement behind me.
I startle, still half asleep, when I feel Miranda’s freezing-cold hand on my bare back.
“Are you awake?” she whispers, already lifting my blanket to slide underneath it behind me.
“I am now,” I grumble. “Your hands are like fucking ice.”
“Sorry, I had to wander two miles through the snow, uphill, to get here,” she says with a quiet giggle.
I scoot over to make room for her. “What are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
I huff. “And so you break into my room to crawl into my bed?”
“Yep. Just like old times.”
“Except we’re not kids anymore, so this is a little different,” I say, acutely aware of her nearness and the fact that I’m only wearing my boxers.
“Relax, big boy, I’m not going to make a move on you,” she says, but still slides in closer to me, then rests her hand on my bare chest. She shivers against me, pulling the blanket up. “I definitely underestimated how cold it is.”
“So, what’s got you unable to sleep?” I ask, forcing myself to relax.
Having Miranda in bed with me is something we used to do all the time when we were little. I met her when I was only ten and she and her dad had just moved to Montana from Wyoming after her mother died. Miranda’s dad, Father Jackson, was hired as the new pastor of my grandparents’ small church, and my grandparents had offered them a place to stay until the home they were going to live in had been fixed up. We bonded immediately and became close, spending most of our days together while we both lived on the ranch.
She’d regularly climb in through my bedroom window, which I’ve always had a habit of leaving at least cracked—even during the deepest winter months—and sleep in bed with me, especially on nights when her dad was drunk or yelled at her. Nobody knew of his affliction, but Miranda quickly confided in me. I, on the other hand, didn’t tell her about my mother’s abuse for years.
“I don’t really know,” she says with a sigh. “I just can’t seem to shut off my brain tonight.”
“Did anything happen with your dad?”
She shrugs against me. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Same old shit, I guess. I don’t really know why I even head over there to check on him anymore.”
“Because you still care, that’s why.” I know exactly what that feels like, and it’s one of the most confusing things—to still feel compassion, maybe even love for the person who has been hurting you all your life. It makes you feel like you’re losing your mind.
“I guess, but it’s dumb. What did Einstein say? The definition of insanity is doing the same crap over and over again and expecting a different result?”
“Not sure he used the word ‘crap,’ but I think you got the gist of it,” I grumble sleepily.
She tips her head up to look at me, her blue eyes gray in the darkness of my room. “Do you still care about your mom?”
I exhale noisily. “Why the fuck do you always have to get back to that topic?”
“Because you keep refusing to talk about it, and if I remember correctly, you’re here to cope with exactly that.”
“Yeah, but not in the middle of the fucking night. Jeez, Randi,” I groan and run my hand over my face.
“Rony, it could be high noon and you still wouldn’t talk about it. You never do unless I force you to.”
“Is that the real reason you decided to sneak into my room at”—I glance at my watch—“fucking one in the morning? So you could force me to talk about what a loving, peaceful, and utterly nurturing relationship I had with my mother?”
“Not really,” she says, scooting even closer and hitching her leg over mine, rubbing her cold foot against my shin. “I really couldn’t sleep. And I was lonely.”
“You know I’m going to have to tell Cat about you sleeping with me.”
“Why? Won’t that freak her out?”
“Probably, but if I don’t I’m going to feel like I did something wrong, and I hate withholding shit from her,” I say, missing her so deeply my heart threatens to break apart. I wish it was her body pressed against mine right now. Maybe if I close my eyes I can pretend for a second that Miranda is Cat.
“She seemed really nice when I talked to her on the phone. I could tell she was confused when I picked up her call,” Miranda says with a giggle. “Especially when I told her you were with me that night, but not that morning.”
“Uh-huh,” I grunt, but don’t tell Miranda that Vada was in the car with Cat, and she proceeded to inform Cat that Miranda had a reputation for being “easy.”
“When did you know you loved her?” Miranda asks.
“I can’t really put a finger on it,” I say. “It was more like a gradual realization that I didn’t want to be without her.”
“So, it wasn’t love at first sight?” she asks, digging deeper.
“Can you actually love someone at first sight? I don’t know, but I can tell you that the moment I saw her for the first time it felt different.”
“Different how?”
“I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. It was like the world zoomed in on her, like I found a piece of me I had been missing for a long time without ever even knowing it. It was almost like, ‘Oh, there you are!’ I just had to get to know her, but it also felt like I had known her all my life. It was just familiar and easy and comfortable with her, and it became clear to me pretty quickly that I wouldn’t be alright unless I was with her.”
“Aw, Rony, that is so cute,” Miranda says in a swoony voice.
“Fuck off.”
She laughs and grazes her fingers over my chest and down my right arm. “You know who I ran into while I was in town today?”
“Who?”
“Tawney,” she says about a girl whom Miranda would get into literal fistfights with when I lived in Montana last time.
“Really?”
“Yep. She asked me whether it was true that you were back,” Miranda says. “She got all flustered when I told her you were and that I was staying with you,” she says with a wicked laugh. “I swear, she still has the fucking hots for you.”
“Stop.”
“No, really. I told you all along that she wanted to get in your pants. Why do you think she and I got into it that one time out by the creek?”
“Uh, because you were both high as kites and accusing each other of taking each other’s weed.”
“No, that was not the reason,” she says. “I mean, she did take my weed, but that was beside the point. She told me that if I didn’t watch out, she’d snatch you right up and she’d, and I quote, ‘show you what a really good fuck feels like.’ So I punched her.”
“God, you both looked like shit afterwards; I remember you had two black eyes,” I say with a frown.
“She looked worse.”
I nod with a chuckle. “Yeah, she did.”
“Well, when I ran into her today she looked to be about eight or nine months pregnant, and she was pushing a toddler in a stroller.”
“Are you serious?”
“Uh-huh. I had to ask her who her baby daddy was.” Miranda giggles.
“Anyone we know?”
“Guess!”
I give up immediately. “No idea.”
“Cory,” she says as if she just revealed the biggest mystery to me.
“Holy shit!” I remember Cory; he’s about ten years older than me and may or may not have been the person Miranda regularly acquired weed and pills from.
“Yeah, but it gets better,” Miranda says. “Baby number one is not Cory’s, but Jimmy’s. You remember Jimmy, right? Remember, the cops found him passed out in the middle of Wiley’s after he broke in on a dare and got shitfaced?”
“Yeah, I remember him,” I say. “Tawney really knows how to pick ’em, huh?”
“Well, she would have picked you if you had been available. And then you could be her baby daddy,” she says with a giggle, slowly gliding her hand back up my arm and over my chest.
Goosebumps involuntarily erupt on my skin. “Oh yeah, my wildest fucking dreams coming true,” I say. “Can you please stop doing that?”
“Do what?” she asks, her caressing apparently a subconscious action.
“Touching me like that.”
“Why, does that make you uncomfortable?” she asks with a smirk and runs her hand across my chest again, purposely grazing my nipple.
“Yeah, actually, it does,” I say, squirming in my spot.
She stops and looks up, studying me. “Do you know how damn distracting you are?”
“What?”
“You’re distracting.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“This!” she says, sits up, and motions her hand at my torso. “You’re so… cut and… I mean, you were always hot, but you didn’t quite look like this three years ago… It’s really distracting. You, your face, your damn body… It’s really distracting.”
“Okay, what do you want me to do with this info?”
She shrugs. “Nothing, I just thought you should know the effect you have on girls.”
I smirk. “I think I have an idea.”
Her eyes gleam mischievously. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you meaning to tell me you have an easy time getting tail?” she asks, one eyebrow raised, grinning.
I give her a half-shrug. “Maybe.”
“Ooh, Rony, promiscuous much?”
“Not anymore, but I don’t think ‘innocent’ would exactly be the right word to use.”
“Is your little black book full of names then?”
“I wouldn’t go that far, but—”
“But you’ve slept around.”
“Okay, why are we talking about this?” I ask.
Miranda laughs at me. “Because you’re distracting, remember?”
“Right.”
“So, I’m curious,” she says, sitting up straight as she studies me, “how many girls have you slept with?”
“Why do you care?” I don’t usually talk about these things. I don’t keep track of my “conquests,” and I never hooked up for bragging rights.
“Because I’m nosy,” she says. “More than five?”
“Randi!” I grunt.
“Just answer my question. More than five?”
I relent with a groan. “Yes, more than five. More than ten, more than fifty, I don’t know, I didn’t keep a fucking calendar.”
“Jeez, more than fifty? You little slut,” she says with a chuckle.
I frown in mock offense. “Damn. How many guys have you slept with?”
“Before or after you?”
“Cumulative.”
She thinks for a second. “Are we counting the ones who paid me?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask, pushing myself into a sitting position.
She’s quiet for a second. “Remember when you asked me how I was able to make it out on the road?” she asks, her voice smaller now.
I tense. “Uh-huh?”
“Well, I made some money playing random gigs, but it just wasn’t enough. Eventually I hooked up with this band and toured with them for two or three months. Their drummer would let me sleep in his room and he’d buy me food and stuff, and in return I’d… I’d sleep with him,” she says. “Eventually we went our separate ways, but I’d still hook up with guys and they’d pay for a hotel room or food, or whatever.”
“God damn it, Randi, that is so damn dangerous.”
“I promise I didn’t like, stand on the side of the road and hook up with nasty dudes.”
“But you slept with guys you only met that night, right? And they’d pay you?”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“But what, Randi? You could’ve gotten hurt,” I say in a sharp tone, my eyes locked on hers.
“Oh come on, Rony. Don’t act all superior. You just told me that you hooked up with over fifty chicks.”
“Yeah, but…” I trail off, realizing she’s right.
“But you didn’t do it for money? How’s that different? Did you intimately know every single girl you slept with before you fucked her?”
“No,” I say sheepishly.
She crosses her arms in front of her chest. “See! Just because you didn’t get anything out of the hookup but an orgasm doesn’t mean you’re any better than me. In fact, I’d say you undersold yourself.”
“But Randi, I’m a guy!”
This earns me a scolding look from her.
“No, I don’t mean it like that,” I say quickly. “I don’t mean to say that guys get to fuck around and girls don’t. I just mean that it’s a lot less likely I’ll get hurt. It’s just the world we live in. It would be too fucking easy for some asshole to fucking overwhelm you and…” I can’t even finish my sentence. The sheer horror of the shit that could happen to Miranda if she continued to put herself out there like that is too much to say out loud.
Her face softens. “Aww, Rony, are you worried about me?”
“Of course I’m worried about you,” I say, my voice laced with anger. “Randi, you weigh like a hundred pounds. Do you know how easy it would be for some guy to take advantage of you? You wouldn’t stand the slightest chance if someone decided to just… take you,” I say, knowing full well that if I wanted to I could overpower her in mere seconds, even if she put up the fight of her life. It’s just a matter of weight and mass, and at barely an inch over five feet, Miranda would be at any guy’s mercy.
“I pack a mean punch,” she chuckles, but it does nothing at all to alleviate the rising panic at the thought of her out there, all alone, hooking up with who-the-fuck-knows.
“Randi, please,” I say, locking eyes with her. “Just… can you not?”
“Rony, it’s not like it’s my job or anything,” she says, slightly amused, and it pisses me off how blasé she is about basically selling herself.
“No, Randi, I need you to understand that what you’re doing is really fucking dangerous,” I say, my face stern. “I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you. I don’t care if you feel like fucking around. Be my guest; go get all the dick you want, but once you bring money into it… guys feel like you owe them something. Like, they’re paying you, so now they’re entitled to whatever it is they want.” I force the words out through gritted teeth. “Please,” I say, “for me!”
She considers me, her eyes searching mine before she nods slowly. “Okay,” she finally says. “I won’t do it again.”
“Thanks,” I say, releasing the tension in my shoulders. I’m not sure if she only agreed in order to pacify me, but this is all I can do right now.
“You’re such a good guy, you know that?” she says, lying back down, her hand on my chest pulling me down with her before she hitches her leg back over mine.
She falls asleep quickly after that, whatever racing thoughts had plagued her apparently dissipated.
I roll away from her and out of bed a little while later. I slip into a pair of sweats and a shirt before leaving my room—carefully closing the door behind me—and trudging downstairs to get a couple more hours of sleep on the couch before it’s time to wake up for the day.