33. Mila
Mila
Words consumed my mind. Thoughts, dreams, questions—everything I wanted to know was trapped in my brain, wanting to come out, wanting to be said, but silence enveloped us.
I kept my eyes on the sky, dark blue with blinking yellow stars taunting me in their glory.
I felt him shifting next to me, his shoulder brushing mine as he moved.
For the briefest second, I felt the momentary shock of electricity that always struck me when we touched.
My shoulder tingled, but my hands stood still, fighting the urge to reach out and touch his hand.
The wind was cool now, blowing against my skin as if taunting me too.
I closed my eyes. “I love you” spun through my mind as I lay there.
How badly I wanted to say the words. Do you love me?
Do you think you could love me? If I had to wait a million years for you to love me, I’d wait.
Of course, I didn’t say anything. That was too pathetic.
I was too pathetic. I couldn’t fix him. Especially not when he didn’t even seem to want to acknowledge what we had.
He didn’t want to let me in. Not in the way that I wanted him to.
I opened my eyes slowly and stared back up at the sky.
The trees seemed ominous. I could see the shadow of an owl in one of the branches above me.
I tried to fixate on the owl rather than the man next to me.
“I always feel like I’m the only man in the world when I come to the woods,” Ryker said finally, his voice sounding distant, even though he was a mere inch from me.
“The only man in the world?” I asked, wanting to turn to look at him, but remaining on my back, in a neutral position.
“Maybe it’s a dream,” he said. “To be one with nature, to just live with the land, let the worries of the everyday world consume someone else for once.”
“I’d like to climb that tree.” I pointed up.
“And I’d like to sit on the highest branch and take in all the trees and let the beauty and tranquility transport me away.
” I bit down on my lower lip to stop myself from saying something I shouldn’t.
I wanted to ask him what his worries were.
I wanted him to share them with me. I wanted to fill that void in his life.
But I didn’t know how to. I felt like I had put myself out there so much already, and yet, I wasn’t really any closer to him.
Yes, I felt we were more intimate, and sometimes, I felt like I was actually a real part of his life, but there was so much he still had hidden.
He hadn’t even told me why we’d come out to the forest for the evening.
“Take you away where?” He rolled over, and I could feel him staring at me.
“Anywhere?” I said, a throb of emotion escaping through my voice.
“I don’t want you to go anywhere,” he said softly, and he moved his face closer to me.
“Look at me, Mila.” He placed his hand on my shoulder, and I rolled over to look at him.
His brown eyes were dark in the moonlight, but I could still see the light sparkle as he searched my face, for what I wasn’t sure.
“What are you thinking?” he asked me, his face an expression of melancholy and curiosity.
“If I could survive in the woods by myself,” I answered, staring back into his eyes intently. I diverted my gaze as my real thoughts tumbled through my brain. What do I mean to you, Ryker? What do I really mean to you?
“You could survive,” he said and caressed his fingers along my face. “Look at me.” He turned me to face him. “You could survive anything.”
I couldn’t survive if you didn’t love me.
“We should go camping next week,” he said and smiled briefly. “We’ll go to Yosemite.”
“Maybe.” I nodded and smiled back almost mechanically.
“I wonder sometimes if anyone sees me, who I really am.” He lay back, and I could hear the emotion in his voice. “There are things, Mila, things you don’t understand. Things that make this complicated.”
“It doesn’t have to be complicated.” My breath caught.
“I’m not the man for you, Mila. I’m not looking for the same things.”
“You don’t even know what I’m looking for.”
“A true love. A real love. A soulmate. Someone who will captivate your heart. Someone who will say all the right things. Someone who will be there for you when you need them. Someone who can listen. Someone who can provide for you. Love you. Truly. Deeply. With his whole heart. Someone who makes you his world. Someone who’s in a place to hold you close and never let go.
That’s what you’re looking for. That’s what you deserve.
That’s the type of man you need. You need someone who doesn’t have thoughts constantly running through his head.
You need someone who doesn’t have something to prove.
You know, someone who knows how to love like that. ”
All I want is you. I don’t care how little of you I have. The words caught in my throat. How could I make him see that every part of him was what I wanted?
“Say something, Mila.” He turned back to me, his face twisted. “Speak to me.”
“I’d like to fly,” I said. “If you could see me in the darkness, flying through the sky, you’d be amazed by me. You’d be amazed by all I could see and do.”
“I see you in the light,” he whispered. “And I see you in the darkness. That’s the problem.
” His voice cracked, and I closed my eyes, feeling like someone had just shot an arrow through my heart.
Confusion and sorrow filled me. My heart of glass was cracking, and I wasn’t sure it would ever be whole again.
“I can’t bear to see you in the dark, Mila. I don’t think I’d survive.”
I can’t survive without you ran through my head, but once again I didn’t speak.
“The man who loves you shouldn’t be the man who breaks your heart, Mila,” he continued, as if he were trying to convince me of the reasons why I should be happy he didn’t love me.
“Yeah,” I said finally, trying not to cry. “I need to tell you something,” I said finally. There was no time like the present, and I needed to get everything off my mind.
“Sure,” he said, and he rolled to look at me. “What is it?”
“I did something a long time ago, and you might hate me for it.”
“Oh?” His tone had changed.
“There was a girl, when you were in college, one weekend when Lara and I were staying with you and Parker, and she came over and?—”
“She told you she was pregnant with my baby.” Ryker grinned at me. “And you told her to leave like some badass bitch.”
“You knew?” I couldn’t believe he knew my big secret. “You knew all this time, and you never told me?”
“I’d never even slept with that girl.” He laughed. “Yeah, I knew. I thought it was funny.” He shrugged. “Has this been bothering you for a while?”
“I’ve been feeling guilty for years.” I bit down on my lower lip. “It was a horrible thing to do.”
“Oh, Mila.” He reached over, held me, and kissed my nose. “I’m sorry, I should have mentioned something to you.”
“I felt so bad for what I did, and for lying—I hate lying.”
“I know.” His eyes shifted away from mine. “I hate lying too.”
“Is there something you’re not telling me, Ryker?” I asked bravely, finally voicing the words I’d been wanting to say for a long time. “I feel like there’s something going on. And I wish you’d share it with me.”
“Mila, there are so many things I want to tell you.” He penetrated the depths of my soul with his eyes. “You have to understand that.”
“Things like what?”
“Things like how beautiful I think you are. How smart. How wonderful. How brilliant. How your smile lights up a room and my heart.” He stopped as his phone rang, then took it from his pocket.
I saw a bunch of text messages on his phone, and I watched him responding to them quickly.
He turned the phone away from me so that I couldn’t see the screen.
Who was he texting? Did he have someone else?
A girlfriend? Someone he really did like, or maybe even loved?
Was that what Ryker was hiding? The fact that he was seeing someone else?
I lay back on the grass, trying to regulate my breathing to calm my nerves and fight the impending nausea rising from the depths of my being.
“Sorry about that,” Ryker said, turning back to me.
“That’s fine,” I said quietly. “Who was it?”
“Um . . .” He paused. “Just some girl.”
“Oh,” I said, my stomach lurching, waiting for him to say more. “And you needed to text her back right away?” I asked after he didn’t say anything else.
“Yeah, I knew she’d keep calling and texting if I didn’t.” He sighed but still didn’t say more.
“I see,” I said, but I didn’t. I felt like I wanted to die. Another woman added a whole new element to my heartache.
“She doesn’t know I went out of town,” he continued. “She wanted to talk to me.”
“About what?” I asked.
“You,” he said softly, his face serious. “She wanted to talk about you.”
“Oh,” I said, and I felt tears drifting down my face.
“It’s complicated, Mila. It’s just so complicated. I don’t even know what to say anymore.” He reached over and ran his thumbs across my cheeks and brushed away my tears. “Please don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying.” I looked away from him.
“My mom used to say that when I caught her crying,” he said abruptly.
“I just remembered that. I would sometimes catch her crying, and I never knew why. She’d usually stop right away.
And then she’d smile, hold me close, kiss me, and tell me I was her perfect little boy.
” He smiled at me wryly. “Then if my dad caught her, he’d tell her to stop coddling me, and she’d let me go, and I’d just sit there, confused and bereft, not understanding.
Then she just stopped hugging altogether, not unless she was sure my dad wouldn’t see. ”
“Oh, Ryker.” My heart broke for him. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He nodded. “That wasn’t the part that hurt.
” He paused. “The part that hurt was seeing her hug and smile at everyone else. It made me feel small, unloved, like I’d done something wrong.
I remember once, I had a party, and she hugged all my school friends and asked each and every one of them how their day had been, yet she didn’t even look me in the eye.
She didn’t even care about me, her own son, the one she should have loved the most.”
“I don’t know why she did that,” I whispered and stroked the side of his face. “I’m so sorry.” The words sounded inadequate, even to my own ears.
“I was too young to understand that it must have been due to my dad,” he said.
“All I could think about was how she always used to hold me close and hug and kiss me until I couldn’t breathe.
And she’d tell me how much she loved me.
How she couldn’t imagine loving anyone more than me. And then she just stopped.”
“I’m sure she didn’t stop.”
“She just stopped. I was her world. She told me I was her world. She used to tell me that I was her reason for living. That my birth had made her life perfect. She told me that the day she had me was the day she started to believe in God again. He’d proven he existed by giving her something so perfect.
” His throat caught. “And then she stopped loving me, and she died.”
“Oh, Ryker.” I pulled him into my arms and held him tightly. “You were the best thing that ever happened to her, but your dad and whatever other demons she had, well, that stopped her from being the person she was inside.”
“Sometimes I wish I could talk to her,” he said. “I’d like to know what happened. I’d like to know if she stopped loving me.”
“She’d never stop loving you, Ryker.” I kissed him with every ounce of me I had.
“No one could stop loving you,” I whispered against his lips.
I could never stop loving you, I thought to myself as I dismissed the other girl from my thoughts.
My heart was aching for my Ryker, the man who still held the hurt and fears from his childhood.
“I want to make love to you,” he muttered against my lips. “I need to be inside you.”
I didn’t answer; instead, I took off his shirt, pulled his pants and boxers down, stood up, slowly undressed, and threw my clothes to the ground. I looked down at his moon-kissed face, and my heart swelled with love at the look of desire that shone back at me.
“Come to me, baby.” He reached his arms up, and I took his hands and straddled him.
His hardness rested between my legs, and I rocked back and forth and teased myself with his manhood.
He leaned up and pulled me down so that he could cover my right nipple with his mouth and suck, while his hand played with my other breast. I stretched my body down against him and kissed his neck, while my hands played with his chest and ran down his stomach.
My fingers played with his belly button, and I gasped as he started nibbling on my nipple.
I adjusted my body so that I could sit up and reach down and guide him into me.
This was the first time I was leading during intercourse, and I was loving the feeling of power.
As he slid inside me, I closed my eyes and moved back and forth on him gently, enjoying every stroke of him inside me, as the stars shone down on us.
The moment felt primal and raw, like we were one with nature.
“I’m flying, Ryker,” I cried out as my impending orgasm built up. My hair flew behind me, and the wind cooled my heated body.
“I’m flying as well, Mila.” He grabbed hold of my hips and moved my body faster.
I gyrated on him as hard as I could, both of our bodies trembling as we neared our crashing point.
We cried out at the same time, becoming one in body and soul.
My sated body could no longer hold me up, and I fell down on top of him as I climaxed.
“I love you, Ryker,” I said softly into his ear. “That will never change.”
“I know,” he whispered back. “That’s my dream and my hope.”