Sihn & Ruin in River Falls

1. Jump Then – Mar

CHAPTER 1

JUMP THEN

MAR

Turns out, I am not meant to develop the minds of our youth.

My career is down the tube, and I am begrudgingly moving back in with my parents until I can figure out what I want to be when I grow up.

I tried teaching for a year at an inner-city school. My goal was to help disadvantaged youth and—after a time—I was going to go on to become a school guidance counselor, but that didn’t go as planned. Within the first week, I began pulling my hair out from the stress of my career choice. No one warned me that students wouldn’t listen and the administration did little to nothing to help. ‘Ms. Coffey, there are worse things they could be doing than dress code violations and bullying.’ What could be worse than bullying?

I now have a bald spot behind my left ear. It’s embarrassing. Even more embarrassing is having to move back to the town I wanted so badly to escape from, but my decision to quit using my master’s in education landed me with a negative account balance after my most recent student loan payment was pulled this morning. Someone in Canada hacked my bank account, and the bank refused to pay me back, stating that I didn’t sign up for the extra liability fraud insurance.

So, I’m here, in the freaking village of River Falls. Jobless. Hopeless.

Thankfully, I do have a car. I’ve had it since I graduated high school, and had planned to upgrade after I finished my first year of teaching, but my life is not turning out as I had hoped. No money equals no new car.

My parents live down a windy-ass back road. I’ve forgotten how much of a nuisance driving here can be. In the city, everything was flat and straight with ninety-degree turns. Here, a hill will sneak up on you as you make a turn around a bend, and if you’re not paying attention, you might hit a neighbor’s cow or chicken. The last time I was here, was about six months ago, for Christmas, and I only drove to my parents’. I didn’t drive again until I was heading back to the city.

As I turn a curve in the road, my tires are overtaken by loose gravel, and it sends me in a tailspin, straight for a small bridge that crosses a creek. My heart leaps, and even though I know shutting my eyes is about the worst thing I could do right now, I shut them anyway and brace for impact. Will I hit a tree? Will I plummet to the bottom of the creek? Who thinks throwing out gravel equates to a paved road?

The car seems to be spinning, but I am too terrified to open my eyes. My insides feel as if they are doing cartwheels. I let out a yelp no one will hear and then I feel the car stop abruptly. My hands are gripping the steering wheel so tight I’m getting a cramp. When my breathing slows, I take a peek at my surroundings. The front end of my car has crinkled into a small brick wall. The brick wall is the front barrier to a small cemetery. The kind no one new gets buried in and you can’t read the names on the tombstones anymore.

One night when I was much younger, I hung out with my best friend Verdi in this very cemetery until my parents came looking for me. We were mad at the girls from school who were being real bitches that day.

My car is positioned on the side of the road in such a way that I still have a view of the bridge my car very well could have nose-dived off of.

Smoke rolls out from my hood, and I know I’ve messed up the last thing I had, my car. I slam my hands in unison on the wheel several times as tears stream from my eyes down my cheeks—leaving wet marks on my white T-shirt and worn-out jeans. I cannot take this. My mental state cannot take this.

While I’m contemplating jumping from the bridge to end my misery, I notice movement from the far side of the bridge. I crouch down in my car as if that will hide the fact that I have crashed into a very small brick wall, not three feet in height, but a brick wall nonetheless.

A male figure walks toward the railing of the bridge. I take him in as he leans forward, looking down at the water below. No shoes. He has jeans on that are snug to his hips. His limbs are long, or at least appear to be from where I am. I haven’t dated much since my college boyfriend, but finding a man taller than me is one of the hardest things I’ve been able to find. I’m tall, without shoes I’m only an inch shorter than six feet. He’s at least six feet, maybe an inch or two taller than that.

He has muscles on top of muscles. I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed a man in real life with such broad shoulders who also has abs, and not your normal six-pack, this guy has eight distinct rectangles protruding from his abdomen. I wouldn’t know that this guy has abs except he’s shirtless, because of course he is . He is built strong, like a bodybuilder. His skin is light brown, and he has short, black hair. When he turns his face, I can see his full beard, neatly trimmed. He appears almost Greek god-like as if Zeus dropped him from the sky to save me from my pity.

Except I don’t want him to know I’m here at all.

His head turns in my direction, so I fall over my middle console, concealing myself as best I can. He didn’t see me. I try to convince myself, but my mind and heart don’t match up causing my breathing to get out of whack. I attempt to settle my nerves by taking my mind to a happy place, just like I once told a student to do who was a blubbering mess after another student called them a name they didn’t like. Right now my happy place seems to be ogling at this man because he’s who I picture when I close my eyes.

A few seconds later, there is a tap on my window. I bolt upright and scream. I scream so loud that I scare myself. I cover my mouth.

The god-like man shouts, “Chill! You need to chill. Are you okay?” through my window and then motions for me to roll it down.

I clasp my hands to my chest. “I was okay until you scared the hell out of me.”

He gestures for me to roll the window down again. I press the button, and to my surprise, it rolls down. Maybe my car is salvageable after all…

“Glad to be of service,” he says as if making me scream was some new trophy he’d achieved, and he’s proud of it.

“That wasn’t a compliment,” I tell him.

Up close, his large eyes are the most beautiful green hue I’ve ever seen. His full lips match perfectly with his broad nose. He smiles and, as if this god-like man couldn’t be any more attractive, he also has a damn good smile—wide and charming with a glint of mischief. Fuck me!

“Would you like that now, or later? I’m gonna go with later since you look like you’re in a bit of a pickle at the moment.”

Shit, did I say that out loud? I go to press the button to roll the window up, but his hand shoots inside and covers it before I have the chance. He leans his head in the window, forcing me to move back so our lips don’t accidentally touch.

I can feel and smell his breath—warm with notes of something sweet—as he says, “Are you okay? Your pupils are doing weird things, and your face is red and blotchy.”

This man! “Don’t you know embarrassment when you see it? Now get, I’m busy.” I shoo him away like he’s a stray dog. I fidget with my hair, pulling part of it around the left side of my face, hoping he doesn’t notice the patch that is missing.

“Doing what, exactly?” he asks as he moves his body out of my car. With his hands on the roof, he taps the metal in some sort of rhythm I can’t place as he waits for my response.

I am not going to tell this guy I just met that I was contemplating jumping from the bridge knowing I can’t swim, assuring my dying fate. “None of your business,” I huff while crossing my arms and turning my head away from him.

“Tell me to jump off the bridge,” he orders in a deep, guttural tone.

Is he serious? In shock, I reply, “What, no. That’s…I’m not telling you to do that.”

“Oh, come on, it’ll be fun. Dare me!” He winks and makes a kissing noise with his teeth using his tongue.

What is with this man? “Why?” I fidget in my seat.

“Just do it!” he demands as little pebbles of sweat beading up around the nape of his neck. Usually, I would find this off-putting, but the nearer he is to me, the more feral I become. It’s been a while since I’ve been with a man, but I can’t recall the last time just looking at one made me want to see how fast I could remove my clothes in public. It’s never. I have never felt this toward a man I didn’t know.

Before I beg him to fuck me up against a tree, I ask, “Will it get you to leave me alone?”

He nods and smiles his god-like grin.

I know he’s joking, so I dare him. “Go. Do it. Jump then.”

“If you insist.” He bows before turning and heading back toward the guardrail of the bridge.

He’s joking. He’s not going to actually jump from a bridge because some girl he just met told him to…

Gracefully, he climbs the metal and stands stick-straight atop it. He turns and gives a toothy grin then bends his legs in a squat position before his body goes flying up in the air flipping forward perfectly. The fucker does a swan dive off the bridge.

He jumped like one of those divers you see on TV. Olympic level. Flips and shit. Fucker fooled me into thinking he would kill himself for me when all he wanted to do was be a showoff.

Cocky bastard. I bet he’s great in bed. Too bad I’ll be gone before he makes his way up here from the creek.

My car is still running. The smoke from the hood has dwindled to a minuscule amount, so I press my foot on the brake before easing the gearshift into reverse. The gears or tires or something make a screeching noise, but I pretend I don’t hear it. I press down on the gas, reversing, then shift to drive as fast as I can, to get as far away from him as possible.

Thankfully, the car makes it to the end of my parents’ driveway, where I park it and walk the rest of the way up to the front door of my childhood home. When I was sixteen, they had the siding redone. It’s a bluish-gray two-story home with a large front porch and two detached garages. They’ve kept my room on the second floor as it was before I left for college, and since I’m an only child, there was no reason to change it for a sibling.

As I’m reaching for the knob, the door swings open. My mom, without paying attention, almost smacks right into me. “Mom!”

“Amarynth?” I prefer Mar, but my parents—mostly, my mother—prefer to call me by my full first name.

“Yes, Mom. The child you birthed, it’s me. You were expecting me, remember?” I remind her. My parents are older. They should be retired. They sort of are. They invested their life savings in a local coffee shop they named Coffey Cafe. They spend sun-up to sun-down there, most days. Their motto is the way to keep a small business afloat, the owner should be there often.

“Yes, yes. I thought you were arriving…later?” My mother, much like me, is tall and voluptuous. The only way to tell us apart is the fact that she is nearing her seventies and her skin shows it. It’s wrinkled and sags in all the spots where age takes hold. She’s the kind of lady you know was a knockout when she was younger.

“Well, I’m here,” I say gesturing at myself, knowing I look every bit as disheveled as I feel.

“I’m heading into the shop to close up for the night. Want to come or would you rather get settled? It’s poker night, so your dad is with his friends, smoking cigars and pretending they’re still young.” She laughs at her own remark, and I get a little glimpse of a time when my mother was youthful.

“I’m up for a ride. Just don’t ask me to drive, I think my car is on its last leg.” I point behind me.

She looks past me to my car and her shoulders sink in disappointment. “Christ, Amarynth! What happened?”

“Just a little fender bender. It’s nothing.” I lie to her. I don’t like lying to her, but it’s better than the truth. Much better than uttering, ‘Your daughter is a failure. She can’t teach. She can’t drive. She doesn’t know what she wants to be when she grows up.’