CH 10 - #home
Rhys
Song: “Say You Do” by Dierks Bentley
I SAW RILEY in her silver Camaro, slowly coming up the dirt road that led to my house. I kept looking out my living room window, watching her, until she parked beside my truck in the driveway. Then I walked over to my front door and pressed my forehead against it. I was nervous, but not about talking to Riley. It was seeing her in person again that was affecting me. She was so damn beautiful.
When she knocked on my door, I took a deep breath. Seconds later, I was met with Riley’s smile. It warmed me to my core.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi. Thanks for not minding me coming over.”
“It’s no problem. I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too.” Riley glanced up and down the front porch. “You redid all of this. I also noticed the new metal roof. What you’ve done is amazing.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ve always liked this house because it’s on stilts. You can see everything around you so much better whenever you’re up higher.”
“That’s what I prefer—a great view. Come on in. I’ll show you what else I’ve done around here.”
I stepped aside and motioned for Riley to enter my home. As she walked past me, I caught the scent of her perfume. It was the one I’d given to her on our last Christmas together: Love Story. I couldn’t believe she still wore it.
“Wow!” she said, glancing around. “I really like the open living room, dining room, and kitchen. And the hardwood floor is gorgeous.”
“I redid it throughout because the old one was pretty rough.”
“Was that rustic trim work and moulding already in here?” she asked, pointing at the wall closest to us.
“No, I added it.”
“Rhys, I am blown away by all of this. You’ve turned into a Superman carpenter. You’ve always been good at woodwork, but this is like major.”
I shrugged. “Most folks get better at doing what they consistently work at. My work on this place has been consistent since I bought it.”
“It’s going to be your shining star B&B.”
“That’s my plan. Let me show you the kitchen.”
As soon as we entered it, Riley held her arm out toward me. It was covered in goosebumps. “You definitely have a ghost living with you. I feel it all over,” she said.
“I knew you would. You’ve always been sensitive to energies.”
“Just like you. Can you tell if your ghost is a man or a woman?”
“I get the impression that it’s a woman.”
“Why?”
“Because if I happen to leave something out instead of putting it back where it belongs, the ghost will hide it so that I have to search for it later. Also, if I don’t clean up after myself like a pro in the kitchen or wherever, the ghost will make a mess like a mother or bossy big sister would do, trying to teach me a lesson.”
Riley started chuckling. “Yeah, it sounds like a feminine entity is cohabiting with you. I’m leaning more toward a mother figure.”
“So am I.”
Riley glanced around the kitchen, walked over, and ran her hand across one of the new cabinet doors that I’d built and installed. Then she went to the sink and looked out the picture window above it.
“The cypress trees look like an absolute dream, with the sunlight streaming down through their branches. It’s glowing out there,” she said.
I gave her a moment to continue enjoying what she was seeing while thinking that she looked like an absolute dream and was making the inside of my home glow. Then I told her that after I showed her the bedrooms and bathrooms, I’d take her to the patio out back that I’d been working on.
Riley looked over her shoulder at me. “I saw your huge patio and love that you built it over the water. Once again—Superman carpenter.”
I mirrored her smile and then toured her around the rest of my home. She was just as complimentary of it as she’d been about everything else.
When she and I began crossing the raised walkway to the patio, she stopped and pointed at the fire pit to the left of us. “I just noticed that over there. You have some of everything out here, don’t you?” she asked.
“Necessities for me.”
“It is so peaceful here. Just the sound of your windchime by your back door, the birds singing, and the water lapping at the shore.”
“It’s peaceful at night, too. It looks and feels different, though, after the sun goes down. Clouds of fog regularly roll in, and the night creatures come out, making all of their sounds.”
“The whippoorwills, crickets, tree frogs, and coyotes?”
“And owls. There’s a pair of them that hang around here.”
“I love to hear them hoot. It’s haunting, but in a good way. Let’s go see your patio now.”
“After you, ma’am,” I said, holding my arm out for Riley to walk ahead of me.
“One of the things that you used to call me. It was either ma’am, mia bella, or princess. You called me ‘mia bella’ at Nana’s Kitchen.”
“It just came out. Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
I kept my eyes on Riley as she walked across the walkway in her rhinestone flip-flops. I couldn’t help but notice the sway of her hips in her fitted, turquoise summer dress with little seashells, nor how her black hair moved back and forth across her waistline. Riley had always worn it long. She used to like for me to brush it as much as I enjoyed doing it. On occasion, she’d also have me braid it.
“Oh my gosh!” she said when we reached the patio. “You’ve got a heavy-duty outdoor table, six chairs with comfy-looking cushions on them, a mini fridge, a storage bench, big fans in each corner of the ceiling, globe string lights hung up, and plenty of citronella candles to ward off the mosquitoes. Your home and all of this out here is your refuge.”
“If I didn’t have to leave, I never would.”
Riley slowly looked over my face. “Would you mind if we sat at the table?”
“Not a bit.”
“I’d like to talk to you. Well, about something other than what we’ve been talking about.”
After pulling out a chair for her, she thanked me, sat down, and then I took the chair beside her.
“I’m going to try my hardest to say what I came here to say to you without crying, but I can’t guarantee that I won’t cry,” she continued. Tears were already forming in her eyes.
“Listen, we don’t have to discuss what happened with Chad.”
“I do. I want to apologize for putting part of the blame on you. None of it was your fault. I was just so angry about the whole situation and lashed out.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t. I appreciate your understanding, though.”
I nodded.
“Rhys, I also want to thank you for stepping in and protecting me from Chad.”
“It came naturally.”
“I know.” Riley took a deep breath, keeping her eyes on mine. “Now, here’s the main thing that I want to talk to you about. Early this morning, my daddy told me about what you did last year. I know you asked him and my momma for permission to marry me. You also showed them the engagement ring that you bought for me.”
It suddenly felt like needles were pricking the back of my throat. “I did do that, but I thought you already knew.”
“No. I was shocked to find out, and I feel even more awful about how badly I hurt you. I cannot imagine the depth of your pain and what you went through. I am so very sorry. Please forgive me.”
I let out a heavy sigh. “Riley, I don’t need another apology from you. But if you need my forgiveness, you have it.”
She shook her head as her bottom lip quivered.
“May I tell you what I need from you more than anything?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“I need you to tell me when you stopped wanting to build a life with me. I asked you that on the day you ended us, but you wouldn’t answer me.”
“I know. I barely got out telling you I wanted to break up and was moving to Fort Worth.”
“I remember.”
“Rhys, my wanting something more didn’t happen all at once. It was a gradual process that had nothing to do with you and everything to do with me. In my last semester of dental hygienist college, I thought about moving to Dallas, Fort Worth, and even Austin because I was so tired of small-town life.”
“Why didn’t you say something to me?”
“There was no point. I knew living here was the only life you wanted.”
“It is. I love our hometown and the people. I love the land in this part of Texas. But Riley—I would’ve moved anywhere you wanted to keep you by my side. Getting a job wouldn’t have been a problem since I have my business degree. We would’ve made it just fine.”
“I couldn’t ask you to leave Cypress Hills because you belong here. It’s in your blood and your bones.”
“Is there any of it still left in yours? Do you ever miss being here?”
“Yes. For some reason, this trip home has made me realize how much. I guess I made the wrong choice, starting my life over. I was selfish for wanting more.”
I shook my head in disagreement. “You weren’t selfish. You have every right to do what you want in life. Sometimes taking those steps hurts others when you don’t mean to.”
“I never wanted to hurt you.”
“I know you didn’t, but you outgrew me, so some pain was sure to follow. There’s no easy way to say goodbye.”
“That’s why I made ours quick. I wanted to get the bleeding over with for both of us.”
I paused to think about what Riley had just said. Then I told her the truth about myself. “I’m still bleeding, but it’s not your fault. My memories of us keep my veins open, and so does my still being in love with you.”
Riley’s eyes grew big.
“It’s okay,” I assured her. “You don’t have to reply to that. I just wanted you to know.”
We kept looking at each other without saying anything. Then, I slowly reached out and cradled Riley’s face in my hand. She leaned into it and closed her eyes, causing the tears that’d been brimming in them to trickle down her cheeks. Seeing them, I could no longer contain my emotions and let them flow.
When Riley looked at me again, she noticed the streaks on my face and gently wiped them away. Then I did the same to her as we struggled to regain our composures.
“Will you tell me one more thing?” I asked her.
“Yes.”
“Are you going back to Chad?”
“No.”
I sat up straighter. “Okay, I’ve got to keep asking you questions.”
“It’s fine. What else would you like to know?”
“If you’ve heard from Chad.”
“Not a peep. He and I are over, Rhys.”
“He’s put his hands on you before, hasn’t he?”
“One other time. He shook me like in front of Nana’s Kitchen and then threw me down onto his living room floor and yelled at me. He was angry because I stayed at work past five to finish cleaning an elderly, widowed woman’s teeth. She was late for her appointment, making Chad and I run late to meet his boss and his boss’s wife for supper that evening. I told him about the hiccup with my patient, and he seemed fine. But when I got to his house after work, he said my lateness embarrassed him and that he’d canceled our plans. Then he did all the other to me.”
“What did you do?”
“I yelled back at him, kicked him in his damn balls, and left.”
“Why did you stay together with him?”
“I believed his week-long tearful apology and repeated promises to never take his anger out on me again were sincere.”
I glanced down at the sleeves of Riley’s dress. They were long enough to cover her upper arms, where Chad had grabbed her before shaking her last Saturday.
“Did you have bruises on you after that first incident?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you have them on you now?”
Riley pulled up her left sleeve to answer me. As I’d suspected, dark spots were on her skin where Chad had dug his fingertips. Seeing the bruises made me furious, but I hid how I was feeling because I didn’t want to upset Riley. I just wanted her to keep talking to me, and she did.
“When Chad put his hands on me that first time, I immediately thought of you. You’d never been anything but kind to me, and I couldn’t believe how unkind Chad was being.”
“If you had remained with him after what happened last Saturday, his violence against you would’ve only gotten worse.”
“I’ve accepted that reality.”
“Riley, I asked you on Friday night if you were happy and if Chad treated you well. You said yes to my questions. It wasn’t the truth, though.”
“But it was. I was happy at that point because Chad had been treating me well. It’d been three months since that first incident with him happened.”
“Please don’t take any of what I’ve said or asked in the wrong way. I’m just trying to understand.”
“I know you are.”
“And my understanding of why you stayed with Chad is you believed his apologies and promises never to put his hands on you again.”
“Right.”
“Are there any other reasons why you stayed?”
“I-I love him.”
“Anything else?”
Riley looked down at the table and began chewing on her bottom lip. Was she about to tell me the rest of the truth? The time investment into her relationship with Chad part and the wedding financial part that my brother, Rachel, and Macie were fully aware of and had told me about?
I hoped Riley was about to get all of that out of herself. If she did, then I was going to tell her that I understood every one of her reasons for not running fast and far away from Chad-fucking-Nolan after he abused her the first time. I was also going to remind her that she was human. But then she looked back up at me and shook her head no.
Why wouldn’t she tell me the whole truth? She’d already shared so much. Then it hit me: Riley was embarrassed to admit to feeling stuck with Chad, just like she was embarrassed about how much her parents had spent on her wedding. What Riley didn’t realize, though, was that she was never stuck and didn’t have one damn thing to be embarrassed about.
She wiped her nose with her hand, and I held up a finger.
“Be right back,” I said.
After grabbing some napkins from my storage bench, I rejoined Riley and gave them to her.
“Thanks,” she said, wiping her nose again.
I knew a change of subject was needed to lighten the mood, so I asked, “When are you planning to return to Fort Worth?”
“On Sunday. I’ve got to be back at work on Monday.”
“Do you like your job?”
“I love it, and all of my coworkers too. They’re wonderful.”
“That’s great. How do you like Fort Worth?”
“I like it a whole lot.”
“What’s the best part of living there?”
“Starbucks are everywhere.”
I chuckled. Riley had always been a java junkie.
“I’ve never asked you that about living in Cypress Hills,” she said. “Tell me what the best part is for you.”
“There are two of them. Everything is easy-going around here. It’s also peaceful.”
“Fort Worth isn’t either of those. It’s fast-paced and noisy because there are so many people and so much traffic.”
“But you like it a whole lot there,” I said, grinning and making Riley do the same.
“I like certain aspects of it.” Her stomach started growling, and she placed her hand on it. “Well, that’s embarrassing.”
“It shouldn’t be. It’s just me sitting here with you.”
“I didn’t eat breakfast because my stomach was in knots.”
“Is it still knotted up?”
“Not like it was.”
“Then let’s go back inside. I’ll make you one of my cheese omelets with sour cream and Herdez salsa.”
“Rhys, you don’t have to do that.”
“I want to. Besides, you need to eat.”
“Did you eat breakfast?”
“Yep, but I can always eat again.”
I got up from my chair and held my hands out for Riley’s. After she slipped them into mine, I pulled her to her feet and stared into her eyes. They were shining.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I’m happy we had this talk.”
“So am I.”
“May I hug you?”
“I could use one of your hugs.”
I wrapped my arms around her, and she molded the front of her body into mine. She still felt like home to me, and I knew she always would. I also knew she would always be the best part of my living in Cypress Hills, even though she didn’t live here anymore. I still had all the memories we’d made together in our hometown, including this one.