Chapter 19 #2
I knew it. “Fair. I’ll take the tea then. Do you want water? I can grab you one.”
She shakes her head.
“Beer?”
She shakes her head again, sticking her tongue out. “No, thank you.”
“Tequila?” She raises an eyebrow in question. “I got some after the last time you were here and told me that’s your poison of choice.”
Riley leans her chin on her palm, now that her hands are free of mugs, as she studies me. “That was the first day we met.”
I shake my head. “No, second.”
“Oh, I guess so.” She titters again. Why is she this nervous? “Still, that was such a small thing in the shitshow that day was.”
“Nothing about you is a small thing, Riles.”
She’s taken aback, mouth open wide as her eyebrows frown in something I can’t quite put my finger on.
That makes two of us, Riley. Two of us.
“It’s not the first time someone sees things I like and do, but I think it was the first time someone did it in a positive manner.”
And this, this is what I like most about her.
I don’t have to question where I stand with her, even if it breaks me to know she has felt any less than the brilliant woman she is.
I don’t want to blur this line she drew in the sand while I marked on concrete.
I don’t want to give her something she’s going to take as more than what it can be—a friendship.
But I do want her to know she should expect more than that from people around her. “It’s a shame something as inconsequential as me grabbing a bottle of tequila at the store makes you feel seen, because you deserve more than just being tolerated.”
Her soulful eyes suddenly look at me with such raw sincerity, I have to blink back my own reaction just to brush away the feeling I refuse to acknowledge.
“That’s the kindest thing someone has ever said to me,” she mutters under her breath, breaking me a bit more, making me want to pull her into my arms and hold her tight.
But I can’t. I rise to my feet. “Let me grab you some. Mixed? On the rocks? Salt and lime?”
“On the rocks, please.”
This girl is full of layers, and I have the urge to unpeel them all until I know them like the back of my hand. “Coming right up.”
She nods, and I head inside to get her drink. How did we go from not talking to each other in three days to sharing tequila and tea on my front porch after working my ass off all day? It is an unexpected and welcomed turn of events.
“Here.” I hand Riley her drink and take a seat by her.
“We don’t have to do this. I told you, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”
“I know.”
“I also have never heard you form as many words as you did when you were on the phone.”
I chuckle.
“See? You usually communicate through backchannels and sounds that can only be described as onomatopoeias, not full sentences, and whoever you were talking to was getting an earful.”
Who even talks like this? She’s such a walking contradiction.
Can’t name some things correctly and brushes it off when it’s brought to her attention, but then uses academic terms and figurative language like it’s second nature to her.
Like she’s a linguist, and the world is her paper. “Did you major in English?”
She spits part of the tequila she had just sipped. “What? No.” She giggles. “Close. In communications.”
I’m taken aback, and, judging by the look on her face, she realizes it too.
“Oh, don’t even get me started.”
I know I don’t know her that well, but she doesn’t strike me as someone who would want to do anything like that, but maybe she loves it, and she’s just on break before continuing her studies. She’s eloquent, I give her that.
“Did you love it?”
“No. That’s why I’m here.” No hesitation, not even a slight moment of second-guessing herself about it. One hundred percent honesty. It’s inspiring. “I’m trying to find my way again.”
“Your way to what?”
“Myself.”
I nod slowly as I take a sip of whatever perfect tea this is, leaving the door open for her to continue if she wants.
She opens and closes her mouth a few times before saying, “You didn’t ask for me to come out here and lay all my issues in front of you.”
“No, but I don’t mind if you want to share.”
“I know, but—”
“I want to know if that’s what’s keeping you from telling me. But if you don’t want to talk, that’s good too.”
“Dominic Diaz, are you asking to be my friend?”
“What?”
“That’s what friends do, you know? Get to know each other, listen to one another, share drinks at nine pm on empty porches on a serene night while bonding over generational trauma.”
“Riley,” I say in a chuckle.
“Friends also make friends half-laugh.” She smiles brighter than the moon above us, mimicking the sun that’s asleep. Who needs sunlight when you have this girl on your porch, making jokes about pain?
“I did laugh.”
“Mmm, yeah, right. You half-laughed, but no worries. I’ve made it my life mission to get a real laugh out of you.”
“And what’s a real laugh then?”
She puts her cup on the side wooden table. “You know, folded over, hands on tummy, slapping your knee, whichever is yours, I can’t quite tell yet, or cover your eyes, and you know, cry, scream, throw up, all that.”
“Riley.”
“I’m telling you. It’s gonna happen, and then the Earth will be in trouble, and all the panties in a ten mile radius will be on the floor at a real laugh from Mr. Grump Diaz.” She gasps. “Oh my God! Please ignore that.”
I chuckle again, this time letting the corner of my mouth stretch upwards. Even if I didn’t want to smile, I can’t help it when I’m around her.
“Let’s forget about that. What were we talking about before? Oh yeah, my inability to stick with anything and change the course because I get bored.”
“What?”
“Communications, Dom, communications.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. I went into it trying to figure out if I could put all the verbal skills to good use. A girl loves to talk, you know? And maybe channel some of that into work, except my personality is too volatile for it. So I tried to change it all.” She tosses herself back on the chair, bringing her legs up and wrapping her arms around them.
“I tried to change all the things that make me too much to see if I could finally find some guidance. Everyone in my life has their shit together, and then there’s me. ”
Did she not hear me the first time? Who has hurt her this badly that all she thinks about are the negatives? I don't mind being the one to remind her again.
“Nothing about you is too much.”
“You say that, but imagine living around me twenty-four-seven, chaos unfolding at every turn. And I wanted to fix it so badly. I wanted to fix myself, but there was nothing I could do, because I’m me, and there’s that.
So now, I’m on the quest of figuring out how to not leave me again as I move forward. ”
Riley and I are more alike than I care to admit. Her because of circumstances, me because of my choices, but in the end, we’re both lost souls in the quest to find us again.
“Why do you think there’s anything to fix?” Can’t she tell her joy is a gift to the world?
“After you hear the same thing all your life, it becomes a truth you hold, even if it might not be a fact.”
“Riley,” I whisper, her name leaving my lips as a plea for her to see herself how I see her, how I’m sure her other people see her too.
“No, it’s okay. I’ve wanted to be someone else all my life to the point where I’ve bent myself to fit molds not meant for me, and I’m done doing it.
” The sky cracks in sorrow as soon as she finishes that sentence.
We both look up with nothing to see, moonlight hidden behind the storm-filled clouds.
“I want to be true to myself, and if I’m too much to keep, then at least I’ll be free. ”
The undeniable feeling of being closer to her will win over my self-control. She sounds so hurt, so broken, and all I want is to take it all away from her. I was right; she’s hiding so much under the smile she paints on herself every day, like the artist she is.
“You know how you said you wanted it so bad, but it didn’t work out?”
“Yeah.”
“Because not everything you work hard for, that you want badly, is meant to be. In your case, you shouldn’t want to conform to someone you are not just to make others happy.”