Chapter 30
Dom
Knocking on Riley’s door feels wrong somehow.
After being invited into her bed for weeks, I still don’t let myself walk in uninvited, but something about today feels different.
Last night, she went straight to her cabin, wished me good night from the front door, and left me there.
She didn’t want to see me, and I heard her loud and clear.
She needs her space, sure, but then this morning, she didn’t run, and now she’s still locked in there. I want to make sure she’s okay.
The door opens, and a very swollen, red-eyed Riley stands on the other side. Her nose matches eyes, and her hair is wilder than usual. If I didn’t know what happened yesterday, I would have assumed she’s sick.
“I brought food,” I say, lifting the bag in my hand.
I had to go into town today, and I stopped at the deli.
They have my favorite sandwiches, and it’s worth going just for those alone.
Riley doesn’t smile, though. She says thank you and reaches for the bag with her eyes pinned to the wood of the deck.
Maybe if I would’ve brought mom’s Asopao, she would have beamed like she often does.
She pushes the door, attempting to shut it, but I stop it. “Can I come in?” I ask, and she finally dares to hold my gaze. The light in her eyes is gone; I hate seeing her like this. It pains me in a way very little has before.
“Please.” She blinks, a tear running free and landing on the pad of my thumb, but wordlessly, she steps back, allowing me to enter.
She walks to the living room, dropping herself in the corner of the couch.
The kitchen, and everything else for that matter, looks clean—pristine. “Have you eaten today?”
She shakes her head.
“You have to eat.” I grew up in a house where food is the primary source of showing you care about someone. It starts in the belly, my parents would say.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Are you not hungry, or are you just avoiding food because you feel sad?”
“Aren’t you a know it all?” There’s none of her usual sass accompanying the remark. No eye roll, no little jabs about me acting like her dad. Nothing.
“I might be, but I brought you food either way.”
She silently opens the bag, grabbing a chip and popping it in her mouth. “What is it with you and food either way? Always something. God forbid a girl doesn’t want to be nourished.”
“My parents say you need to be fed in order to do anything important—think, live, breathe. I know it’s a sore subject, but I just want to make sure you’re taken care of.”
She takes another chip into her mouth, but she still doesn’t show me the Riley I’ve come to know.
“Good girl,” I add, just to see if that’d do it. But it doesn’t. She just takes another chip.
I take a seat across from her and wait for her to eat, which she does, without talking or moving or anything. She’s still, so unnatural for her. She’s breathing, but she’s not here, fully retreated inward, lost somewhere in her beautiful brain.
What’s going on in there, Firefly?
Let me in.
Shine me a little light so I know what I’m working with.
I don’t push her, but I don’t move. I want her to know I’m here.
Sometimes, someone doesn’t need you to do a lot or talk.
They just need you to be. It’s something I’ve learned from Lucas.
He’s the youngest in our family and one of the youngest in his group of friends.
He’s the quiet guy, but everyone knows they can count on him.
When everything went down with my divorce, and then shortly after with Oliver’s wife passing, he told me how the best thing we can do for someone going through it is to remind them we see them and that we’re here.
I see her, and I am here.
“Are you gonna sit there and just stare at me?” she finally asks, color returning to her cheeks, still grouchy.
“I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”
“Well, silence is really annoying, so, like, just don’t stare at me,” she adds, pushing the bag onto the coffee table. “Thank you for dinner. I think I was hangry.”
A chuckle escapes me before I can reel it back in and she narrows her eyes at me. “Still hangry? I can get you more stuff. Do you want to ride into town with me?”
She shakes her head. “No. I’m just...” She collapses on top of the arm of the couch, hair spilling over it, her feet landing on my lap. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I feel like a dummy for making such a big mistake. I’m so careless.”
“Now Riley, that’s where I’m going to stop you, because you’re anything but careless. You made a mistake. That’s it.”
“I’ve made so many in my life. More than good things, and I—” She lets out a breath, eyes still closed. “Am I ever going to learn to be useful? I’m too old for this shit.”
Old? Who has hurt her this deeply when she thinks she’s this useless, careless human? “You’re twenty two years old. You are supposed to make mistakes. That’s how you grow. That’s how you learn.”
“Says the most put together man.”
I laugh, a deep, throaty laugh. “I am not put together.” I rest my hand on her thigh, willing her to look at me.
She does. “I’ve had my fair share of mistakes.
Nobody goes through life without them, whether they own them or try to hide behind them.
You’re supposed to make mistakes. And some of them are costly, sure, but most of them are reversible. ”
Her eyes somber as I continue. “You’re being so hard on yourself, and I understand how this may feel like the end of the world right now, but it’s not.
You’re healthy and alive, the camp is not bankrupt yet.
There is time to work things out.” All things I wish someone would have told me forever ago, when I thought my life was over because I didn’t pursue a baseball career or because I ended my marriage.
I didn't fail because things didn't work out, and she didn’t either just because she ordered too many supplies.
I squeeze her knee gently, letting her know I’m here.
“I didn’t want to overstep when Lilly was talking to you, but she 100% was out of line.
You’re not a child. You’re an adult, and you made an honest mistake.
You’re human.” Her lashes kiss the top of her rosy cheeks, so I add the thing I know to be true that she might need to hear again. “It’s a beautiful thing.”
She refuses to open her eyes as she whispers, “That’s who I am, apparently—a beautiful mess. Hard to handle, hard to keep.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Firefly. You’re more than the sum of your mistakes, and you’re not hard to handle or keep. Nobody should want to do that either way. The most beautiful things in life are wild and free.”
“But I’m tired of being wild and free, Dom.
I want to be rooted and grow strong in a place where I belong, grow where I’m planted.
” She holds my gaze this time, pure sadness in hers, and I hope she finds comfort in mine.
“I just haven’t been able to find where that is.
I thought maybe traveling and going to other places, exploring, seeing, living... Hell, I did it for so long.”
She sounds so hurt, and I want nothing more than to take her pain away. I can’t, even though it kills me, but I can listen. I can be here.
For her.
“Months,” she continues. “I hid it from everyone else because I was waiting to find that moment when I could finally feel like I belonged. But I never did.”
I’ve got to be the luckiest man alive with her telling me all of this, trusting me with her deepest truths and the shadows she keeps from everyone else.
She pauses, letting her thoughts catch up with her words. “Because this is where I’m supposed to—” Her words die in her throat as she clears it. “Be, you know? This is where I feel the best and most like myself, but how can I make it work? What do I even bring to the table?”
Everything.
“So much,” I say instead.
There’s no point in holding back the truth or the way I see her.
She needs to know. “You’re smart and funny, joyful, and so careful with the way you treat others.
You’ve spent so long thinking you’re this careless human, you don’t seem to see all the beautiful things you do for others, or all the brightness you bring with you everywhere you go. ”
Her eyes shift from stormy to clear skies, not trying to interrupt me, and I appreciate it. One if, but, or maybe, and I won’t continue.
“You’re sunshine and rain.” Each word caresses her features, relaxing as she takes them in.
“Birds flying in big skies and everything good that comes from all of it. We all have so much to learn from you.” I wish this world was full of mirrors so she could see herself the way I see her.
“That’s a lesson your sister needs to learn.
I don’t know why she’s so stuck with the teenage Riley she had to raise that she can’t see the beautiful woman you have become.
” I lower my voice and add, “And that’s a shame. ”
“Nobody else sees her, not even me,” she says. I’ve only come to know little parts of her, but every single side of her is so worthy of celebration.
“Then that’s a shame for you too, but it’s a lie…because I do. I see her.” I stroke the soft flesh above her knee. “And let me tell you—she’s breathtaking.”
“Please, stop. There’s no need to lie.”
“I’m not lying. Do I need to say more of it out loud?”
She shakes her head without effort, not meaning it, not even a little bit.
“You’re inspiring, and anyone who doesn’t help you feel that way doesn’t deserve you—even your sister.”
Riley sucks her bottom lip between her teeth. “She’s the only family I have left. Her and Willa. If they don’t believe in me, who would?”
“I do. But beyond that, you need to believe in yourself. You need to believe it with everything you have. And the proof is in the pudding—you just have to open your eyes. All that joy and love you so freely give others? You need to start giving it to yourself.”
My phone rings, interrupting this moment, and she laughs. “Who even has their ringtone on anymore?”
At least there’s a laugh there.
“Make fun of me all you want, but that silent phone bullshit is not for me.” My heart sinks in my stomach when I see the caller ID.
Arnie.