Me and Ryan.
“But otherwise, nothing. Nothing happened. Nothing ever happened or should’ve happened or anything. How stupid was I to even try or think that something in my life so good was meant to be?”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do. What was I thinking to consider the fact that I could be someone or try to make life a little more magical for myself? Stupid Luella. Always the odd one who stands out too much,” I told him.
“That’s not true. Please tell me what else is going on,” Ryan pleaded, reaching out to me.
I took a step back.
“You’re not making sense. So what if some decorations are ruined? They can be fixed. We can still figure something out.”
There was that optimism I had been looking for ten minutes ago. I felt the tears start to pool in my eyes, and I knew he saw them too. But I wouldn’t cry. I was not going to cry in front of him.
So, instead, I sneered. I looked over each shoulder toward the nearly empty sidewalks. Still, I doubted that I was quiet enough that no one on the thick-columned porches of the nearby houses couldn’t hear me. But so what? So be it.
It didn’t change anything.
“That girl was sitting on your lap.”
He had the decency to look ashamed. “I know. She just sat down, and then I felt weird, asking her to move. I should have. I know I should have.”
“I’m not even mad about that.”
“You’re not?”
“A little. I’m just … I don’t understand how you don’t see it,” I said.
“See what?”
“Luella, the witch. Luella, the stealer of souls. Luella, whose mother died. Luella, who should know she’s always just been Luella, the nobody!” My voice rose. “I never cared about how anyone saw me before. But I know you do. And I saw how perfect you and that girl looked together.”
“It doesn’t matter how we looked together.”
“But I care now, okay? I cared about how you saw me. And in the end, it looks like you didn’t see much.”
Not enough.
“Obviously you didn’t care enough to think about how I would feel to come back here and see a pretty girl sitting on your lap. Obviously not to try and stop someone when they boast of how you’re probably just using me,” I pushed.
He needed to understand what I was trying to say.
Yet, right now, Ryan’s face looked perhaps as distraught as mine.
I couldn’t focus on it, not when I needed to stop the water that was flooding my vision. I couldn’t cry. I didn’t cry. Someone really needed to tell that to my body right now, which was prepared to revolt from the rest of the world spinning around me.
“And you should go with them and be happy with them, like you were before your injury. You should go back, and you should be with someone like her.”
“I don’t know why you are saying this,” Ryan said, his voice still careful as we stood in the middle of the sidewalk. “I told you I love you. Does that mean nothing? Did you just expect that after that, I’d just get bored or feel like I’d met some goal and walk away?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do,” he said seriously. “Those guys were stupid. I care about you, Luella. I care about you so much more than I ever thought I did after following you around for years. You know this. I know you know this.”
I held my breath until it felt like a tightly wound spool of thread, fraying and coming loose. Twisting and turning for some sort of relief as I squinted tears back. I had too much hurt. I didn’t want to hurt anymore.
“I don’t know what you saw. I’m sorry if I’m not as strong and loud as everyone wishes and thinks I am. I’m working on it,” said Ryan, a bit more edge entering his tone. “I’ll always be working on making myself better, and I thought I was getting there with you. I’m sorry that I didn’t stand up for you in there like I should’ve and made you question things like this. So, I’m going to ask you, why are you pushing me away?”
