“Both.”
“I only have experience with your scene play-by-plays, so I can’t really agree or disagree with the other thing.”
“What if you could?”
My heart skips a beat. “I . . .”
“Shit . . . I’m sorry. Forget I said that. The last thing I want is for you to see me as someone who pulls lines on everyone I’m supposed to be helping.”
“Do you?”
“No.” His voice tightens. “I’ve only helped four other people, and they were nothing like you.”
“Rafael . . .” My breaths turn into pants.
“Yeah?”
I swallow the thickness in my throat and my thoughts shift gear as I hold back on what I truly want to say. “Want to help me decorate my Christmas tree now that the movie is over?”
He doesn’t say anything for what feels like forever, heavy breathing picking up around me before he responds with, “Abso-fucking-lutely.”
Ten
Rafel
I want him. It’s not exactly a new revelation but it’s one I can no longer ignore. Fuck, do I want him. So damn bad. A dangerous, unhealthy amount. I can’t go more than a couple of minutes without thinking about the gentle sound of his laugh and tilted smile. Six movies and twenty calls later is all it’s taken
to hook me so hard, I’m unable to break from this hold he has on me no matter how much I ignore his calls. This isn’t good. I have to try harder. If not for myself, then for him.
I woke up at the park again. It’s the only place my body can connect him to. It takes me there hoping he’ll be there too. He won’t. He’s somewhere I’ve never been and hasn’t given me too much information about. It needs to stay that way. My nails dig into my knees, and I rock forward on my couch as flashbacks I hate reliving flood my memories.
Rory is screaming and a bright light is shining above me. I’m shielding my eyes and someone is behind me, twisting my arm up my back until a knife falls next to my feet.
My breaths scratch at the back of my throat, and my skin tightens around me. It’s suffocating. I hate being stuck here, unable to pull myself out of the paralyzing episode I’m having. That look of horror and anger in Rory’s eyes has haunted me for the last year. My nails scratch so hard at the fabric of my jeans that I’m nearly piercing my skin.
Remembering what my therapist told me, I breathe through the panic running through me. It was a whole year ago, but it feels like I just got shoved into the back of the police car while being followed by those harsh, unforgettable eyes. Rory once said he could never hate me and yet it was all I felt rolling off him in that moment. I thought I was seeing things when a familiar face appeared behind him and large arms wrapped around his stiff shoulders.
I wish I was. Hunter held him in place, stopping him from coming to where I was, shouting at me through the window—“What the hell is wrong with you, Hernandez?”—the exact way he did when we were overseas together and I asked him about what I couldn’t remember the night before. Did he tell Rory what he wouldn’t tell me? I wasn’t going to hurt the man Iloved. I know I wasn’t. I swore up and down about it being some misunderstanding, but Rory wouldn’t hear it.
“I can’t do this with you anymore, Raf,” were the last words he said to me.
That should have been me whispering reassuring words in his ear and wiping his tears. Not my old friend. Instead, I was the cause of it all. It was one thing for the men I worked with and considered friends to be scared of me, but there should never have been a scenario that led him to that place. Rory was there when I thought I was at my lowest point, but he didn’t stay when I actually was.
Why would he? The coming home late, not able to tell him where I’d been. The blood he’d scrub off my shoes, asking over and over for me to try to remember where it came from. He couldn’t do it anymore, and I guess I was having a harder time with that revelation than I thought. It doesn’t matter if I thought I’d never hurt him, Rory was sure I wanted to. Everyone was.
Huey nudges at my hand with his snout and I scratch between his ears, giving him the massage. “Want to go for a walk, bud?”
He snorts, jumping from the couch and looking back at me as he paces in front of the door. “I’ll take that as a yes,” I say between chuckles, slowly getting to my feet. As I’m walking out the door, my phone makes a loud chirping sound, and I sigh as my eyes scan over the screen.
My chest squeezes tight as I reject the request. Someone else will take it again. Someone else already has. Maybe many different people. Will he ask them to watch movies with him too? Will they be there when he rolls cookies down off the counter and that laugh of his flows through the phone.
Yeah, I think I’m way beyond hope at this point, and being cooped up in my house all day doesn’t help. The short walks with Huey are starting not to either. An impatient Huey drags me forward, barely giving me time to close the door behind me. Hesniffs around my car, and as I tug at his lead, my eyes widen at the flat tires. What the hell?
They were fine this morning. I circle the car and they’re all flat. Gashes line random areas of each tire. What the hell? Who would do this? Teeth clenching harder, I look around, but the only other person outside is an elderly neighbor, Mrs. Roberts.
She waves my way, lifting her watering can with her other hand, and I force a smile, waving back. Letting out a deep sigh, I decide to deal with this all tomorrow and continue with our daily stroll. It doesn’t make sense why anyone would slash my tires? Was it random? Had to be. No one really knows me here. I haven’t given them much of a chance to. Sure, the baristas at the local coffee shop and some of the grocery store clerks know me by name, but that’s the extent of it.
“Morning,” someone shouts, walking past me on the trail.
