Lovers at Heart (30 page)

There he was. Why did his green eyes look friendly? That’s not what he’d looked like at the end, in those weeks she’d spent stifled by his aggression. Now he was smiling like he was glad to see her.

He took a step forward, and again she had no control over her legs as they took a step backward.

“Max?” He wore a dark blue suit with a gold badge over his breast pocket that read
ryan cobain, hotel manager
, and he was walking—Directly. Toward. Max.

She willed herself to stand tall, and this time, her body obeyed. She looked down at Treat’s shirt, now wishing she had dressed a little nicer. He had the edge on her in his nice suit, on his turf.
Wait! What am I thinking?
I control this meeting, not him.
Pull it together, Max
.
Pretend he’s a sponsor—no, a salesman. That’s it. He’s a vendor who wants a deal, and I have to be strong. Stand my ground.

Max felt her shoulders draw back and her neck stretch tall. She felt the familiar strength that she’d called upon so often with her career, the strength that began in her gut and traveled into her limbs. She took a step forward, then another, and extended her hand.
I can do this
.

“Ryan,” she said in a frosty tone.

He took her hand and buried it within both of his.

She steeled herself against the initial jolt of panic, then allowed him to complete his greeting.

“So good to see you, Max. You look gorgeous, of course.”

“Thank you.”

He motioned toward a door beside the front desk. “Shall we go into my office and talk?”

Public. Stay in sight of others
. “You know, I’d really like a cup of coffee. Is there a restaurant on site?”

“Sure.”

She walked beside him down a wide hallway, shooting glances at him. He didn’t seem nervous, and he wasn’t acting sketchy. In fact, he seemed like the old Ryan—comfortable, confident. He led her to a small, dimly lit restaurant, where they were seated at a table off to the side.

“I was surprised to hear from you,” Ryan said. He called over the waitress so Max could order a cup of coffee. The waitress brought Ryan a glass of water.

Max watched his mannerisms and found them to be reflective of the boy she’d met when they’d first begun dating. Gone were the jumpy eyes and fast, uncontrolled movements she remembered from their last months together. It was a mask; she was sure of it.
A game that he’s just gotten better at
.

He said something she didn’t hear. She was too busy remembering how he’d changed over the duration of their relationship. Had she liked him before he’d changed? She thought she had. She remembered fluttering in her stomach when she saw him, and when they’d moved in together, they’d been friends. Yes. She was sure of it. She
had
liked who he was at that time, before he’d changed.

“I’m sorry. What did you say?” she asked.

“I didn’t think I’d ever hear from you again after—”

Max dropped her eyes, then silently scolded herself for doing it. This was her ball game. She called it; she controlled it.

“I surprised myself, quite honestly, but I wanted to…I needed closure.” Max had thought of all sorts of ways to handle Ryan, and in the end, she fell back on her fail-safe: honesty.

“I tried to track you down for weeks, Max. Your parents wouldn’t answer my calls. You, well, you never answered anything—calls, e-mails.”

She wouldn’t apologize for not returning his calls. She wouldn’t apologize for anything.

“I finally found you in Colorado.”

You tracked me down?
Every muscle in her legs tensed with fear.

“You worked for that small film company, then a festival company. I’ve written you dozens of letters and e-mails over the years, but never had the courage to send them.”

You stalked me. What if he’d shown up in Allure? What would I have done?

“In the end, I knew it was unfair to reach out to you,” he continued.

Ryan kept eye contact with her, which she found unsettling and reassuring at the same time. People didn’t keep eye contact if they had something to hide. Why wasn’t he acting like he’d done something so wrong to her that it had ruined her ability to have a real relationship?
Bastard
.

“I would have fled if I’d known you’d found me again,” Max said with her chin held high.

“I don’t blame you,” he said. He dropped his eyes.

There it was. Finally. A little remorse?

“Max, I owe you an explanation and an apology, which I know will never be enough to fix what I did.”

“I don’t want to hear your excuses, Ryan. There is no excuse for what you put me through.”
Then what do I want?
Tears of anger stung her eyes, and she refused to let them fall. Her voice rose despite her effort to remain calm. “You stole something from me, and I can never get it back. You stole my dignity, and you stole my trust.”

“I know I did, and I’ve regretted it every day of my life.”

Max didn’t hear him. She was too busy formulating her next accusation. “You made me fear relationships and turned me into someone who…” What was she doing? She didn’t come here to tell him what he’d
achieved
. She’d come here to tell him that she was fine even though he’d tried his best to tear her down.

“Max—”

“No, Ryan. I honestly do not want to hear your excuses. They’re meaningless.”

“Max, I was sick. Okay? It’s not an excuse.”

Max pulled her shoulders back. She was ready for lies. She’d expected them. “Right, Ryan. I was there, remember? You weren’t sick. You just changed. You stopped talking to everyone, stopped talking to me. You’d look at me with this cold stare sometimes, and it was like you had been hiding your meanness, or your hatred for me, for all those months, and then you just released them.”

“Max—”

“I’m not stupid. I took the hint. I just took it one night too late. And I know it had to do with agreeing to move wherever I got a job instead of where you did. I’ve finally figured it all out—”

“Max!” His voice was deep and loud, startling her out of her rant.

“Max, I’m schizophrenic. They missed all the signs over that year or so. We all did. After you left, I fell apart. I spiraled out of control so badly at times that I was afraid to even go home.”

“Schizophrenic?” Max had not seen that coming. She narrowed her eyes, looking for signs of deceit.

“Think about it, Max. My behavior changed. When I look back now, I see it. That night I…hurt you? It wasn’t even you that I was seeing or yelling at. I was sexually abused when I was little, but I’d blocked it out. I was delusional. In my mind, it wasn’t you I was hurting. It was the woman who had molested me.”

“Oh, Ryan.” All the bravado that had built up in her chest came tumbling down. “How did you find out?”

“One night I hurt someone else. Badly. She didn’t call the police or anything, but she could have. In fact,” he said with his eyebrows drawn together, “she probably should have. That’s when I knew something was really wrong. I went home and told my parents that I wasn’t going to leave their house because I was afraid of what I might do to someone else.”

Max thought of Ryan’s quiet, polite mother, and she couldn’t imagine her hearing about what he’d done to her—or anyone else—which turned Max’s stomach. She’d considered calling the police when Ryan had hurt her, but the shame of willingly allowing him to use that thing on her had held her back. Now she realized she might have saved the other woman from being hurt if she’d filed a police report.

“You hurt someone else?”

Ryan explained that he’d hooked up with another girl a few nights after Max had left him, and they’d gone back to her apartment off campus. While they were in bed, she’d taken the dominant role, and Ryan’s memories had come rushing back. He told her that it was as if he’d blacked out. He didn’t remember hitting the woman, or calling her names, and when he’d regained control, she had locked herself in the bathroom, bruised and bleeding. She told him that if he left, she wouldn’t report him to the police.

“After being back home for a week or two, my parents began to notice—or maybe
accept
is a better word—the changes. My father tracked down psychiatrists and psychologists. He took me to just about every doctor he could find. They all made the same diagnosis, but he didn’t want to accept it. Hell, I didn’t want to accept it, but I also didn’t want to be that person who hurt people.”

“Should I have seen something? Did I miss a major sign? Was it triggered by the thought of moving with me out of state?” Max asked.
All these years I thought your anger was aimed at me specifically. What else have I misjudged?

“No. It had nothing to do with that. They don’t really know why I started recalling the memories, but I went through an inpatient program where they assessed and treated and reassessed. You know my mom. She was nowhere near prepared to deal with this. I’ve gone through years of therapy, and it took forever for them to find the right protocol of drugs to even things out. But you know, it’s been a few years since they figured it all out.” He shrugged. “And now it’s just a part of who I am and who I will always be. Luckily, with medication, I’m not violent, and I don’t have delusions anymore or anything. I just kind of live a regular life with all of that hanging over me.” He took a drink of water, and then said, “Max, I’m not telling you this to gain your sympathy. I take full responsibility for my illness and my actions. But I am glad that you got in touch with me. I have been wanting to explain it to you and to apologize. I know you, Max, and I know you probably blamed yourself all these years. You’re so sensitive. It’s one of the things I loved about you. I’m so sorry. For those weeks, that night, and for all the nights since then that you’ve relived it. If I could erase it all from your mind and add your burden to mine, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

It wasn’t me. It wasn’t because he was going to move with me.
The thoughts of her misplaced blame were quickly pushed aside and replaced with thoughts of Ryan, the boy she’d known before he changed, and the man he was, bravely sitting there with her.

“You must have been so scared.”
As scared as I was that night
.

“Petrified. Imagine not wanting to live in your own skin. That’s what it was like,” he said honestly. “When I think back to how I hurt you for all those months, the awful things I said, and that night…and then, that other woman…I just wish it all never happened.”

She saw in his eyes honesty and pain, and beyond that, she saw something else, too, that she had never expected to see again. She saw the young man who was her friend.

“Ryan, I forgive you.” If anyone had asked her yesterday if she’d ever forgive Ryan Cobain, she would have said,
Never
, without hesitation. As she looked at him sitting across from her, not hiding behind his illness, not shirking the responsibility of having done those hurtful acts, but laying his life out for her like an open book, she felt the anger leaving her body, floating out with the words as they rolled off her tongue. “I do, Ryan. I forgive you.”

He looked down at his lap, then up again. A little nag in the back of Max’s mind worried that he’d look back with those cold, dead eyes—but he didn’t. The same warm man who had apologized only moments before was right there in front of her, looking at her with empathy, honesty, and tears in his eyes.

“I can’t tell you what that means to me,” he admitted. “I didn’t mean to get so emotional.”

“How could you not? This whole thing is emotional. Those years were emotional. Do you remember what we were like when we first met? Everything had us on an emotional high.” She smiled at the happier memories as they coasted through her mind.

“Yeah, I do.” He wrinkled his brow. “Max, I have to ask, why now? After all these years, why are you just tracking me down now?”

Max touched her shirt.
Treat
.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he added. “It’s none of my business. I was just curious.”

“It’s okay. I don’t mind telling you. I met someone and, well, I’m not the same person I was when I was with you. After I left, I became stronger, self-sufficient.”
But remained scared
.

“Wait. Do you put out your own trash?” he asked with a teasing smile.

“Yup.” She grinned, remembering how she’d deemed that a
boy job
.

“Clean the toilets?” he asked with a smirk.

She nodded.

“No way. Wait. Do you ask for help in stores?”

“All the time. Gosh, I’d forgotten how shy I was. What a mess I was back then.” She covered her eyes and shook her head.

“You were adorable, Max. I always knew how strong you were. I never had any doubt about your strength or courage. You were destined to accomplish whatever it was you dreamed of. So, this guy, does he treat you well?”

Max thought of Treat.
He’s what I dream of
. “We’re not together right now. I…I ended things. It’s a long story, but he stirred things in me that made me want him to take care of me, and I think that scared the shit out of me.” Talking to the old Ryan was easy, comforting even. If only she’d learned years ago what she now saw so clearly. How different would her life have been? And if she hadn’t come to slay her demons…She couldn’t even go there. It was too painful to think of how close she’d come to turning around and going home.

“You do realize that it’s okay to let guys do things for you, right? It doesn’t mean that they’ll hurt you. What I have is pretty rare, Max, and we were right at that age when it shows up. We’re past that now. I don’t think you have to worry about another guy going bat-shit crazy on you out of the blue.” Ryan wasn’t making fun of her. He was being honest. Again.

“Yeah, I see that now. For all these years I thought you hurt me because you resented me because you were the one to give up what you wanted to follow me wherever I got a job. I was sure of it. It’s guided my relationships, or maybe I should say my lack of relationships.”

“Max, I would have followed you anywhere. That’s what relationships are, give and take. Compromises are essential.” Ryan watched a petite redhead heading their way, and when she arrived at their table, he reached out to her. “Rachelle, this is Max.” A warmth connected their gaze, and Max knew that Ryan cared for her.