More Than Enough (More Than Series, Book 5) (43 page)

But it doesn’t matter that I love her and I miss her and I’d do anything if she would just get in my truck that’s no longer drivable and sit next to me while we drove to the calm of the horizon.

After a few minutes, they both join me. I don’t know what they had to say to each other. I don’t care.

“Take me home,” I tell them.

“All right, man,” Jake says, turning the car over.

It doesn’t take long before they start talking again.

“I used to see my dad,” Logan says. “My real dad. In my nightmares. He’d come and beat the shit out of me and I’d wake up in a pool of sweat and sometimes piss, and I’m not talking when I was a kid, man, I’m talking two fucking years ago. I had a break down when I was with Doctors Without Borders and a psych diagnosed me with PTSD. I was on meds for a long time. And then I came home and Amanda—”

“So you’re saying I go running back to Riley and hope she forgives me?” I ask, my tone flat. It’s not like I don’t appreciate what he’s saying, and there’s a part of me that feels like the biggest asshole in the world that I didn’t know any of this about him considering he’s one of my best friends, but nothing he’s saying is relevant. At least not to me.

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“So what then?”

“You know after what happened with me before I left, Amanda changed her major.”

I lean back in my seat and look over at Jake, sitting silent, driving like a fucking grandma. I wonder if he at least knows where the fuck this conversation’s going.

Logan continues, “She changed her major to psychology.”

And there it is.

“She’s actually pretty good,” Jake finally chimes in. “My dad sends some of the kids he works with to her. Not so much for sessions but more as a mentor.”

“So?” I ask. “She’s going to braid my hair and everything’ll be better?”

Logan faces me, a scowl on his face.

I look out the window.

And I stay that way until the car pulls up in front of my house.

They start to get out but I stop them. “I just need some time,” I tell them honestly.

And silence.

Fuck, I need the silence.

Dylan

M
artin Luther King
once said “In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends” and as I sit on the couch, the TV on mute, and my mind on Riley, I wonder if it’s true.

I wonder if I’ll remember about the recent events in my life and be able to recall The Turning Point. I wonder if I’ll look back on Dave as an enemy, because right now, that’s what he feels like. I wonder if the silence of my friends for the past week was their form of showing me they care.

“I just need some time,” was the last thing I told them. And I meant it.

But now I’m here, surrounded by silence so loud it’s deafening. And I’d give just about anything to feel something else.

The fear is
still here.

So is the grief.

But the silence I crave is nowhere to be seen.

I didn’t think
coming home would hurt this much. Actually, I didn’t think about it at all. Had I done so, I probably would’ve found somewhere else to stay, just until someone could come in and remove everything so I could sell it and move out. The second I walked in, I was filled with memories of Riley. She’d picked out every single piece of furniture, chosen every paint color, decided on the placement of everything. We even stood in the flooring store for three hours while she debated over the carpet that lay under my feet. I’d give anything to have those three hours back.

I haven’t left the house. I haven’t needed to. Eric and Dad bring me enough food to feed an army. I barely eat. I can’t. I barely sleep. I can’t do that either. I definitely can’t sleep in our bed. I realized that the moment I stepped in there. It got worse when I walked into the bathroom to see the shattered mirror. It seemed like forever ago since I punched that fucking thing while she stood right in front of me, her eyes wide, her body shaking from fear. It was three weeks post Dave. Two weeks since I’d been back. Two nights since I’d been home.

Time.

Time is fucking stupid.

A knock on the door pulls me from my thoughts.

Dad and Eric have a key and let themselves in.

Sydney always calls before she comes.

The knocking starts again and I sigh. Finally, I get off my ass and limp over to the door.

The second I see her, time stops.

So does my heart.

“Hi,” Riley whispers, raising her hand. She’s even more beautiful than I let myself remember.

I inhale deeply. Hold it. And wait for the world to start spinning again.

It doesn’t.

“Hi,” I finally manage to say, my entire body rigid.

Her gaze moves from me to inside the house. “Are you busy?”

I shake my head, my words caught in my throat.

“I just came by to get a few things if that’s okay?”

I open the door wider for her, my stomach flipping as she steps inside, her bare arm skimming mine. There’s a weight on my chest, about as heavy as the one on my shoulders. My mouth’s dry, my mind’s spinning. My heart—I don’t know… I don’t have possession of it. I did. And then she showed up, reached inside, and stole it without me even realizing.

“My mom came by, as you know,” she says over her shoulder as she makes her way to the living room. She starts to pick up a few of Bacon’s toys.
Bacon
. I haven’t even thought about Bacon. She adds, “She got some of my things, but not everything I needed so…” She turns around, her eyes on mine while I just stand there, crutches under my arm, wondering how it is she’s functioning the way she is when I feel like death.

What a stupid saying.

No one feels death.

It just happens. One second you’re breathing, the next you’re not.

Dying
, yes. You can feel like you’re dying, but the actual death part—no. Or, at least I choose to believe that.

Because I’d hate to think otherwise.

What a morbid fucking thought.

“Anyway, I guess that’s why I’m here,” she continues. “I’ll be quick. Just ignore me.”

Right. That should be easy enough.

I sit on the couch and continue to stare up at the ceiling like I was doing before she decided to ruin me.

I ignore her familiar scent as she walks past me. I ignore the sounds of her footsteps as she moves around the house. And I ignore the fact that I can’t fucking ignore her at all. Her steps, her sounds, her moves, her very presence is everything.
Everything
.

Something scrapes against the tiles of the kitchen and before I know it, I’m choosing not to ignore her. My steps are rushed, or as rushed as they can be when I’m on crutches. She’s dragging a chair across the room. “What are you doing?” I ask, finally finding my voice.

She smiles at me.

She.

Smiles.

At.

Me!

Hate me, Riley. Why don’t you hate me?

“I couldn’t reach something in the bedroom.”

I hobble over to the bedroom, hesitating for a second to prepare my heart for the onslaught my next move will create. I step into the room, stopping just inside and I inhale deeply. It was supposed to be calming. It’s not. The room smells like her. Like us. Like us
together
.

I stay still as she walks around me, her side grazing mine when she steps in front of me. She faces the wall opposite the bed and points up. “Dylan?”

I shut my eyes, my stomach dropping, my mind fearing my body’s reaction to the way she says my name.

It’s not just the memories that cause the fear.

It’s the longing.

It’s her.

“I just wanted to take these frames with me if you don’t want them…”

My eyes snap open, my gaze on her first, before I follow the length of her arm, her finger pointed to two black and white photographs hanging on the wall.

I’d never seen them before. Never even knew they were there.

I reach up, grab the first frame and hand it to her, then I grab the other. I don’t give her this one. I can’t. Not yet. Instead, I stare at it. And that’s all I do.

My emotions keep me anchored to my spot, my heart heavy, my breaths heavier.

I skim my thumb across the glass. Behind it, there’s a black and white image of her smiling face, a familiar one I’d only seen through the screen of the computer. There’s an inset of me in the corner from when I was deployed, staring back, smiling right along with her.

“I took a screen shot when we spoke once,” she says.

I tear my gaze away from the image and look at her. She’s looking down at the picture she’s holding—identical to mine, only I take up the frame and she’s the inset.

She releases a breath as she sits on the edge of the bed, her fingers stroking the glass. “I kind of just wanted to remind myself that even though we were oceans apart, we were still together, you know?” She looks up at me, her eyes no longer clear but glassy, filling with tears.

I sit down next to her, ignoring the voices in my head that tell me not to—that it’ll just make it worse, but I’m drained—of will and of sense—and I can’t find the strength to stay upright.

“I hung them a few days before you got back. I figured you didn’t see them because you never mentioned it.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell her, my focus back on the frame I’m gripping so tight my knuckles are white.

“It’s okay,” she says quietly. “You had a lot on your mind.”

The room fills with the sounds of our heavy breaths and the silence of our incredible heartbreak.

“Is it true? What you said to my mom in the hospital?”

I inhale deeply, the sound echoing off the walls.

“That you wanted me to hate you?”

I nod once.

“Why?” she whispers. She’s fighting to contain her cry but I feel it. I feel every ounce of pain she’s trying so hard to hide. “Why not just tell me to leave?”

“Because I’m a fucking coward, Riley.” I sit up, my hands stretched behind me as I look up at the ceiling. “I wanted to plant the seed in your head—the seed of loathing. So you were convinced it’s something you wanted. Because I know you, Riley. I know if I’d say that you’d come back. You’ll beg and you’ll plead and I’ll give in because I love you. I love you more than anything. And it’s not enough. It never will be.”

“That’s a fucking lie, Dylan.”

My eyes snap to her, but she’s still looking at the frame. “You know I love you. You know I’d always put you first.
Always
. If you didn’t want me anymore, I would’ve left. If you were suffering and you wanted to do it alone, you could’ve said that. If you needed time, I would’ve given it to you. You didn’t come to me, Dylan.” She stands up and faces me. Then takes the frame from me. “You didn’t let me be the glue that held you together, and that’s all I wanted to be for you. I’m sorry if that wasn’t enough.”

I find the strength to reach for her, but she moves away.

“My mom once told me that the hardest part of her day was the few seconds her hand would cover my doorknob and…” She pauses, wiping tears with the back of her hand. “…she was so afraid I wouldn’t be able to find the strength to get through the day and I’d do something I couldn’t take back.”

“Ry, I’m not…”

“It must be hard—as a parent—to know that your child might have those thoughts and those insecurities.”

“I don’t.”

“Reach out to your dad, Dylan. Take away the worry, okay?”

I watch her spin on her heels, her steps rushed as she walks through the door. I listen to those same steps move across the hallway, and finally, the front door open and close, shutting me out of her life and out of her world.

Riley

Dylan,

I realized something today as I let the memories of the forever you’d created for us rip my heart in two.

I was wrong.

There’s no emotion greater than love.

No ache greater than longing.

No sound greater than you.

Dylan

A
n entire week
passes before I work up the courage to take her advice. I shower, dress, and do my best to look presentable. I call a cab to drive me the few minutes it takes to get to Dad’s house.

It’s hard to
make eye contact with the people you hurt, especially when they love you as much as my family loves me. There was never a doubt in the loyalty and honor of the Banks men. Not until I went and changed all of that.

I disappointed them.

I disappointed myself.

I look up at my brother again, a man who’s always been there for me, and then over at my dad as we sit around the kitchen table, my leg propped up on the seat Riley used to occupy.

From the corner of my eye, I see Sydney’s arm move, her hand most likely going to Eric’s leg under the table, showing her support.

I hurt her too.

I hurt everybody. Riley especially—but no amount of apologizing will ever make up for what I did to her.

Eric blows out a breath.

I switch my gaze back to him. After a thousand different words run through my mind—reasons, excuses, all of them useless, I decide on the truth. “Fuck man. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Quit cursing at the table,” Dad says quietly.

Eric shrugs, not giving anything away. Then he leans forward, his forearms on the table. “Remember that time when you were in second grade and you fell off your bike and broke your arm?”

“Yeah…”

“Two days earlier I heard you tell Dad that you’d seen me smoking out in the yard when he was at work and I was supposed to be taking care of you. So, I saw you out on the sidewalk riding my old bike, happy as a pig in shit and I picked up a stick and threw that fucker right at your wheel. I told Dad you must’ve hit a rock. I convinced you of the same. So I guess this is payback.”

Dad stands quickly. “We’re family, son. End of discussion.”

I’d created the chaos that brought me here and as easy as that, they offered me the calm to face reality again.