Chapter Twenty-Four
Rick
“Rick, man, whatever you’re doing, you have to stop. Your muscles feel like steel, and in your case, that is not a good thing.”
“Rub it in,” I mutter, lying on Liam’s massage table for the third time this week.
Only a handful of days into the new year, and already it isn’t treating me well.
“I can only do what I can do,” he says, going to work on a particularly nasty knot in my lower back. “Whatareyou doing? Shoveling snow? DYI maintenance? You need to stop it and hire that shit out. You’re going to hurt yourself, and even I won’t be able to fix you.”
“I haven’t been doing anything.”
“That’s not what your back’s telling me.”
I like Liam’s office space, which is good because I spend a lot of time here. The music, the scent, the landscapes hanging on the walls, they’re soothing. When the building downtown is refurbished, I’m going to ask him if he wants to move or open another office. If he wants to expand, I’ll invest. He’s already saved me more times than I’ll ever admit to him since I left Devyn high and dry without an explanation. I owe him.
He pauses. “Is this about Devyn?”
“Can you please not go into your heart, soul, mind, and body crap?” I hate when he brings her up, hate that maybe, if Devyn and I were together, I would feel better, that maybe I’d stop having nightmares, stop waking up drenched in sweat. Last night I woke up stiff and in so much pain from a fucked up nightmare she was marrying someone else, I fell out of bed, landed on my bad hip, and I had to drag myself to the kitchen for a drink and a handful of ibuprofen. I almost called an ambulance, but I couldn’t get Devyn’s cold and lifeless body out of my head and I’d made do alone.
“You know it’s true or you wouldn’t sound so angry. Why can’t you tell me what’s going on? From the beginning.”
I stare at the wall, my lips pressed together.
“I blocked off two hours for you, dude,” he says when I don’t speak. “You’re not getting out of here any time soon.”
“I miss her.” The words sound like twisted metal.
“She dump you? Tell you she never wants to see you again? Is that why you’re telling me and not her?”
Wincing when he probes another delicate area along my lower back, I say, “No. I broke up with her.” I haven’t told Liam much of anything, only that I’d fallen in love with a woman name Devyn, and we weren’t together anymore. He’d needed a reason why my body continued to be in this fucked up state, and I had to give him something. A love affair gone wrong had been just enough to shut him up, but not enough for me to stop dealing with the consequences.
“If you love her, then why aren’t you with her?”
“Because she works in Cedar Hill. She’s a big-time reporter. I can’t live there. You keep talking about spirit, mind, and soul, and yes, I can’t live there because of what it would do to my mental health. I cut her loose. I didn’t want her to have to choose me over her job. It sounds dumb, but she’ll set the world on fire, she really will.”
“Why is Cedar Hill so evil?” Liam asks, digging his thumbs into my muscles in such a way I want to scream.
“All of it,” I say around painful grunts. “The traffic, the noise. I was hurt there. Do you think I need to be reminded of it with every waking breath? That accident ruined my whole life. I want nothing to do with that fucking place.”
“Are you seeing someone? Talking this out? You went through a helluva traumatic experience. You could be suffering from PTSD; it might help smooth things out.” He dribbles more oil onto my skin.
“You’re it.” I hadn’t considered talking to a therapist. Devyn told me she and Talia banked hundreds of hours in therapy dealing with Talia’s Sweet addiction. The closest I’ve come is talking to my doctor about constant pain management and how important it was to make an appointment with him to hash things out than take matters, and pills, into my own hands. “Any advice?” I ask to humor him. Or maybe I’m so desperate I’ll listen to any kernel of wisdom I can find.
Liam goes to work on my shoulders. I still feel a sickening pain from rescuing Devyn that night, and I’ve been avoiding seeing my doctor for an x-ray. I don’t want another surgery to repair something I might have (definitely) torn. “Seems to me you’re going to be miserable no matter what you do, so you might as well pick the path that will leave you the least miserable.”
“Fuck. Thanks a lot.”
He laughs. “What? You don’t think it’s true? You don’t want to live in Cedar Hill, I get it. I’m not cut out for big city living either. I like it here, same as you. But you’re not happy here. What would make you happy here?”
“Devyn.” Her name is sweet and fast on my lips.
“Okay. So it seems you have three choices—”
“Three?” Sounds like a lot from where I’m lying.
“Sure. You can go back to Cedar Hill. There has to be more than only Devyn that would help you tolerate it. You had friends there, probably still do. You don’t have to live in the city, in your fancy, claustrophobic penthouse. Build a house in the suburbs with a huge yard. Pick a neighborhood with good schools and knock her up. But if you really can’t live in Cedar Hill anymore, like mentally, it would ruin you, ask her to move here. If she loves you as much as you love her, she would, you know, because that’s how love works. You’d still be miserable because she did what you didn’t want her to do: choose you over her job, but maybe to a lesser, healthier, degree. Or three, do nothing. Let her set the world on fire, while you stay here in Old Harbor and turn into an icy old man. She’ll meet someone else, and you can have all the nightmares you want.”