“It’s okay to be angry, to be sad and feel down. You need it – the pain helps you come out the other side. But there’s light, Ryan: you just have to follow it, and you’ll see that, bit by bit, the pain’ll fade. And there’ll be new emotions to keep the pain at bay.”
I look at her. Riley always has a flicker of sadness in her eyes, something that makes her real and vulnerable; but she also has strength, and kindness. Her past wasn’t easy: a violent father, who abused her and her brother Jamie for years, right up to the day that he beat her so badly that she was taken to hospital. She was almost eighteen years old, and Jamie was still underage. They arrested their father and took her brother away. She ended up sleeping on the street, and it took a lot of time and hard work to get her life back together, to regain custody of Jamie. She raised him, put him first, helped him to become the champion that he is today. She never thought of herself, hiding behind others for years to protect their past – but also to protect themselves, knowing that remembering could make them suffer.
Then my dickhead brother arrived. He fell in love with her right away, but it took years for them to get together. Ian has abandonment issues: his mother left him when he was a boy. He was fifteen years old when he came to us – Nick brought him home one evening, after finding him sleeping under the bleachers of the school sports field, where he’d been hiding for days. My parents didn’t think twice before taking him in, and he legally became my brother when they adopted him. But Ian never forgot about his mother, his fear of being abandoned again an open wound, preventing him from trusting anyone. He never let himself love, never let women into his life.
But Riley is Riley, and he – well, he fell for her. Now they’re together, and they’re expecting a baby. Maybe this means that there’s a second chance for everyone, despite their past, their wounds and their pain.
“Is that how it works for you?” I ask her bluntly.
Her gaze softens again. “More or less.”
“Does that mean you’re not really happy?”
“No, I am happy. But there will always be parts of me that are shattered, that I can never put back together. But that doesn’t stop me from living in the present, from appreciating how far I’ve come and who I am today. I have so much to live for, without letting the past keep dictating my life.”
“Do you think that could happen for me too?”
I don’t know why I’m asking her this.
“I’m sure it can. If you just let her see who you really are…”
“H-her?” I ask, panic-stricken.
“Oh Ryan…” Riley shakes her head. “Do you think I’m stupid? That we all are?”
“W-we?”
She laughs – but she isn’t making fun of me.
“I think we managed to work something out…at least you’ve stopped following her into toilets now…”
“This again?”
“If you just try to be…you.”
“But thisisme, Riley. I am what you see.”
She looks at me, one eyebrow raised, with an expression that saysI know who you are, and so do you.
“Little Ryan,” she says affectionately. For the first time, the word ‘little’ doesn’t piss me off. “You’re trying to be who you want to be, but that isn’t you. We all know it – and, by now, I think she does, too.”
