This is How I Break - Rick's return

 

I prayed to a god I no longer believed in and pressed the call button.

The line never rang on his end. There was just his voice, saying, “Hey, you,” in such a gentle way that suddenly I was in floods of tears. Whatever cool, sensible words I’d meant to utter were drowned in a tidal wave of grief. “Why did you come back?” I demanded. “Why didn’t you just stay away?”

“I guess because I didn’t want to.”

This classic Rick answer hit me like a hammer blow. Reeling, I told him, “I didn’t love you. I never even liked you. I was only with you because I didn’t know how not to be. You never gave me a choice.”

There was a long pause on the other end. I hated myself for being so cruel—so false—but had no will to apologize. I just sat there, dying inside, until Rick said, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah,” he answered. “Okay. That doesn’t change how I feel about you, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean go ahead and say whatever it is you need to say, if it will make you feel better. It won’t make any difference to me.”

“You’re not making sense.”

“I think you understand.”

“No, I don’t. What do you want?”

“You know what I want.”

“You can’t want to get back together,” I charged. “It would be insane.”

“We never broke up. You just needed some time away from me, and I needed to sort my head out. If you’d wanted me around, I would have stayed. I kept my distance until you needed me to come back. Now here I am.”

“What makes you think I needed you to come back?” I argued, but when Rick returned, “Are you saying you didn’t?” I lost my venom. In fact, I lost it completely. I just curled up into a ball on the floor, the phone still pressed against my ear, and nearly tore myself apart with the force of my sobs.

“Stevie,” Rick said, his tone changing, “I need you to get up and open the door.”

I struggled for breath as my bare feet worked against the floor, over and over again.

“I know you’re having a terrible time,” he told me, “but you need to be strong for just a few seconds, all right? Stand up, go into the living room, and open the door.”

“I can’t do this, I’m not going to be okay, I keep trying and I’m never going to be okay...”

“Stevie. Open your door.”

“...What?”

“Open your door,” Rick repeated. “You’re going to be all right. You just need to open your door and let me in.”

“You’re here?”

“I’m right outside. And if you don’t let me in, I’m going to break the door down, and the neighbors will call the police. You don’t want that, do you?”

I certainly didn’t. But I had already stopped listening, because I was now running into the living room. I threw the door open and there he was, filling up the whole space.

Rick.

He caught me as I fell into his arms.

For a moment I was convinced my imagination had conjured him, but he felt strong and solid and like a million beautiful dreams all come true at once. Even Daisy, rubbing her head against his leg, wanted to be near him. “Don’t let go,” I wept to him.

“I’m not going to,” he said. “Ever.”