Page 88 of Resting Grump Face
“The nickname‘Ryker the Recluse’doesn’t come from nowhere. You push people away as soon as they get close to you. Scratch that. You push them away before they can get close to you.”
“First of all, no one calls me that. And secondly, unfortunately, not true.” I motion at him. “Exhibit A is sittingright next to me.” Then I let my head fall back against the headrest and look out the window. The sky is a nice orange hue hinting at warmer days ahead. Better days where I won’t feel like someone scooped out my insides with a fucking melon baller.
“I mean, for fuck’s sake,” he jolts me out of my depressing daydreams, “she was obsessed with you. I literally saw her steal a picture of your smug face from your wall. Who does something like that, unless they’re seriously smitten? And you know what? I think you are too. So you need to talk. Talk it out. If I have learned anything from all the books that I read while I wait for you in here, it’s that almost any problem can be solved with proper communication. Unless she wanted to take revenge on you for stealing her magic powers and therefore banged your step dadd?—”
“Do not finish that sentence,” I try to interrupt him, but it only takes a second before he goes on about me and my defunct relationships and how it’s apparently time to finally grow up.
Almost any problem can be solved with proper communication.
I try to tune him out. I just want to sit down in my grandma’s rocking chair, embroider some handkerchiefs, and be left the fuck alone. Unfortunately, his words keep repeating in my mind. I recline my seat and close my eyes. Rays of sun intermittently shine through the tall buildings lining the horizon.
Fuck.
I don’t open my eyes until the car finally comes to a halt.
“Turn around,” I command, and sit straight up. “I need to go scream at her.”
“Talk to her. You need to go talk to her,” Miles says with insistence. “But good, because we’re already here.”
I rub my eyes and look outside. The weathered facade of Haven hovers over us.
“I should fire you.”
“And when you say‘fire’, you mean raise my salary by another 10%, right?”
I grunt, grab my briefcase, step out, and throw the door shut. My (already overpaid) driver peels out of the driveway with squealing tires.
When I think about Sienna being inside, dreaming up fantastical stories, and, for whatever fucked up reason, publishing them on the internet to hurt me or my career, a shudder runs down my back, and my resolution to speak with her weakens. I walk over to the little seating area that is surrounded by a few trees and shrubs. No one is there and the only noise I hear is from the cars down the block. A candy wrapper is lying next to a bench.
Maybe she had a good reason for doing what she did?
I slap myself, pick up the wrapper, and throw it into the trash can.
There are no good reasons for what she did. None.
I sit down and watch my feet bob up and down impatiently.
Even if talking can’t solve this problem, maybe at least it can explain things.
I get up again and pace over to a table with an integrated chess board where I find a few cigarette butts that I also gather and throw away.
What’s the worst that could happen?
I pace back and forth between the trees.
She could confirm what I was worried about all along.
That she, too, just used me.
Betrayed me.
Like everyone else.
I find an old newspaper, bend down and pick it up. When I get back up, I knock my head on something hard. I stumble a little and promptly hit my head again. The last thing I see is the grass coming closer as everything goes dark.
32
PAUL
