Page 108 of Saving Ren
“I want to know what happened to you that made you think you wouldn’t ever have this. You know all about me and why I’m so fucked up, but I feel like I’m missing something with you.”
“I don’t think you’re ready,” I tell her, kissing the back of her hand to ease the blow of my words. “I know I promised total honesty, and you will get that from me, but I think right now is too soon.”
I watch as she undoes her seatbelt and turns in her seat to face me.
“You’ve seen me at my worst. Beaten black and blue and at my most vulnerable. You’ve witnessed me throwing up in a sink and held my hair when I did it on the side of the road. You’ve held me tight when I’ve cried in the middle of the night, even when I’ve tried to fight you off after the nightmares I’ve had about my husband coming back to finish what he started. And after all of that, you don’t think I’m ready to knowyourstory?”
I know by her tone that I’ve pissed her off. Taking off my seatbelt, I let out a long sigh.
“What happened to youhappened to you. My story’s different. You were helpless to stop what your husband did. . . I. . . fuck.” I don’t know how to explain this to herwithoutexplaining it to her, without telling her everything.
“You don’t know me well enough yet. When you know me better. . .”
“So you can know all of my humiliating, dirty little secrets, let me sleep in your bed, bury your tongue inside me, but I can’t know? Ya know what? It’s fine. Total honesty you said, so how’s this for some total honesty? You’re full of shit.”
Before I can respond, she pushes the passenger door open, slides out of my truck, then uses two hands to slam the door shut.
“Fuck!” I tilt my head towards the interior roof and shout while squeezing my eyes shut. When I open them and turn towards the front door, I expect to see Lauren standing there waiting for me to let her in. She’s not.
When I look around, I find her inside the pool fence, the pool cover winding back while Lauren’s pulling off her clothes.
“What the fuck?” I question as I climb out of my truck. “What the fuck are you doing?” I shout again as I approach her. Without a word, she steps off the side and straight under the water wearing just her underwear.
Despite the sunny skies, it’s after four in the afternoon in mid-July. It’s mid-winter, and Melbourne’s coldest time of year. Thankfully, since having the pool cleaned, I’ve had the solar kicking over, but we’ve had barely any sun this week, so the water will be freezing.
Reaching the edge, I stare down at where Lauren jumped in, but she comes up in the middle of the pool and takes in a loud gulp of air.
“It’s fucking freezing in there. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Fuck off,” she shouts before going back under. Coming up this time at the other end of the pool, about the farthest part away from me.
“Get. The. Fuck. Out of there, Ren,” I shout as I march around to where she is. Still gasping for breath, she goes back under before I can reach her, this time, coming up treading water right in the middle of the pool.
“Frustrated much?” she shouts. “Sucks big fat hairy balls when something’s out of your control, doesn’t it? When someone won’t do as you ask and there’s nothing you can do to make them? Well, suck it up, buttercup, and welcome to my fucking world.”
“Ya know what? You wanna act like a child, stay there. Freeze. I don’t give a fuck.” Sounding a lot calmer than I feel, I shout out to her as I walk back towards the pool fence gate.
“I’m the child? You can’t have a discussion about events in your life that have made you the way you are, but I’m the fucking child? I think it’s you that needs to grow the fuck up, Gabe. This is how adult relationships work. It’s called communication, and guess what? It’s a two-way thing.”
She throws my own words back at me from a week ago, and on the inside, I lose my shit.
Reaching the outdoor furniture that sits in front of my pool house, rage and frustration hit me like it hasn’t done in years. I kick the first chair I come to, sending it crashing into the fence. I pick the next one up and throw it. It bounces off the table I aim it at before hitting the tiled floor.
I walk to the edge of the pool and snarl down at where Lauren now stands in the shallow end. “You want total. . .” I’m stopped dead in my tracks as she flinches and steps away from me. I take in her wide eyes, the way her chest moves up and down and her mouth hangs open as she draws in breaths.
“Ren,” I say quietly, reaching out with my hand. The water splashes as she ducks and backs further away from me.
“No,” I straighten and call after her. “No, no, no. Baby, please. I would never. . .”
She pulls herself up the steps and out of the pool, arms wrapped around her as she moves to the sun lounger where she left her clothes.
“Babe, listen to me. . .” I stop both talking and moving towards her when she holds up her hand to me.
“Stay—Stay over there,” she pants out.
I want to believe she’s cold and that’s what’s making her body shake and her jaw tremble, but I know, I fucking know what I’ve done.
“Shit,” I hiss, but stay back, watching on helplessly as she fights to pull the blouse, she’d looked so gorgeous in as we laughed our way through lunch earlier, over her wet body. Sticking to her skin, it rolls and bunches at her back. She senses the movement as I instinctively step forward to help her.
