A Kid Like Her (A Riddick - Jack Romance/Adventure Story)

The Visit That Wasn't

He came back to see me? It was her turn to be shocked. "What? When? I-I never knew! Iman never said anything to me!"

"'Cause I didn't stay long and I told him not to tell you.  It was about a month before you turned nineteen. Wait here a minute."

He left her alone in the gym, alone, with her racing mind and now nauseous stomach. "Oh, god! He came and I was with Rob. Why did he come? Was he there to take me with him?"

When he returned, he handed her a box that she immediately recognized because it was from Rob's store.  With trembling fingers she opened it, already suspecting what was going to be inside, and she was right. There were three charms with Kanji symbols.  She gasped as her hand flew to her mouth, tears blurring her vision. "Oh my god! That was you."

"What was me?"

"Do you remember the day you bought these?  The store?"

Riddick's brow furrowed as he tried to see where she was going with the inquisition. "Yeah. There was a guy...and a woman, too. She-."  Although he only vaguely recollected the the woman, enough details remained to put the pieces of the puzzle together. "No fuckin' way."

She nodded and smiled sheepishly. "That was me.  I didn't recognize you at all, but something came over me, and I remember feeling like I needed to get as far away from you as possible."

He didn't understand why she would feel that way. He didn't remember doing anything out of the ordinary to get a reaction like that from her. "Were you afraid of me?"

"No, actually just the opposite. I felt immediately attracted to you, and that's putting it mildly. It scared the hell out of me because my fiancé was standing right there."

"The guy that kissed you. That's-."

"Yes, that's Rob...was Rob."

"Iman never told me his name. Said you were about to move out of his house and that you were gettin' married real soon, so I didn't stick around."

"Why?"

"Why did I come back or why didn't I stay to see you?"

"Both I guess."

"I didn't stay because I didn't wanna mess things up for you. If you were gettin' hitched, then you were happy and I didn't want to fuck that up."

She wondered if that was the real reason.  It sounded legitimate enough and he appeared to be sincere, yet his excuse seemed...too easy.  Unsure if she should grill him at this point, she let it go for the moment.  "I'm sorry that you came all that way for nothing."

"Don't waste your sorry on me or you're gonna piss me off! Would you be where you are today if I had seen you? Can you look me in the eyes and say yes?"

She let out a pent up breath. "No, I guess I can't. Rob seeing you in my life would've complicated things." She laughed, scoffed and shook her head. "Shit, more than complicated. There would have been no way in hell to explain you."

Riddick thought about what she said, then it came to him that she had not told her fiancé everything. "You didn't tell him about your past did you?"

Her eyes dropped rather hastily to her fidgeting hands. "I couldn't. He was nothing like you or me. He had not gone through anything in his life that would've made him the least bit understanding of what I had survived."

He didn't know why or where it was coming from, but anger was beginning to boil about her relationship with this 'Rob' guy and how she had handled herself.  "Did you tell him anything about you at all?"