It Begins With Us

25.

We sit there in the heated silence of the car till I can't take it anymore.

"Ryle?" I ask and he doesn't answer me so I carry on. "If you had the chance to get rid of your biggest flaw would you?"

"Yes." His voice is flat and cold.

"Even if you had to take a pill every hour of every day for the rest of you life?" I add.

"Yes." He repeats.

"Why?" I ask.

"So that no one will get hurt."

"Then why can't you go to therapy and anger management?" I ask. "Why can't you do it so that in the future, you won't ever have to open your eyes fearing that you've hurt me?"

"Are you afraid of me?" He laughs a dry and brittle laugh.

"Deathly afraid." I confess and he shudders. "You're falling into a pit of darkness, and you have a clear way out. Yet you won't even lift a finger to help yourself. You're destroying the man that I love, isolating him. You're leaving me behind with every breath, and it makes me so scared."

I know I'm breaking, I know I'm falling apart. I know he reminds me of Daddy, but he's also so different. I want him to be like Daddy. He fought to stay with the people he loved even though he knew it was impossible. He got himself tested and experimented on by the Dr. Kendrick, took illegal and most possibly harmful, concoctions from Uncle Ben. He tried desperately for us, and himself.

Even if I didn't agree with it.

"Please Ryle, Please." I press my hands together, clasp them with all my might and hold them to my chest, to my heart. "Just try, I promise you, please just try." I stay there bent over my hands, eyes squeezed shut.

Then my heart shatters into a million pieces when I hear the click of the locks. He opens his car door and gets out, doesn't even bother slamming it shut behind him. I make a desperate sound and curl up tighter, wishing everything back, back to this morning when he woke me up.

When he left beautiful gifts for me on his bed, when he loved me and marked me.

The passenger door opens and I jump up ready to fight to keep him, keep us, my face crumpled with emotion. Ryle grabs me and pulls me into his arms, he holds me so tight I'm sure I'll bruise.

But I don't care, he's hugging me, holding me, pressing his cold and wet face into my shoulder.

"I'll try," He croaks, and just like that my heart as begun lifting, "I'll try."

"Thank you." I turn my face and say into his hair, "Thank you!"

-

"Let's go home?" I say pushing off of his chest to look at him.

We're laying down in the backseat of his car, our legs bent and our bodies pressed tightly together. My dress is draped over our hips and legs while Ryle's blazer is thrown over our torsos to keep us warm.

"Yeah." He nods and patiently waits watching me climb out of the backseat into the passenger seat struggling to keeping my dress from ripping.

"Nice ass." He compliments and I chuckle.

"It's all for you." I shoot back.

"Heck yeah it is." He kisses his teeth and I go warm all over.

"Let's go in and say goodbye to Marshall and Alyssa?" I suggest and he gives his head a shake.

"Nope, I deserve to go straight home and right into the bath," he turns the car on and turns to me, "with my Alba."

Before I could think of something to say there's a knock on Ryle's window.

"Hey! Where'd you go?!" It's Marshall shaking our coats in the air and screeching on the other side of the window.

"Roll the window down." I demand and Ryle gives me a 'You'll have to reward me for rolling down this window and not speeding off right this moment instead' look.

"Where do you think you're going and where do you think you're taking her?" Marshall shoves out coats in through the window and jabs his finger at Ryle.

"Marshall, we've entertained you enough for one night. Don't you think so?" Ryle smirks and raises an eyebrow making Marshall scoffs.

"Not even close to enough. But seriously, why are you leaving? It's not even twelve yet?" He frowns down at us.

"It's 11:59, Marshall." I point out grinning.

"Like I said, not twelve, at all." He huffs and I shake my head.

"We're leaving Marsh, and that's that." Ryle says backing out of his parking spot leaving Marshall behind.

I quickly roll my window down just as we're about to drive past him.

"Tell Alyssa I said byyyeeeee!" I shout and laugh waving to his shivering silhouette and he weakly waves back.

Ryle rolls my window up instantly and I sigh.

"Can't we keep it open a bit?" I ask staring at the gentle snowfall.

"No, you'll get sick." He shakes his head.

"Yes doctor!" I laugh and he gives me a quick and mischievous side glance. "Or was it teacher?"

"I can be both." Ryle stops at a red light and his hands back in the slit of my dress stealing my breath away.

"Oh yeah?" I tease and suggest. "Why don't you prove it to me?"

"Oh I will," he chuckles, "don't think I've forgotten our tutor session."

"I wouldn't dare." I play along.

Ryle breathes out slowly and ever carefully. As if his patience is a thin sheet of ice over a lake of lava that's boiling, just for me.