Demanding Ransom (17 page)

“It was nice meeting you, Tom.” I wave.

“Nice to meet you, Maggie,” Tom says, then
throws a cutting glare toward Ran. “Patrick, don’t go messing this one up.”

Ran looks at Tom, then down at me, and when he
answers, he keeps his eyes held with mine. “Don’t worry, Tom. I don’t plan to.”

“One last stop before we can head back.” Ran
pulls me through a hall that smells like a mixture of urine and ammonia, which
makes my eyes burn and my throat feel raw. There are two wheelchairs parked at
the far end of the hallway, angled outward toward the window, and the patients
inhabiting them can barely be seen over the backs of their chairs, they’re
slumped so low. I follow the direction of their gaze, and it’s just an empty
parking lot with one, lone, beat up truck filling a single space on the other
side of the glass. You’d think someone could place them near a window that at
least had a tree or a bird outside of it. Some sign of life.

Ran pops his head into a room just to the left
of us. “Miss Dorothy?” he asks, edging slightly into it. “It’s Patrick. Tom
told me your cable was giving you some problems?”

A woman tucked tightly into her covers lifts
her head up at the sound of Ran’s voice. “Oh,” her speech is just as shaky as
Tom’s, but there’s a sweet quality to it. “Hello Patrick.” She glances back and
forth between us and gives me an endearing smile. “Yes, channel three isn’t
working and I like to watch my stories in the afternoon.”

Ran runs his hand over his chin and crinkles
his forehead as if he’s contemplating what she’s saying. “Okay. Let me see what
I can do about that.” He walks over to a TV that’s mounted in the right corner
of the small room, hanging just under the ceiling. He pushes a few buttons,
taps on the screen a couple of times, and then walks back over to reclaim my
hand. “Should be all set for you, Dorothy.”

She offers another smile that stretches all the
way across her face, crinkling her eyes. “Thank you, dear.” After looking at
Ran, she looks at me with the same charming gaze. “I’ll see you next week.”

“See you next week, Miss Dorothy,” Ran
confirms, slipping back out into the hall. I steal a look over my shoulder as
we exit, and see Dorothy’s eyes focused on something on her nightstand, that
same appreciative grin held on her face. From the corner of my eye, I glimpse
the flicker of orange fins flitting around in a circular motion.

***

The walk back to my house is quiet, slower than
earlier. We spend the first block in comfortable silence, our hands still
entwined, and when I open my mouth to speak, my voice cracks. “Patrick isn’t
your real name, is it?” I ask as our feet scrape along the sidewalk.

“No,” Ran laughs. “My name has always been
Ransom.” We both stop at the curb and wait for an old VW bus to chug past
before we step out to cross the street. “And I’ve never been a cable guy,
either.”

“Then why do you let him think you are?” I hop
back up on the curb on the opposite side and Ran and I continue our leisurely
saunter down the block. The temperature has dropped by several more degrees,
yet the energized heat from walking next to one another warms me more than I
would expect.

“What harm does it do? He doesn’t remember me,”
Ran answers matter-of-factly. “What good would it do to try to make him relearn
who I am every time I come by?”

“Does he always think you’re a cable guy?”

Ran shakes his head. “No. More often than not
he doesn’t even acknowledge me.” He pulls my hand closer toward him and my body
follows, our shoulders sandwiched together as we walk. “Today was a good day,
Maggie.”

 
“I
don’t understand why you don’t try to remind him who you are.”

Ran sighs, and it’s not an annoyed sound, but
more of a fatigued one. “I don’t think it’s fair to challenge someone to do
something when they don’t have the capacity to actually do it.”

“Well, I kind of feel like that’s what you’re
doing with me, Ran,” I admit. I grip on tighter to his hand, hoping his gut
reaction isn’t to cast aside my attempt at vulnerability.

“That’s completely different.” To my relief,
Ran’s pressure on my hand doesn’t change. “Forgiveness is a choice. Everyone
has the capacity to forgive.”

I don’t press him on it because I know that
he’s probably right, and it’s not even fair to compare the two scenarios.
“Caroline. Was that your mom?”

“Ha!” Ran whole body lifts with laughter. “No.
Caroline was our housekeeper growing up.”

“Oh that’s scandalous!” I chuckle. “So she and
your dad are seeing each other now?”

“No, Maggie. Caroline moved out of state ten
years ago after her husband died. She and my dad were never together.”

“Oh.” I feel awful for Tom and my heart aches
in my chest for Ran. For them both and the realities they are forced to face.
“That has got to be terrible to live the way he does. It probably doesn’t even
feel like living. Probably more like existing.”

We round the corner and my house creeps into
view.

“You want to know what I think, Maggie?” Ran
swivels on his heels so we’re face to face. Instead of dropping my hand, his
fingers slip down my side to draw the other one up and take it into his
possession.

“Do I get a choice?” I mock, curling my mouth
into what I hope appears as an attempt at flirting.

Ran ignores it and continues, and I honestly
feel a little dejected. “I think Tom lives life more fully than a lot of people
who
have
all their faculties about
them, yet just seem to exist rather than truly live.” His penetrating blue eyes
bore into me and it’s like he’s speaking through them more than through his
mouth with actual words right now. I pray that my own eyes aren’t as telling,
and I hope the mist forming over them isn’t perceptible, because I hate how he
always does this to me. Challenges me and pushes me and makes me seem like I’m
a hopeless cause.

I don’t give him the satisfaction of
discovering it on his own. “I think we can add psychoanalyst to your growing
list, Ran.” I yank my hands from his and shove them into my pockets, and all
the warmth they’d contained slips so quickly from them that they instantly feel
brittle and fragile. And they should, because that’s exactly what I am.

“I think that’s the most insulting of the
bunch. Worse than kidnapper and hostage holder.” He tugs at my elbow, trying to
free my hands from their stowed away position. “I don’t think you get me,
Maggie.”

“No, but you seem to have me all figured out,
don’t you?”

I push past him with my shoulder to continue
down the street. My house gets larger and larger with each step and Ran’s
outline slips further and further away with every exasperated movement forward.
And it’s an unnerving feeling when the realization dawns that though I should
be more at ease the closer I get toward home, the opposite occurs because my
house is filled with memories of abandonment, diagnoses of illness, and fears
for the future. I’m not living in that house. I’m existing.

As the distance between me and my physical home
shortens, the ache for Ran becomes so much stronger, so much more immediate,
like he’s somehow become home for me instead. But he hasn’t. Home is supposed
to be safe, and nothing about Ran is safe. Though I suppose nothing about the
home that stands in front of me is, either.

Frustrated from the irrational pull toward Ran
and the absurd repelling sensation from this structure ahead of me, I lock my
legs in place, not knowing where to go, where to turn, or what to do. I stand
there, unmoving, the wind biting at my cheeks, freezing the tears that spill
down them like icicles on my skin.

 
“Damn
it, Maggie.” Ran jogs up to me and seizes me roughly from behind. I want to
throw him off—to shove him away—but I cave and press into his
chest, my shoulder blades pinned against him, my head hung low, the sobs
lifting it up and down as my shoulders tremble with that same helpless
reaction. “Damn it,” he whispers against my cheek. “I hate what I’m doing to
you.”

I swallow all of my emotion in one bitter gulp.
“I hate it, too.”

I feel each rush of air hot on my skin, the
variation in temperature so evident from standing out here in the winter cold.
Ran’s chest rises and falls rapidly against my back. He slouches over me and
presses his mouth just along my jaw, skating and brushing his lips hesitantly
over my skin, his breath shaky and unsteady as it slips in and out of him.

It’s as though a swarm of butterflies releases
in my gut and they flutter and crash against my ribcage when his mouth lingers
there, just under my earlobe, making his fast breathing more audible. With
slow, deliberate movement he brings his fingers up to my scarf to peel it down
to allow more room for his mouth along the slope of my neck. My heart flickers
in my chest as his hand stays there, in the crook of space between the base of
my jaw and my ear, and he rubs his fingers over my skin. A soft noise escapes
from low in his throat.

“Maggie,” he breathes against me. “I’m not
trying to hurt you.” He presses his lips under my ear again and my insides
flinch with an unfamiliar desire I’ve never experienced with anyone else before.
“I promised I’d help you heal.” His mouth creeps closer. “I’m trying to help
you heal.”

My eyes close unwillingly, pushing out another
tear that slides down my cheek. I whisper, “I know.”

Ran’s mouth meets my skin and his lips trace
lightly all the way onto my neck, trailing up and down the curve of it, kissing
away the stream of emotion that trickled there moments earlier. I feel each
distinct point of contact that his open mouth makes not just on my skin, but in
the pit of my stomach. “Ran,” I murmur, pressing my neck toward him, sighing.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, the heat from his lips
warming my skin. “I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through, for all of the
hurt that you have.” My chest feels tight under his other arm that’s bound
across it. “I’m sorry that I’m dragging you back through it all over again. I’m
sorry it has to happen like this.” He presses light pecks up and down my neck.
“I’m sorry, Maggie.
I’m
.
So
.
Sorry
.”

“I’m not.” A jolt of electricity blazes through
me and I flip around in his arms and push into him. “I’m not sorry, Ran.” I
coil my fingers around his neck, interlocking each one, and lure his face
toward mine. His tortured eyes examine me—scan every inch of my
face—looking for clarification. “I’m not sorry. For any of it.”

Bringing my face toward his, I stroke his cheek
with my fingers and then drag my nail across his bottom lip, feeling it pull
against the pad of my finger, something I’ve wanted to do since the first time
I saw him in the back of the ambulance. “I’m ready for you to patch me up.”
Hesitantly, on unsure footing, I lift up toward him and press a kiss onto his
cheek, feeling the curve of his curled upper lip just at the edge of mine, just
like last night. His breath rushes out and I breathe it in. “I’m ready to heal.”
My lips pull back and I lift my eyes to his. “I want you to help me.”

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN

Cora: HOLY CRAP, MAGGIE! I think I have thesis
numbers 3, 4, and 5 with that!

Me: It IS a lot to take in.

Cora:
Ummm…you think? Or I could just sum it up in one paper about how the freakin’
Carson family can’t catch a break.

Me: Seriously.

Cora: So…do you think she’s really pregnant?

Me: I don’t know…I hope not. That’s more than
Mikey can handle right now.

Cora: And
you wonder why I never let it get past second. I can’t imagine getting
pregnant, and then worrying that the father of the baby might DIE!

Me: That’s completely insensitive, Cora.

Cora: You know what I mean.

Me: I know.

Cora: So you met Ran’s dad? That’s a huge step.

Me: I guess, but not one that he’ll remember.

Cora: And I’m the insensitive one? ;)

Me: It’s true though.

Cora:
Ok, let’s talk about a less controversial subject. Or wait, maybe it’s MORE
controversial. Tell me about the hottest kiss-that-wasn’t-a-kiss in existence.
THAT I want to hear more about.

Me: That’s just it—it wasn’t a kiss.

Cora: But it kinda, sorta was.

Me: I don’t know. I just know it was crazy
intense and I really wanted more.

Cora: BRB…but don’t lose that train of thought.

Me: K.

Cora: Seriously, you better pick right up where
you left off…