Ravaged (7 page)

He imagined his world reduced to knife, tarp, compass, bandanna.

He recited the Pledge of Allegiance in the morning and prayed to God to make him stronger and more worthy.

God would listen. He had to, because Roman and Patrick wanted the same thing. In Patrick’s office, Roman had seen the file labeled with his name, kept inside the locked cabinet so that he could read it only if he fished around at the bottom of the pen-and-pencil cup for the key.

Jesus teaches us to turn the other cheek. I’d like to practice forgiveness by caring for this boy, if I’m able to
.

Patrick had made the appeal to a committee at the Department of Children and Families. The social worker assigned to Roman had questioned the wisdom of leaving a three-week-old infant with a man who’d lost his wife to an act of violence perpetrated by Roman’s father. Patrick’s response was six pages long, single-spaced, full of distinguished, earnest declarations.

It’s what my wife would have wanted
.

It’s the right thing to do
.

I’d like to practice forgiveness. If I’m able to
.

Patrick was a social worker for the diocese, a man who believed in second chances, forgiveness, faith. A good man.

God would grant him this wish.

Roman stumbled and wiped his forehead with the flat of his hand. Too hot to be moving.
Ninety-five degrees, and he had no water. Ashley would scold him if she knew.

He had to keep away from Ashley.

He took off his tie and cinched it around his head to hold the sweat from his eyes.

The trail blurred and came into focus again. His mind was two decades in the past. When he spotted the campground ahead and realized he was on a loop, he turned around and plunged into the woods.

He’d yearned for this once—for a patch of wilderness to be tested in, for circumstances worthy of heroism. In his fantasies, Samantha’s girlfriends sprained their ankles or floundered in the pool, desperate for rescue. Roman dressed their injuries, dragged them to safety, and always Patrick stood at the sidelines, watching with an approving smile.

Good job
, he said.
I’m proud of you
.

When Roman’s scout troop finally went camping, they slept in a huge canvas tent, skipped the flag ceremony, and went for a hike after dark. The scout master passed around wintergreen Life Savers and the boys cracked them between their molars to make sparks.

They called him a loser when the scout master was in earshot.

They called him a faggot when he was beyond it.

It was October. An hour before nightfall, Roman walked into the woods alone, carrying only a compass, a tarp, and a knife.

A park ranger found him four days later, too weak to walk.

He spent a few nights in the hospital, rehydrating and getting spoiled by the nurses. Samantha had hugged him and wiped tears from the corners of her eyes. She brought him books to read and told him again and again,
We thought you were dead
.

Patrick spoke in his calm, wise voice to visitors. He discussed Roman’s condition with the doctor and filled out the necessary paperwork. But when the room was empty of anyone but the two of them, silence echoed off the walls, and Roman didn’t know how to erect boundaries around his experience.

Afraid. Lost. Tired. Cold. Hungry. Brave
. Those were the words he was supposed to say, but they didn’t fit. They weren’t what he would tell Patrick if only he could convince himself that Patrick wanted to hear what was in his heart.

I breathed alone in the dark, cold, curled into a ball under a damp piece of plastic, and I felt as though I had always been there. I knew that somewhere was a road, and down the road
there were people watching movies, eating potato chips, kissing. I knew there were church picnics and inside jokes, weddings and baptisms, Christmas presents and birthday parties, but I couldn’t get to them
.

I was alone. I’ve always been alone
.

No one was coming for me, because I have no one
.

He hadn’t been brave. He’d cried until he retched and rose coughing to his hands and knees so he could vomit up what little was left in his stomach.

But in the hospital, he hadn’t been capable of saying the words. He’d lain there, silent, denuded of his uniform, his armor—and then Patrick had supplied his own words.

What kind of trick were you trying to pull anyway? A stupid stunt like that. You never think of anyone but yourself, Roman. I’m ashamed to even look at you
.

A kick in the chest so hard, Roman had forgotten how to breathe.

He should have expected it. Should have
learned
to expect it, because it always came.

I’d like to practice forgiveness
didn’t mean
I forgive you
.

It was easier when Patrick was angry, because when Patrick was bewildered in his disappointment, he would ask,
Why do you keep doing this to me? Why do you make it so impossible for me to love you?

Roman quit the Boy Scouts after that. Quit camping. Eventually, he quit waiting for Patrick to change.

Self-preservation wasn’t a matter of surviving in the woods. It was a matter of learning to set your expectations so that no one had the power to make you feel as though you were huddling alone and afraid. That was what Heberto had taught him: that no one could escape solitude. The only choice was to embrace it.

We’re individuals. Community is an illusion
.

What you had left when you accepted your solitude was better, because it opened up space to understand that you could build your own fortress against fear.

Roman had the tools. He had the plan, the understanding, the philosophy.

So why was he stumbling through the woods, cold despite sweating, sucking in shallow, panicked breaths and trying to ignore the trembling in his hands?

He didn’t know. Something was wrong with him.

Something yearning. Still.

Some stubborn fucking hope.

On his wet heel, a blister broke open, and the muck soaking his sock ground against tender flesh. He began to limp.

The pain cleared his head, and after a while he stopped and looked up. It was getting dark, but he could still see a clear area off to the right. He caught the shine of the Airstream and grimaced.

Back at the campground, he threw his shoes and socks away in a Dumpster and tossed his tie in after them. He unbuttoned his shirt and braced one arm against the cool metal side of the bin so he could wrap the shirt around his foot.

Can’t leave now. You’re hobbled. Hobbled ponies stay put
.

He looked down the drive at the rounded end of the Airstream, gleaming like some perverse egg.

What would he do now, limp back to her? Crawl into her trailer, bunk on the thin mattress she’d just beaten the dust out of?

No.

She’d taken over his plans, taken control of his life, and she’d dug into him somehow, made him want her.

Not just her. Something worse. She made him want to
believe
her—to swallow the lie that there was such a thing as family, or community. That you could make one for yourself, and it could be the most important thing in your world.

He flattened his forearm against the side of the Dumpster and rested his hand there, overwhelmed by this new knowledge.

Ashley made him want to believe.

So?

The question came in Heberto’s voice, and Roman could almost see his disdainful face. A tumbler of whiskey in one hand. His accent thickened at the end of a long day spent wheeling and dealing.

Hope is just a feeling, Roman
.

Feelings don’t matter. Who cares about your feelings? Only
you.

You forget about that shit and use your head
.

Use his head. Ignore his feelings. Tamp down any hope that tried to rise up.

It was the only way he knew. The only compass he could trust.

Roman untied his filthy, sweat-stained shirt from around his foot and shook it out. He put it back on. Buttoned it up. Tucked it into his pants.

He limped toward the bathroom, ignoring the pain in his heel.

Lifting it into the sink, he cleaned it as best he could with just water. From the hand-sanitizer dispenser on the wall, he filled his palm with cool, sterile gel and spread it over his wounds.

It hurt, but that didn’t matter.

He wrapped his foot in toilet paper, wet his face and hair and neck, and looked at himself in the mirror until his hands stopped shaking and nothing he felt showed around his mouth, between his eyebrows, or in his eyes.

When he was satisfied, he returned to the site. He knocked on the trailer door, pushed past Ashley’s dumbfounded expression and the boxes crowding the floor, and claimed the sleeping bag from one mattress.

He locked himself in his truck and laid towels on the seat. The sleeping bag went on top.

He crawled inside it.

Too hot. Too close.

But he fell asleep as soon as he closed his eyes.

P
HOTO:
M
ARK
A
NDERSON
, S
TUN
P
HOTOGRAPHY

USA Today
bestselling author R
UTHIE
K
NOX
writes contemporary romance that’s sexy, witty, and angsty—sometimes all three at once. After studying British history, she became an academic editor instead. Then she got really deep into knitting, as one does, followed by motherhood and romance novel writing.

Her debut novel,
Ride with Me
, is probably the only existing cross-country bicycling love story. She followed it up with
About Last Night
, a London-based romance whose hero has the unlikely name of Neville, and then
Room at the Inn
, a Christmas novella—both of which were finalists for the Romance Writers of America’s RITA Award. Her four-book series about the Clark family of Camelot, Ohio, has won accolades for its fresh, funny portrayal of small-town Midwestern life.

Ruthie moonlights as a mother, Tweets incessantly, and bakes a mean focaccia. She’d love to hear from you, so visit her website and drop her a line.

www.ruthieknox.com

Be sure to continue your Roman Holiday with Episode 5:
Ignited

Roman wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. His color was up, his chest heaving. “I can build a better fire than you,” he said.

“One match?”

“Anyone can build a one-match fire.”

“You can do better? Oh,
tell
me you bought flint and steel at REI, and you can strike a fire off one of those keychain things.”

“Not flint and steel. I can start a friction fire.”

“With just sticks? You cannot.”

“I can.”

“Do it, then.”

“It’s a pain. I’m not going to do it just to show you.”

“Do it,” she repeated. “Doitdoitdoitdoooooit.”

“Does that actually work on people?”

“You’d be surprised.”

Roman stood up and reached for the camp towel he’d left on the bench next to her. She could feel the heat coming off him, all those charged particles in the air between them. He bumped her with his bare knee, and she looked at the black hair on his legs, the runnels of sweat.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m disgusting.”

She wanted him just like this, though. Braced over her with his arms trembling, his heat sinking into her skin. One delirious, stupid, ecstatic glide, and she’d have him inside her, and she could stop all this mental lusting. This weird obsession with Roman and his Roman-ness.

Not that he’d go for it, even if he were available. The man probably had sex in the dark, beneath a top sheet, with his eyes closed.

And wiped his girlfriend down with a damp washcloth afterward.