April 12
Tayja
"There. 45 seconds, as requested."
I'm sitting cross-legged on the bed in front of Ryan with my Glock sitting on the bedspread between us. He's been reading in the bedroom, hiding from me, I suspect, ever since we came back inside from an afternoon of target practice. A very, very quiet afternoon of target practice, save for the echoing gunshots.
It seems he's given up wearing the mask, but he's still very uncomfortable with me viewing the injured side of his face. While he wore the mask, he was noticeably protective of his right side. Now that he's not wearing it, he's even more so. I'm not certain he even fully realizes he's doing it. It makes me feel sad for him, but part of me knows that he doesn't want that from me. I've decided to treat him as normally as possible. Maybe he'll subconsciously pick up on that and become more comfortable around me.
I was correct last night when I guessed he was handsome in the dim lighting. Now that I've seen him in the light of day, it's clear that he was more than just handsome. He's almost breathtaking. When I can only see the healthy side of his face, he looks like an actor or a model. He has well-defined features that are just soft enough not to be too angular. His eyes are the most luminous pair of blue eyes I've ever seen, even if one of them isn't real. They contrast sharply with his dark hair and eyebrows. His hair is very straight with a slight wave developing near the ends and it's much longer than he'd have been allowed to keep it while he was enlisted. I'm guessing he let it grow out to cover his face. I've noticed he sometimes tilts his head forward and lets his hair fall into his face as if to hide behind his hair. I'm pretty sure he's been cutting it himself, but surprisingly he seems to have done a decent job. Whether it was his intent or not, his hair falls in layered brown waves. It's gorgeous.
My eyes fall to his mouth. Somehow, his lips managed to escape the deep cuts and burns that characterize his right side. Staring at his lips, I feel a little bit of heat rush to my face. I look back into his piercing blue eyes and my mind starts to fill in the right side of his face with the mirror image of the left.
Now I'm the one feeling uncomfortable. I've got that slightly intimidating feeling you get when you're looking at someone extremely attractive and you suddenly realize they've caught you staring. I quickly look down at the bedspread, my face feeling warmer. I was always the type to turn shy and quiet around guys I found attractive.
"Thirty seconds," he says.
I look back up to him and let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding. "What?"
Ryan looks pointedly down at the gun.
"Oh," I say, remembering the whole reason I came in here in the first place. I frown in irritation, mostly at myself for getting so flustered. I channel my frustration at my awkwardness into my voice. "Really?" I ask, exasperation coloring my tone. I mildly glare at him until I realize he's even more uncomfortable with our eye contact than I was just now. He's almost visibly squirming under my gaze. "Fine," I say, scooping up the gun. Without looking at him, I climb off the bed and make my way out of the room. At the door, I pause and look back at him. He's holding the book and his head is inclined as though he's reading it, but his eyes are on me.
"Fine," I repeat, gesturing with the gun. "But until that happens, you don't get any dinner."
"I told you not to point that at people you don't intend to shoot." His voice is low and quiet.
"Oh for heaven's sake. It's not even loaded." I make a show of ejecting the magazine and opening the gun to prove there's nothing in the chamber. I wave it at him again but this time I adhere to his rules and aim it at the wall instead of him as I say, "Besides, I think maybe I do intend to shoot you." I glare at him, embarrassed that I made this mistake again and that I'm so easily flustered by him.
A smile flashes on his face for a brief moment and I forget why I'm pretending to be mad at him. I've never seen him smile before. His smile is a little lopsided. The left corner of his mouth pulls up higher than the right. The effect is endearing.
Ryan closes the book, sets it on the bed, and comes to stand in front of me. He takes the gun and magazine from my hands, his fingers brushing mine.
"It's not about whether or not the gun is loaded," he says, turning his head down and to the right as I hear the magazine slide back into the Glock. I'm presented with the flawless side of his face only a foot away. Has he always been so much taller than me?
He looks up at me for a moment before looking back at the gun. "It's about conditioning yourself to never play around with a gun lightly. That way, you don't shoot your roommate when you're making idle death threats and you've forgotten that your gun is loaded."
"Oh," I breathe, trying to stop looking at the way his lips move when he talks.
He returns his gaze to me. "Here," he says.
I blink and look down to see that he's holding my gun out to me. I reach out and take it from him, only to look up and see him turning away from me.
"I'm planning to make something from the cookbook," I blurt, wishing I could keep him this close to me and find some way to coax the smile back. Ryan hums in response as he returns his attention to the bed and the book lying atop it. I retreat back to the kitchen table before I embarrass myself further.
I shake my head at myself. What was that in there? I've been living in Ryan's cabin for over three weeks, was nursed back to health by the man, spent hours upon hours alone with him, even had my clothes changed by him, but I'm just now suddenly becoming shy around him? This is ridiculous. I'm acting juvenile. I resolve to stare at the damaged side of his face if I ever start feeling intimidated by his arresting blue eyes, or dark silky hair, or adorable grin... Ugh! I shout internally. Why am I such a dork? I pick up the Glock, needing an outlet for the nervous energy building up inside me.
~~~
The smell of the chicken and vegetables roasting in the oven makes my mouth water as I reassemble the gun one last time. I set it on the kitchen counter and pull dinner out of the oven. The delicious aroma fills the small cabin quickly. The smell is so enticing that Ryan emerges from the bedroom. He shuffles through the hall and hovers near the two dishes sitting on the counter. I glance over at him and see that he's staring at the chicken greedily. I wonder how long it's been since he's eaten a decent home-cooked meal.
"Are you hungry?" I ask, teasing lightly.
Ryan turns slightly toward me, his right side mostly out of view. "It smells amazing," he says.
"Come with me," I say, picking up the gun and heading to the couch. I sit on the floor by the coffee table. "Ok, thirty seconds."
I disassemble and reassemble the gun as fast as I possibly can, not bothering to lose any of my focus by counting the seconds in my head. When I'm finished, I look back up at him.
"If you say twenty, I swear I'm gonna shoot you."
The left side of his mouth quirks up.
"You really want to use that gun, don't you?"
I look down at the item in question. Maybe if I can learn how to shoot this, the nightmares will go away. Maybe I won't be so afraid anymore.
"What are you planning to do with it once you've learned how to use it?"
I cross my arms and eye him.
"What's it to you?"
"You're not planning to go after someone with that, are you?"
"No."
"Good. That weapon is for self-defense. You should only use it if you have no other option. Taking a life, especially for the first time, isn't easy. It weighs on you."
Something tells me that he's speaking from experience. Then I think of the man in my nightmares. Killing people certainly doesn't bother him. I bet he never thinks twice about it.
"How about dinner?" Ryan asks, interrupting my dark contemplation. I stand and walk to the kitchen and pick up the dish of roasted chicken.
"Will you take that one?" I say, nodding at the mashed potatoes.
Too late I remember that perhaps asking a man with a barely functional right arm to carry a hot, heavy dish full of food might not be the wisest idea. He, however, covers his left arm with a towel and slides the dish onto it, using his stiff right hand to balance it.
As I set the chicken on the table, I wait for Ryan to notice what I've done with the place settings. I can tell the moment he realizes because he pauses for a moment and his gaze flies to me. I avoid looking at him. Since he no longer wears the mask, I put his place setting at the table instead of the couch. I sit in my usual spot. He sets the potatoes down on the table but hovers near the chair to my right where his place setting rests.
"You don't have to sit here if you don't want to," I say, feeling disappointed. I want him to stop feeling so uncomfortable around me.
"It's fine," he says and sits in the chair.
I take heart in the small victory, then begin serving.
After dinner as he helps me clear the table, he compliments me on the food.
"That was really good. Best meal I've had since ... a very long time ago."
"I doubt it was as good as the food your family's gourmet chef makes," I say teasingly. "I'm sure you had one. Your mother doesn't strike me as the cooking type."
"Gerard hated me. I'm surprised he didn't poison my food."
"Picky eater?"
"No, I was a huge jerk as a teenager."
I turn and look at him. "Really? I wouldn't have guessed."
"Are you being sarcastic?" he asks, suspicion in his face.
"No, I'm serious. Well, I supposed if I'd never met you, I'd still think you were like the rest of your family. But now that I have, it's hard to imagine you being anything like them."
He looks away from me. "Much has changed."
I begin to fill the sink with water to wash the dishes.
"Why did you choose to enlist? Your family doesn't exactly seem pro-military."
He scoffs. "They're not. That's part of the reason why I chose to do it. I wanted to make them mad." He turns back to me. "Not a great reason to join the military, by the way. I wouldn't recommend it."
"You were so dedicated to upsetting them that you volunteered to get shot at?"
"That wasn't the whole reason. I was tired of them, yes, but I was tired of the whole lifestyle. I was bored. I didn't want the life they were planning for me."
"And because Jeremy was enlisting?"
He stops speaking for a moment at the mention of his friend.
"I'm sorry," I say.
"No, it's fine. I hadn't met Jeremy until we were assigned to the same unit. We hated each other at first."
I can't help a small laugh. "What? Really?"
"I was a snotty rich kid. He came from a very," he pauses for a moment. "Economically challenged family. He thought I was a prick. I treated him like he was beneath me."
"Sounds like the beginning of a wonderful friendship," I say.
"He was the best friend I ever had," Ryan says quietly.
Turning off the faucet and turning to him, I ask, "Do you ever take that glove off?"
Ryan looks up and me quickly and his expression goes from depressed to guarded.
"No," he says, the hand in question disappearing behind his back.
"You dry, then," I say, handing him a towel. We work in silence for a few moments. His sorrow for his fallen friend reminds me of my family. The pain of their loss is a knife stuck deep in my chest, waiting for a memory to give it an agonizing twist. I remember what my government-provided therapist taught me to do when remembering their absence.
"My family used to go on road trips and vacations, play games and watch movies, but my best memories with them are times when we were just sitting around at home, Mom and Dad telling jokes, making us laugh. Or times when my sister and I had sleepovers and stayed up so late that the slightest thing would send us into fits of giggles. Or times when my mom and I would just talk for hours. Or how my dad was always there for me. Even though I miss them, remembering what I loved about them helps me," I pause, searching for the right words as tears burn my eyes. "Keep going." I turn to look at him, realizing that he's been watching me with an unclear expression. I sniff and return my attention to the plate I'm washing. "What is your favorite memory of Jeremy?" I ask.
Ryan is silent for a long moment. I finally peek up at him just as he begins to smile.