The Difference a Day Makes (Perfect, Indiana: Book Two) (35 page)

Paige sat in one of L&L’s second-floor offices, the same one she’d hid in while searching for a new job. She ended the call with John Deere and waited for the thrill of triumph to kick in. She’d gotten the job all on her own, based on her qualifications rather than a good-ol’-boy nudge from her father on her behalf. Plus, she’d only been unemployed for about two months—quite a feat in this economy.

The thrill never came. Instead, a dull sense of relief consumed her. Leaving the discomfort and pain of being anywhere in Ryan’s proximity sounded like a good plan.

Strange. When Anthony Rutger betrayed her, all she’d felt was anger. With Ryan,
devastated
was the word that came to mind, and
shattered
best described her present state. She’d certainly been on one hell of a bummer as far as her love life was concerned. She let out a heavy sigh.

No more men for a while. She’d throw herself into her job, give the corporate ladder a climb, and see if that didn’t turn out better than…Tears filled her eyes and slid down her cheeks so suddenly she had no time to fight them off.
Dammit.
She couldn’t go downstairs like this. Swiping at her cheeks, she sat back down
and struggled to pull herself together. She should be happy. Shouldn’t she?

Today was Thursday. Her work at L&L was done. She could head home this weekend and take a week off to regroup before starting her new job fresh on the first day of a new month. She gave her cheeks a final swipe and headed downstairs to make her announcement. Stepping off the elevator, she looked around the production room, her gaze drawn to Ryan. “I got the job at John Deere. If it’s all right with all of you, tomorrow will be my last day.”

Ryan kept his attention on his workbench. “Congratulations, Paige. Good for you.”

“Never doubted for a minute you’d get the job.” Ted flashed her a smile.

Noah nodded at her. “You can leave whenever you want. Thanks for everything you’ve done here. We’re going to miss you.”

Ryan glanced at the wall clock. “I gotta head out for my appointment.”

“Go ahead,” her brother said. “I’ll catch you later.”

Paige tracked Ryan’s every move as he cleaned up his stuff and left without so much as a backward glance her way.

“I’m surrounded by morons,” Ted muttered.

“So you’ve said many times.” Noah wiped his hands on a shop cloth and turned to lean on his workbench. “What do you have to wrap up tomorrow, Paige?”

“I wanted to finish the five-year plan I started for L&L.”

His brow creased. “Look, I know there’s some tension between you and Ryan. Maybe it would be best if—”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry about this.” She wrung her hands together like one of those heroines in an old-fashioned romance novel. “I don’t know what to do to make it better.”

“Time. Just give it some time.” Noah came over and put his arms around her. “You don’t have to come to work tomorrow. Take a day to hang out with Ceejay and the kids before you leave. We’re going to miss you, kiddo.”

“Thanks.” She nodded. “That sounds like a good idea. Do you think Ryan will be all right?”
Will I be all right?
She wasn’t so sure.

“He’s where he needs to be. He’s got his group and Dr. Bernard for support. Ryan’s going to be fine.”

Ted joined them and patted her back awkwardly. “You did us a whole lot of good in the short time you were with us, Paige. The sample sale rocked, and we have the ads coming out in September.”

“I really enjoyed working with the three of you. What you have here is amazing, and it’s only going to get better.” She stepped back. “I’m going to go gather my stuff, and I’ll help you clean up.” It was over, and the pain of her own losses carved out the last remaining piece of her heart.

Ryan couldn’t get to the VA center fast enough. The thin ice of his stability was cracking fast, and he had nowhere safe to stand. His jaw ached, and so did his hands. Loosening his grip on the steering wheel, he flexed one hand, then the other, trying to ease the tension. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen this boxcar load of hurt coming down the tracks, heading straight for him. He had, and yet he’d still stood squarely on the rails, a glutton for punishment.

Why would a woman like Paige want to stay with a broken man like him? He blinked back the sting in his eyes and concentrated on bringing his pulse back into the normal range.

Turning into the parking ramp, he tried to pull himself together. He had to learn how to stand on his own two feet. He had to do this for himself, or he’d never be fit for anyone else.

Ryan parked and headed for the mental health wing, trying not to run like hell to get there before a meltdown happened. He approached the check-in desk. “Hey, Mrs. Beck. I have an appointment with the doc.”

“Have a seat, Ryan. I’ll let him know you’re here.”

“Thanks.” His ass had barely hit the fake leather when Dr. Bernard walked into the waiting room. He shot up again.

“Hey, Ryan,” Doc greeted. “Let’s talk.”

Relief washed through him. Doc always started their sessions the same way.
Let’s talk.
Translated roughly to mean,
Let me poke and prod until you break down and regurgitate the shit lurking inside your dark soul.
Ryan always left their sessions purged, and the emptiness came as a welcome reprieve from the pain. Once he was safely inside the doc’s office, Ryan slumped into his regular chair. “Paige got the job. She’s leaving.”

“Ah.” Doc reached for his legal pad and pen.

He shot him a glare. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means tell me how you feel about her leaving.”

“Hurts like hell.” His jaw clenched.

“Did you tell her how you feel about her?”

“No.” He studied a new tear in his old jeans. “Why bother? I don’t want to stand in her way.”

“Ryan, a couple of weeks ago we discussed how you’ve cut your parents out of your life. Do you remember?”

He nodded, and his heart crawled up his throat.

“Let me ask you a question.” Doc shifted in his chair. “You don’t believe you deserve to be happy. Am I right?”

“I
don’t
deserve to be happy.” He swallowed hard in an attempt to get his heart back into his chest, where it belonged.

“Hmm. You also believe you’re responsible for all the bad stuff that has happened in your life. Would you say that’s the case?”

“Yeah.” He glanced at Dr. Bernard. “Have a pocketful of quarters with you today, Doc?”

Dr. Bernard smiled. “OK. Here’s the real question, and I want you to think about it before you answer. What does taking the blame and feeling worthless do for you? What do you get out of it?”

Ryan opened his mouth to reply and shut it again. What did it do for him, other than make his life a miserable hell? “Punishment. The self-imposed isolation and misery are my penance for being a bad person.”

“You aren’t a bad person, Ryan. You’re a good man who has gone through more than most and lived to tell about it.” Doc peered at him over the rims of his reading glasses. “Has it occurred to you that if you truly were a bad person, none of what happened would bother you?”

His eyes burned, and he couldn’t speak.

“Were your parents abusive toward you? Did you have a terrible childhood?”

“Hell no!” A flash of anger loosened his tongue. “My parents are wonderful people, and I had a great childhood.”

“So, who are you punishing by cutting them off—you or them?”

He shot out of his chair, anxiety and rage boiling over. “Me. I’m the one who deserves to be punished. I ruined everything when I talked Theresa into going riding. She died in my arms, man. Her head was cracked open, and her neck was broken…
she…She died as I held her, and I still wear her blood all over me like I did that day. That kind of shit doesn’t wash away.”

His stomach knotted into a hot, painful mass. “My best friend died because I failed to protect his back the way I’d sworn. I saw him in pieces on the Iraqi desert, because I let him down. I let everybody down. Five soldiers in my platoon died because I didn’t do what I knew I should.” He pressed his fists into his eye sockets. “I can’t get the pictures out of my mind, Doc. How the hell am I supposed to live with that? How the hell am I supposed to be
happy
?”

Doc reached into his pocket, pulled out a few quarters, and handed them over. “Before the traumas, you allowed yourself to be happy, to be part of a loving family. What would happen if you forgave yourself right now? What would happen if you allowed yourself to believe you’re worthy of happiness? What would you do differently?”

Swiping at the tears on his face, he pondered the questions and walked to the jug behind Doc’s desk. He dropped them in one by one, focusing on the
plink-plink-plink
they made as they hit all the other quarters. He stared at the contents, once again struck by the sheer mass of coins inside the plastic. He wasn’t alone in the self-blame game.

“Can your parents forgive you?”

“I don’t think they ever blamed me.” Ryan reached for the box of tissues sitting on the desk.

“But you can’t forgive yourself.”

“It would be so great if I could.” He blew out a breath. “All this weight and hurt, the loneliness…and guilt…”

“Ryan, this might come as a shock. Is it possible nobody holds you responsible for the things you’ve suffered through but you? Especially not the dead?”

“That’s what Paige said too. She said my ghosts have better things to do with their time than to blame me for what the enemy did to them.”

“She sounds like a smart woman.”

“She is.”

“She sounds like maybe she’s worth fighting for.”

“Yeah, but am I?”

“Why don’t you ask her?”

His ears rang, and his mouth went dry. He wasn’t sure he had the balls to do that.
What would I do differently if I forgave myself?
“So, the road to happiness is self-forgiveness? Sounds too damned easy.”

“Simple, yes. Easy, no.” Doc made a chortling sound deep in his throat. “How are you coming along with your journaling?”

Ryan made his way back to the hot seat he occupied each week and sank back down. “Good. I journal every night, just like you said I should.”

“This week I want you think about the concept of self-forgiveness. What would that look like and feel like in your life?”

“I will.”

“How do you feel about group?”

“I like being a part of the group.” Thank God he had his group to lean on. He and the other five veterans had bonded, and he knew he could call on any one of them if things got too rough to handle—like any one of them could call on him. He’d come too far and worked too hard to backslide now, and there was far too much at stake.

“I didn’t realize how much I missed the brotherhood of being on a team. My squad in Iraq and I were tight. We all had each other’s backs, you know? There wasn’t anything we couldn’t talk about, and nothing we wouldn’t do for each other. When you
leave the military, all that’s gone. It’s like having the rug pulled out from under your feet, and you just don’t fit in anywhere anymore.”

“I know what you mean. It’s important to surround yourself with people who share common ground with you. A lot of the friendships started in group last a lifetime. I hope that’s the case with you.”

“Yeah, me too.” His mouth quirked up. “We all go out for dinner together after our session. Each time, I wonder what civilians must think of us. We all make a mad dash for the chairs against the wall.”

Dr. Bernard laughed. “Do what my group does—take turns and promise to watch your buddy’s six.”

“Oh, yeah. Why didn’t we think of that?”

“Don’t sweat it, army. It takes a marine to come up with the good stuff.”

Ryan snorted. “Says you.”

Doc leaned back and scrutinized him. “It’s time to think about a visit home, Ryan. No pressure. Just think about it for now.”

Ryan’s palms started to sweat, and his chest ached in the empty space where his family used to live. “I will.”

“You have a lot to think about this week. I’ll see you for group on Monday.” Dr. Bernard stood. “How are the exercises to cope with the anxiety and rage coming along?”

“Still working on that, Doc. It’s going to take some practice.”

“They’ll work if you let them. Keep at it.” He set aside his pad and gave him a sharp look. “Trust me when I tell you this: You’re a good man, and you deserve to love and be loved. You deserve happiness as much as any of us do.”

He choked up and nodded.
If only.

Doc smiled at him. “I’ll see you next week.”

“Yeah. See you.” The familiar wrung-out weakness settled into his limbs as he left. What would he do differently if he truly believed he deserved to be happy? He would’ve wrapped his arms around Paige’s knees and begged her to stay, that’s what. He wasn’t there yet, and anyway, she had her mind made up about leaving.

His heart hammered with fear. What if he had begged, and she’d agreed? Would she get into a car accident, or fall down the stairs, or…
Stop.

Paige wasn’t the kind of woman who could be talked into anything she didn’t want to do, and his fear had no basis in fact. He was manufacturing the worst scenarios he could, just like he’d conjured his ghosts.