Better for Us (13 page)

Chapter 22

R
yla had been in bed all week, refusing to shower or even change her clothes. Her mother had come by a couple of times a day to make either soup or sandwiches for Jaylen. After the third day, however, Juanita entered her bedroom, closed the door and then sat down on the edge of her bed.

Ryla put the cover over her head, because she didn’t have the energy to deal with her mother right now.

Juanita pulled the cover away from Ryla and said, “I’m not even going to pretend to understand why you would marry that man and then leave him in two days, but—”

Her mother’s words snapped her back to life. She interrupted her mother as she jumped up and blurted, “You think I left him? Ha! I wish I had left him. But this time Noel left me with nothing but a note to figure that he wasn’t coming back.”

A look of confusion crossed Juanita’s face. “But why would he do that to you, honey? He seemed so in love.”

Ryla grabbed a pillow and held on to it as she fessed up. “Noel is still holding a grudge against me, Mom. He can’t love me, because he’s still so angry with me about keeping Jaylen from him.”

“But he asked you to marry him.”

Ryla hated having to tell her mother what a fool she had been for love. But since she had willingly taken part in the farce, it was time to let her mother in on everything. Tears glistened her eyes as she confessed, “He asked me to pretend to marry him. I’m the one who went all the way with it.”

“Oh, Ryla.”

Ryla held up a hand, not wanting to deal with the pity she heard in her mother’s voice. “I know, Mom. I was a fool to think I could get Noel to love me again.”

“No, baby.” Juanita shook her head. “Noel’s the fool if he could ever stop loving you in the first place.”

Touched by her mother’s words, Ryla reached out for her mother. The two women hugged.

When Juanita stood back up, she said, “I’m going to take Jaylen home with me for a few days to give you time to cry your eyes out and then pull yourself back together. Okay?”

Ryla nodded. She then watched her mother walk out of her bedroom and listened as she gathered Jaylen’s things and left the house. Her little girl hadn’t even come into the room to say goodbye, but Ryla didn’t blame her. She was a mess, and Jaylen was probably terrified by the sight of her mother.

For the next few days, she tried to follow her mother’s advice. But the sad truth was that Ryla didn’t know how to pull anything together anymore. Knowledge of that brought laughter to her lips for the first time that week. She was the party planner extraordinaire, known for throwing together fabulous events on short notice. Heck, she’d even put the
fabulous
stamp on her own wedding, with only six weeks to plan. But none of her planning skills would get her out of this deep depression she had fallen into.

Sleep became her friend. No one mocked or judged her while she slept, so Ryla spent her days ignoring the ringing of her telephone as she lay in a comalike state.

Suddenly, her blinds were flung open and Ryla had to pull the covers over her head to keep from being blinded.

“Get up.”

Ryla lowered the cover and sent a piercing glare in Danetta’s direction. “How did you get in here?”

Danetta held up the key. “I told your mother that I was going to take you to church this morning, and she handed me her spare key. Of course, neither of us believed that you would get out of bed to open the door for me.”

“You don’t have to sound so rude. I’m going through a traumatic time in my life. Shouldn’t I be allowed to wallow around for a few days?”

“A few days, yes. But you haven’t gone out of this house since you entered it on Monday. You won’t answer the phone and your mother tells me that you haven’t combed your hair or changed your clothes in days. And that’s not you.”

Tears formed in Ryla’s eyes. “I really loved him, Danetta. But he doesn’t love me anymore.” She hit the blanket with her fist. “Maybe I’m not worthy of love after what I did to him.”

Danetta searched the room until she found a hand mirror on Ryla’s vanity. She sat down on the bed next to Ryla and said, “Look.”

Ryla started screaming, “Get that mirror away from me.”

“The mirror isn’t going to set you on fire, Ryla. What’s wrong with you?” Danetta asked with an arched eyebrow.

“I can’t stand to look in these mirrors.”

“Since when?” Danetta demanded to know.

Ryla slumped back in her bed and sighed. She had meant to ask Danetta about the man she’d run into at the mall a few months ago, but so much had been going on that she’d never had a chance. But now that her mirror was tormenting her, she needed answers. “I ran into this man at the mall a few months ago. He showed me this little black book that read something like, ‘Why did Jesus die?’ on the cover. When he opened the book, there was no answer to the question, but a mirror that showed my reflection. It has bothered me ever since, because I don’t know what he was trying to say.”

“Wow. You’ve never mentioned this to me,” Danetta said.

“I meant to, but life became so busy that I forgot about it, and now I can’t get it out of my mind.” She looked Danetta in the eye. “Was that man blaming me for demise in general?” Noel blamed her for so much. Maybe others saw the Guilty stamp on her forehead also.

“No, hon, not at all.” Danetta smiled. “I wish you had told me about this earlier. Then maybe you wouldn’t be such a basket case.”

Ryla sniffed. She then grabbed the toilet paper she had been using, since she had run out of tissues, and blew her nose. “I’ll probably still be a basket case, but at least I’ll feel better about not being blamed for one more thing.”

Danetta rushed on with her explanation. “The reason that man showed you a picture of yourself was because he wanted you to know that, if you were the only person on this earth, Jesus still would have bled and died for little ol’ you.”

“Why?” Ryla asked, as if to say she wasn’t worth the effort.

“Because the Lord loves you so much that He even wants to help you get through this terrible time in your life.”

“But why? I don’t get it.”

Ryla had closed herself off from people who hurt or dismissed her, refusing to give them her love to throw around. So the idea of God loving her despite the fact that she hardly went to church or worshipped Him in any meaningful fashion was hard to comprehend.

Danetta held out a hand to her friend. “Come to church with me. Come find out about the God who loves you so dearly.”

Ryla had tried to fix things herself and had done a poor job of it for so long that the idea of someone else helping her get where she needed to be intrigued her. She threw the covers back and said, “Why not?”

* * *

Ian shook his head as he watched Noel try to right himself on the sofa. He finally gave up and fell face forward into the cushions. Ian opened his cell phone and called Donald. “I hate making this call,” Ian said the moment Donald came on the line, “but I picked Noel up at a local bar a little while ago, and he just passed out.”

“I’m on my way” was all Donald said, and then he hung up.

Ian walked over to his friend and shoved him. “Did you hear that? I called your brother and he is on the way over here to figure out why you would sabotage your future like this.”

Noel lifted his head for a brief moment. “Tell him to bring me a beer.” He then fell back into the cushiony softness of his sofa.

* * *

The service was wonderful and Ryla was so glad that she’d gotten out of bed to attend church with Danetta and Marshall today. Praise and worship proved to be a magical time for her. Ryla raised her hands, and for the first time in a very long while, she wasn’t thinking about what she would get out of praising the Lord. She simply wanted to praise God for the great being that He was.

After the sermon, the pastor asked if anyone wanted to give their life to God. The concept intrigued her. Ryla had never given anything to anyone who hadn’t given her something in return. But today would be the day to try something new. She stepped into the aisle and began walking down to the altar. With each step she took, the heaviness of her trials and tribulations seemed to fall off.

As she prayed the sinner’s prayer with an altar worker, Ryla felt the weight of unforgiveness fall away. No longer would she hold her father’s failings against him. With this newfound ability to forgive, Ryla found that she no longer needed to judge every man by her father’s standards. And in finally seeing what she had done to Noel, she realized that she owed him a true apology.

* * *

Donald was sitting on the floor with Ian and Noel, force-feeding his brother black coffee and trying to talk some sense into him.

“I love her, man. I really love her,” Noel confessed.

“Then why’d you leave her, dummy?” Ian asked, anger flashing in his eyes.

Taking another sip of his coffee, Noel said, “Because I’m exactly what you said—a dummy. And because Ryla has so many issues that she will eventually leave me again. Honestly...I just don’t know if I can handle her leaving me again.”

“You do know that fear doesn’t come from God, don’t you, bro?” Donald asked.

“Yeah, I know, but this fear has gripped me to the point where I would walk away from the woman I love. Forget the fact that she tricked me into marrying her. I was crazy to be mad about that, because I’d gladly marry Ryla. My problem is that I’d be forever concerned that I might do something to cause her to leave me. I don’t want to live like that.”

“Do you want to live like this?” Ian pointed at him.

Noel knew that Ian was referring to the fact that he had gotten drunk after being sober for years. “No, I don’t want to live like this, either.”

Donald got on his knees. “Then pray with me. Let’s take your fears to God and then you can go get your woman back.”

Donald’s idea sounded better than the one Noel had come up with—drinking himself into a coma so he’d stop thinking about Ryla. So he got on his knees and said, “Let’s do this.”

Chapter 23

A
fter the service, Danetta invited Ryla to brunch, but Ryla had other plans. “Thanks, girl, but I’m going to pick Jaylen up from my mom’s and then drive to Dallas. I need to talk to Noel.”

Danetta smiled. “I’m proud of you, girl. Handle your business.”

Ryla hugged Danetta. “Thanks for being my friend. I should have taken your advice in the first place. But I’m learning that God gives us second chances, and I’m hoping that Noel will also.”

“He will—just keep the faith.”

Oh, she had the faith, all right, and Ryla never wanted to let it go. She picked up Jaylen and put a smile on her child’s face when she explained that they were driving to Dallas to see Noel.

She stopped off and purchased some burgers in case Noel was hungry. Every time she had dropped Jaylen off at Noel’s house during the summer, it never seemed as if Noel had much food in the cabinets. He was strictly a dining-out kind of man. Noel lived in the high-priced Southlake suburbs of Dallas, where food and amenities were plentiful, so it didn’t matter that he didn’t cook much.

When they arrived, Ian and Donald were on their way out the door. “You don’t have to leave because of us,” Ryla told them.

“We don’t mind leaving. We’ve been with your knucklehead husband all morning, and trust me—we need a break.”

Ryla laughed. “He’s not that bad.”

“Yeah, you heard her. I’m not that bad.” Noel picked Jaylen up and hugged her. “Hey, little one. I really missed you.”

“I told Mommy that you’d be missing me if we didn’t come back to Dallas, but she didn’t believe me.”

“You were right. So don’t ever stay away from me this long again.”

“I won’t,” Jaylen assured him, and then wrapped her arms around him again.

Ryla sat quietly as Noel and Jaylen watched cartoons and played silly games. She joined in a few times. But when Jaylen finally fell off to sleep, Ryla turned to Noel and said, “I came here to tell you that I will give you the divorce you want. I never should have tricked you into marrying me. And I don’t want you to feel trapped into staying with me.”

Dumbfounded, Noel asked, “What happened to change your mind? I mean, when I originally asked for the annulment, you plotted to seduce me instead.”

“I attended church today. The message delivered and a little talk I had with Danetta helped me to see that I had been so unfair to you.” Tears streamed down her face as she continued to pour out her heart to him. “I lost faith in men after my father left my mother for another woman, and that caused me to spend the last eight years making you pay for what another man did.”

“And so, what are you saying—going to church helped you to have faith in me?” Noel asked.

“It wasn’t just going to church that did it. It was the message from the pastor on trusting God. It helped me realize that if I put my faith and trust in God, then I don’t have to worry about what you may or may not do sometime down the line. I can just trust you, and freely offer you my love.... But I also know that this marriage didn’t start off right. So, even though I desperately want to be with you, I will let you go. Because I want to do whatever will make you happy.”

Noel grabbed hold of her and kissed her with the hunger of a man who had fasted for a month. When he finally released her, he said, “You were right the first time, baby. Being married is definitely better for us.”

“Oh, Noel, do you mean it?” Ryla asked with hope springing in her heart.

He kissed her again, trying to show her all the love that was growing in his heart. As they pulled apart, he confessed, “I’ve been a fool, Ryla. I’ve never stopped loving you and I would be so very miserable if you left me again.”

“Do you think you will ever be able to forgive me for keeping Jaylen from you?”

Nodding as he lightly sprinkled kisses from her forehead to her chin, Noel said, “I don’t want to hold any more grudges against you, baby. All I want to do is love you from this day forward. Can you handle that? Do you want to be married to me for real, Ryla Carter?”

She looked at him, and with mischief in her eyes, she said, “I do.”

Noel grinned, and as his heart filled with love, he told her, “I do, too, baby. Now and forever.”

* * * * *