The Tattooed Flower

25. Long F-N-ights

Ruth-

I remember the night we had sex, Caleb and I. It was after Avery was born and about a month after I'd lost the baby weight, yet still retained the scars and stretch marks. We'd been having dinner with Matt and Dave while Caleb was in Vegas visiting. I'd had a few glasses of wine and Caleb assured me that I simply could not drive home, so he took me. I'd batted my eyelashes and asked him to walk me to the door, and he did. Then, I invited him in.

Caleb is a gentleman and always has been, I don't care what anyone says. A lesser man would've done one of two things: declined flat out or come in for a quick fuck and leave me lonely. He did neither. He followed me in, helped me out of my coat and hesitantly followed me as I wandered into the bedroom. I could feel him judging me, checking to see just how drunk I was. I wasn't drunk, I was buzzed and lonely and sad, and that looks very close to drunk. I sat at the edge of my bed, hinting him to join me and for a moment he just stared at me, not quite willing to do away with me like I wanted him to.

"I just want to feel pretty again." I said. The corners of his mouth dropped and he stared at me some more, this time moving closer to me. He put his hand on my cheek and I leaned into his touch. I knew the kind of man he was. I knew that in the morning we'd have coffee and breakfast and everything would be purely platonic. I knew all of that.

The night was slow, everything was slow. He hadn't tried to rush a moment of it. When he undressed me I felt a burst of shame. He was going to see my stretch marks; he was going to run for the hills. He could sense my tension. His lips touched mine, soft and slow, trying to ease me. I remember trying to hide my stomach in the the sheets. I remember that he tore the sheets from the bed completely. Hands set me in place, restraining me from hiding myself any further. "You're beautiful." He said, staring me dead in the eye, and then, as though to assure me that he meant it, he went to my stomach, kissing the spots I'd remembered to be the worst, most damaged parts.

Caleb made me feel pretty again, and that's something not easily returned once stolen.

"Are you guys going to tell me whats up?" I cry out angrily. They've been whispering back and forth for hours. Avery stirs in my lap, we all retired to the living room after ravaging Caleb's refrigerator. You can tell that Caleb is a changed man the second you walk through the door of his house.

You can see that he's finally met someone. Someone who loves him, someone he loves. The walls are decorated in pictures and memories, the rugs are all neatly vacuumed, and even the refrigerator with it's dated items and labels. All things Caleb would never think of himself. Someone is looking out for him, and I feel a pang of love for whoever that someone is.

"Er- yeah. Yeah?" Matthew says looking back and forth between Dave and I, questioning if he should spill the beans. "You know what, I'm going to go put Avery to bed in the guest room." Dave gives a small grunt of agreement and leans forward, elbows on his knees.

"So-"

"Soooo?" I prod.

He shoots me a glare and continues, "Her name is- ugh. Her name is Quinn."

"Quinn. Are you sure about that?" I say, judgment evident in my voice.

"No actually I'm not. That's the problem isn't it? Caleb fell in love with a fugitive and now everyone is a mess." He blurts out irritably.

"Huh?" Fugitive?

"Quinn- Paisley, I guess... She uh, killed her dad, Caleb says her father was abusive or something." He tries to say it offhandedly, like it's just another day in the park, like he's okay.

"Caleb fell in love with a murderer." I repeat the information, like somehow it helps it make more sense. The worst part of is that it does make sense, and it's not the first time. "Do you think he has a complex for murderers?"

"What?"

"A complex."

"What do you mean." It doesn't come out as a question. He's demanding and answer, this is the subtle, controlling version of Dave that has always rubbed me the wrong way.

"You know exactly what I mean." I say through my teeth.

"No. No. Thats over, it's done."

"It took him so long to see straight, Dave."

"He's better now."

"Obviously not."

Dave stands up, trudging off to Caleb's room, heart set on retrieving him, on setting him straight.

"Wait! Dave, wait!" I shout running off ahead of him. "Let me talk to him." Dave just shrugs and wanders back to the couch.

I step towards his door, and there she is again. That girl, the girl who loves him. Another rug, neatly vacuumed, another picture on the wall, and now a stand. One he'd hidden. One we couldn't get him to put out, a shrine of sorts. The dark wood that belonged to his mother, the same stand she'd always kept his and Hailey's drawings in. A stand that Quinn had convinced him to reinstate. Or maybe not. Maybe she'd found it. Maybe she put it out without asking and forced him to be bigger than his sadness. Maybe she just loves him that much, enough to put him through hell.

I open the door. And find him. Not crying, not sleeping, just staring at the wall.

"Hey, Caleb." His lip twitches, the only reassurance I get that he has acknowledged my presence.

"I get it, you know." He doesn't move. "We all get it... We can see how much she loves you. She does love you, Caleb, I know it."

He looks at me, his eyes so dark that it's impossible to differentiate the iris from the pupil. "Not enough... Not enough to stay." He whispers.

"That's not true. Caleb I know the story. She loved you too much to stay." He shakes his head, and I sit at the edge of the bed, resting my hand on his knee.

He looks at me, the same way I looked that night, the night we were together. "I just want to see her again." I thought it was a particularly miraculous feat when Caleb had replenished my sense of beauty and confidence, and it was. But, this, this one request, is not easily achieved, maybe not achievable at all. I can't bring her back to him. I can't recover her love for him. All I can do is sit here; all I can do is give him the love that I have. That's all any of us can do. I just hope it's enough.