This Ain't a Love Song

His hands were shaking as he reached for the cordless phone, wondering briefly if she was going to just hang up on him, or not bother to answer it at all. After five days of trying to get a damn conversation out of her, he was giving up hope. His eyes strayed to the computer screen again, and then he punched in the numbers, fumbling and fucking up half a dozen times before he got them in right. The phone rang a few times, but she did finally pick it up. Her voice was quiet and it didn't even sound like her at first, "hey..." Something was swirling in her head and that was obvious. Ryann had never been one for hiding her feelings, she'd always worn her heart on her sleeve, and in this case, it was in her voice.

"Hey," he said back, settling into the lame and mundane. He didn't really know what to say to her right now, he'd just wanted to hear her voice. "Was the flight ok?"

"Cross country, only to log onto the net and find out that I was yanked?" She scoffed aloud, "yeah... The flight was fine..."

"Yeah." He sighed, masking it with a little cough. "I'm sorry. Everything... ok?" He mumbled the words, shaking his head as his own social ineptitude. "I miss you, Ry..." The silence spun out again as he flipped his MacBook closed and lay back on the bed. She could hear the creak of the springs- a familiar sound. "Talk to me a little?"

"What do you want to talk about, Jax?" The way she said his nickname seemed slightly unfamiliar, she was dealing with herself and struggling, "this isn't your fault..."

"It's not?" He laughed sarcastically, and shifted the phone to his other ear. "Looked that way when you were ripping a strip off me the other night."

"You, above anyone else, should know how I get when I'm confused about things," she sighed, "I don't know... Maybe I'm just getting what I deserve for what I'm doing to people."

"Confused?" He furrowed his brows, looking up at the ceiling. "You lost me, babe. What's got you confused?"

"Everything about my life and where it's goin'," she told him, rolling and laying on her back staring up at the ceiling, "would be easier if I just lost a match..."

"No, it wouldn't because I'd never see you again." His voice was soft, that familiar tone he always got when he was talking to her. Almost some sort of contentment, but there was more than that. Maybe it was just familiarity and comfort. He wanted so badly to berate her for doing drugs with Chapman, but that would have been so damned hypocritical. "But maybe that's what you want out of all this." He said the words without thinking, and by then it was too late to call them back.

"Yes, that's it, that's exactly what I want," her voice was sharp and annoyed now, "I want to actually BE a whore. Thanks, Jax..."

"Shit." He mumbled the word, and she knew by the silence that he was probably chewing on the inside of his cheek- he was. "I'm sorry, Ry... I... I'm just not at my best right now." The understatement of the year. He was soaked in sweat, laying across the bed in nothing but a pair of shapeless old shorts. The room still reeked of shit and puke. "Can I see you sometime? You said you'd be in Russia on Wednesday, right?"

She nodded to herself, "I can meet with you Thursday afternoon, if you want."

"Please." He wasn't above sounding desperate right now. It was just so nice to have her on the phone. "There's a place around the corner from the hotel... I think you might like it. You want me to make a reservation?"

She nodded again, sighing as she pressed her head into her familiar pillows, "yeah, sure if you want. Might make it easier to get in if the place is busy."

"Ryann..." so many emotions were rolled into that uttering of her name, but the greatest of them was sorrow. "Do you still feel the butterflies?"

She stayed quiet for along time, almost to the point that he thought she'd hung up, however that intake of breath gave her away, "don't ask me that." She exhaled some, closing her eyes and having to admit it, even though it put her in a place where she didn't want to be quite yet, "yes..."

"I have to ask," his voice trembled slightly, and he cleared his throat before continuing, "I have to know if this is worth sticking it out for. If you hate me... if... you don't feel anything any more, what's the use in hanging on? I can't make you love me again. I can't put you in a headlock, wrestle you to the floor... and..." he broke off, falling silent again. "Shit, I'm sorry. You probably don't want to talk about this, huh?"

"I never stopped loving you," she said out of the blue, "it just got more complicated somewhere, and I don't know how to make it right. Though, tonight, has started to make things clear."

"Clarity's good." He chuckled softly, "guess we can settle for that. I never stopped loving you either, since we're being honest. I think maybe I'm learning a lot about myself right now... the amount of shit I can take from that asshole and not wig out." She noticed him breathing into the phone, but what she didn't hear were the telltale inhalations that usually punctuated every phone call. He wasn't smoking. "You suck for bailing on me in Florida. You know how fucking hard it was to spend a few days there alone?"

"I'm sorry..." She muttered , moving a little and rolling to her side in her bed looking at the dresser. Alongside her TV was a picture of the two of them taken Christmas, right after she'd turned 18. It made her smile softly, but she didn't say anything else to him.

"Yeah, I'm sure you are... but it just doesn't feel like it, you know?" He sighed, not bothering to cover it up this time. "I'm just so tired of fighting tooth and nail for every second... hell, I'm just tired period."

Her eyes didn't move from that picture, however, her hand moved over her eyes. She yawned some and realized just how late it was. Her body was still on West Coast time. Sighing out at the end, she mumbled, "then rest Jax... Just rest..."

"Can't, babe. Having trouble sleeping lately." He lifted his head, stuffing a pillow under it. "Maybe... you want to talk until we fall asleep?"

A small smile played at her lips, "like on the plane, when we made Shane wanna vomit?" She closed her eyes, "promise me you'll try to sleep."

"I can try." He said the words so softly she almost didn't hear them. "It's so good to hear your voice. You know that?"

"I can't even begin to understand why you'd say that, not after everything I've done." She breathed in deeply, and yawned again, speaking through it, "I wish you were here to hold me while I sleep." It was clear by her tone, to him at least, that the girl was on the brink of sleeping, fighting to stay awake.

"I wish I was too." His voice dropped to a bare whisper, but he began to sing something familiar. "Somewhere out there... someone's saying a prayer that we'll find one another in that big somewhere out there... and even though I know how very far apart we are..." he could tell she was getting closer to drifting in the river of dreams. "I love you, Ryann. Please don't ever forget that."

There was nothing on the other end of the line for a moment, until she inhaled some and in a voice that was clearly 98% sleeping, she told him, "I love you, too..."


Ryann,

I don't hate you. I'm sorry I typed that to you on Twitter. I didn't mean it, so please don't hold that against me. I need you to understand where I am right now.

I love you. I always have. Ages before I admitted it to myself, or to you, there was a spark. I couldn't get you off my mind. When you left the room at those parties, my heart broke. Please, if nothing else, remember that. I don't blame you for leaving me in Florida. I know I was damned pathetic that night, begging you to hold me like a child afraid of the dark. I'm not supposed to be weak with you. I need to be strong. I understand that was the one constant we always had. I never dropped my defenses. I never showed you my fears.

This isn't the first letter I've written you since that morning. But this is the first one I intend to send.

This room is so cold and dark without you. Days have passed, maybe weeks, I'm not even sure anymore. It's purgatory, one foot halfway into hell. I'm freezing. I'm sweating. I'm killing myself slowly because of something you said. I haven't touched anything since the night I ended up in the hospital. No booze. No pills. No coke. Not even a fucking cigarette. I'm seeing you in less than twenty-four hours, and I'm a goddamn wreck. It'll be fourteen days, give or take a few hours. Two whole weeks since I last saw you in person.

Do you know how hard that's been for me when you've been a permanent fixture for the last couple years? I can't stand being away from you. It makes me hate myself. I spent too much time since then sitting in the dark, feeding off this depression and thinking about what I might have done to drive you away. I know this is my fault. I didn't love you enough. I didn't treat you like the goddess you are to me. I didn't give you enough. I didn't tell you enough.

I know I'm worthless. Unlovable. I knew this day would come sooner or later.

I'm sorry. I'm not good at feelings. I always just wanted you to stay. Time has slowed to a snail's crawl, and the loneliness is unbearable. If I begged you, would you come back to me?

I wish you would just be honest with me. It's pretty obvious after you spent a week avoiding me like the plague that it's over. Written in permanent ink over every surface now that another seven days have piled on.

I'd apologize, but the words sound hollow and fake because I don't know what I did wrong. I opened myself up to you, it was painful and against my nature, but I let you see me. You know the truth of everything that makes me who I am.

I loved you selflessly, Ryann. I loved you with my whole heart.

I cannot fathom why you would vanish without a word and then act as though I've wronged you for questioning it. I don't understand why you're acting out some teenage rebellion, boasting about your actions for everyone to see. I would feel embarrassed if that sort of thing could evoke an emotion. It can't because I'm so fucking numb nothing's getting through.

Perhaps I imagined you, a woman who stole my heart and soul, nothing more than a hungry phantom desperate to deprive me of the only thing I ever wanted. A human connection -just one moment where the world felt right. You always gave me that without even meaning to. We were so normal together, you and I. You loved me. I loved you. I thought that was all we'd ever need.

You and me against the world. I meant that, you know. I still do. I'll always have your back.

But I can't compete with youth and danger. I can't measure up to those pretty boy looks.

I had you for a second. You were here in my grasp. I let you get away.

I feel broken now, and I want to pick up a knife, carve my body, dig out this poison of love that pumps through my veins. The fact remains that I won't do that. I'm not like him. I'm an adult.

I can tell you things now that I couldn't before. Space and time have given me that freedom. I can tell you about things that mattered once. I carried a ring around for weeks when you were nineteen, thinking that it was too soon to ask you, fearing rejection. Now I know it wasn't soon enough. Every chance between us has been wasted by my own stupidity.

Maybe tomorrow will give me one last moment with you before you walk away. I know you will. I know this because I know I won't be able to control my temper against him. I will hurt him, and you'll look at those bruises and see my face. You'll know my hatred and pain. It'll make you sick.

I'm sorry for that.

I just want you to be happy. I can see now that won't be here. It won't be with me.

Everything is silent now, no laughter, just this hollow ache. The sun comes up, and I don't care. Another day without you means nothing. I'll sit here, alone in the cold room with my scars. Run my fingers over them as if they're Braille. They keep me warm. They tell me stories that are almost comforting.

If my heart is broken, why hasn't it stopped beating? I love you more with each passing second, and the agony is much keener. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. What doesn't kill you just makes you a better whore.

I think it's time to be honest. I will let you go. Forever. All you have to do is ask.

This letter disgusts me. This level of pathetic is not a place I ever wanted to be. I hate myself for wanting this so bad. I hate myself for every poor choice I have ever made. I hate myself for loving you. You deserve better, Ryann.

Stay with him. Be happy. Eventually you'll forget me and the moments we shared. I never will. That's my curse, not yours.

Again, I'm sorry for everything.

Love always,

Brad