Demanding Ransom (15 page)

Everything he’s saying I’ve heard before,
hundreds of times. I’ve read about it in books and seen it portrayed in movies.
It’s not a new concept he’s telling me—the idea that forgiveness frees
the forgiver more than the one actually in
need
of forgiveness. But I’ve never seen it living and breathing, sitting and
embodied right in front of me.

When Ran’s head rolls to the side and his hair
brushes my cheek, I don’t pull back like I would have ten minutes ago. Back
when I wanted to throw things—both in the form of physical objects as well
as spiteful insults—at him. It’s as though there’s been some shift, some
turning point where the anger I felt for him morphed into feelings that I don’t
even have words for. It’s strange to think how similar those emotions
are—hatred and affection. They’re both forms of passion, and that’s what
I feel: passionate over this equally broken man sitting beside me.

So I don’t recoil when he moves closer. Instead
I lean into him, slinking my body down on the couch so I fit along this curve
of his, needing to be closer to him. I haven’t felt this close to anyone in a
long time, and I’m surprised that my actual body wants in on that closeness,
too.

“Maggie,” he exhales against my hair, slipping
his arm behind my back so he can draw me in.

I press my side to him, very aware of every
inch in contact with him.

“But what do you do when your heart isn’t
filled with hate, but it’s absolutely broken?” I choke on the hiccup that
accompanies my words.

Ran sifts his free hand through my hair,
pressing back the strands that hang near my eyes. He glides his fingers under
my chin and turns it toward him so my face is angled upward. I want to reach
out and graze his jaw with my fingernail, to feel the shadow of stubble that
clings to it on my fingertips. I actually want to feel much more than that.
Those lips that spewed flirtatious compliments don’t look so sarcastic and
shallow now. They look soft, supple, and I imagine they’d feel the same pressed
against mine. I imagine they’d carry that same tender warmth and vulnerability
as his words. That they’d respond and reply to mine with careful, cautious
measure.

“Maggie?” Ran leans closer, murmuring against
my skin. When his lips feather against my cheek, I want to turn my head so they
meet my mouth instead. “I told you I wasn’t in the business of healing people,
right?”

I nod slightly, not wanting to cause him to
pull from his close proximity next to me.

“I patch people up.” He lowers the space and
presses his mouth onto my skin, so the corners of our lips touch just at the
edges. “And that’s what I want to do with your heart, Maggie. I want to do
everything I can to patch it up and make it whole again.” I hold my head as
still as possible, though everything in me wants to burst. “If you let me, I’ll
do everything in my power to help you heal.”

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

“When are you coming back? I didn’t think you’d
be gone already!” Cora squeals on the other end of the line. I drop another egg
onto the pan and it sizzles instantly. I twist toward Mikey and mouth ‘How many
do you want?’ He holds up four fingers. Glad to see his appetite is back.

“I don’t know, Cora. It’s not so easy for me to
get back and forth between home and school without a car.” The edges of the egg
whiten as the heat bubbles through it, and after a few more seconds I scrape
the spatula under it to flip it over.

“Then ask Ran to take you. He seems pretty
willing.” I hear her snap a piece of bubble gum loudly into the receiver,
followed by a magnified scratching sound, so I assume she’s peeling off the gum
that’s now stuck on the phone. “Or maybe I can drive out to get you, leave you
with my car, and he can give me another ride on the back of that bike of his.”

“That doesn’t sound like a very good idea.” I
pry the edge of the egg up and glimpse the perfectly cooked underside.

“Wrong, that sounds like the best idea ever.
Even better than my thesis for my last English paper. You know what? You’ve
given me a great idea. I think I’m going to use this subject matter for my next
paper. All the reasons why riding Ran is a good idea.”

“You mean riding
with
Ran.”

“That’s what I said,” she asserts with false
innocence in her tone.

“Um, no, it’s not.”

I can see the eye roll without actually having
to
see
it. “Are you claiming him?
Because if you are, I’ll lay off.”

I drop three more eggs onto the pan. “I’m not
claiming
him. He’s not a piece of meat.”

“Um, yeah he is. Thesis statement number two:
All the reasons why Ran is a fine piece of meat.”

“I’m not sure when I’m coming back.” I change
the subject. “In reality, I don’t really have a reason
to
come back. I turned in my paper and I’m done for the quarter.”

“Um,
hello
?”
Cora huffs through the phone. “Since when is giving your roommate moral support
as she suffers through finals week not reason enough?”

I lift the remaining eggs off the pan, grab the
two pieces of freshly toasted bread from the toaster, and plate Mikey’s
breakfast for him. He mouths ‘thank you,’ as I settle it down in front of him
on the counter.

“I don’t know, Cora. We’ll see. I’ll be back
after break for sure. Next quarter is going to be insane.” I’ve already
registered for my classes and I have no clue how I’m going to survive with the
immense workload rumored from each professor.

“All the more reason you should enjoy your last
week of the quarter, responsibility-free.”

“We’ll see.” I hang up the line with Cora and
cook two eggs for myself and then slide in next to Mikey. “How are they?”

“Good. Thanks, Sis.” He shoves an overflowing
forkful of a soggy, yellow bread mixture into his mouth. “Hey.” He pauses. “Can
I tell you something?” Mikey’s voice wavers.

I swivel on the barstool toward him and lower
my fork onto my plate. It clinks faintly as it hits the ceramic. “Sure, Mikey,”
I say, cautiously. “You can tell me anything. You know that, right?”

He drops his fork onto his now-empty plate and
pushes it away from him. Running his hands back and forth over his fuzzy scalp,
he looks up at me and says, “I think Sadie might be pregnant.”

It probably wasn’t a good idea to take a sip of
orange juice right before Mikey’s declaration, because it burns as it slides
back up my esophagus, unable to make its way down. “What?”

“Never mind, I shouldn’t have said anything.”
He pushes off of the bar with his palms and chucks his dishes into the sink.
They rattle angrily against the stainless tub.

“No, Mikey.” I stretch my hand out to him.
“It’s not that. I’m just…surprised, that’s all. It’s not what I was expecting.”

“Well, us either.” Mikey pulls the dishtowel
off the hook and wrings it over his hands. “I mean, when we first found out
about the tumor, it seemed like a good idea—”

“What seemed like a good idea?” I cautiously
slide my plate toward him and he retrieves it to place it in the sink with the
rest of the dirty dishes.

“Getting pregnant.” Mikey’s eyes are round.
“Sadie and I have always planned on getting married after high school. When we
first found out I had cancer…I don’t know…it just felt like life sped up at
that moment.”

I nod my head at him, hoping the look on my
face does a decent job of disguising the shock underneath.

“And she said that we planned to have a family
together someday. What difference did moving that plan up a few years make?
We’re eighteen, we’re adults. And we agreed that even if I ended up dying, a
piece of me would still live on.” Mikey slams his hands onto his forehead.
“Damn. That sounds so stupid saying it out loud.”

“It’s not stupid, Mikey. It’s just not smart.”
Maybe Ran’s right; maybe I should consider switching to a linguistics major.

“I get that
now
,
Maggie. But at the hospital, right after I got the diagnosis, before my
surgery—”

“Wait—” I throw my hands up, stopping him
like I’m a crossing guard. “You’re not saying you and Sadie…” My eyes nearly
pop from their sockets as I continue, “…in the hospital?”

“Babies are conceived in hospitals all the
time.”

“Yeah, in petri dishes, Mikey! Not in hospital
beds!” The horror I had over the thought of someone dying in that stupid gown
suddenly takes on an even deeper fear. “Mikey, that’s just—”

“I’m sure it’s not the first time, Maggie,”
Mikey defends, both equally embarrassed and frustrated by this whole situation.
“I would think that it might rate pretty high on the list of last dying wishes
and all.”

“Whatever,” I say. “It doesn’t matter where it
happened. So you think she’s actually pregnant?” I deliberately soften my tone.

Mikey shrugs and flips the handle on the
faucet. He douses the dishes with more soap than is required and furiously
begins scrubbing with the brush in his hands like he’s got a personal vendetta
against the pots and pans. “She’s two days late.”

“That doesn’t necessary mean anything,” I
assure. “Things like that can be affected by stress, and I think it’s fair to
say that she’s been under quite a bit of that lately.”

“I know, that’s what I keep telling her, but
she’s freaking out.”

I nod and ignore the water that’s spraying all
over the kitchen from his frenzied assault on the dirty dishes. “I’m sure she
is. I would be, too.”

“You would have? Like if Brian had gotten you
pregnant?”

When he says his name, I shudder. Thinking of
Brian like that burns at my stomach more than the acidic juice. Thinking of
being pregnant with his child is even worse.

“Yes, I would have freaked out,” I reply
calmly.

“Because you weren’t ready to have his baby,”
Mikey clarifies.

“Right, because I wasn’t ready to have not just
his baby, but any baby. I wasn’t ready for any of it, and in hindsight, I
shouldn’t have been doing anything with him that could have gotten us into that
situation.”

Mikey tosses the scrub brush down and clamps
two firm hands over the side of the sink. “See, but that’s where we’re
different. We both want this someday.”

“Right,
someday
.
It’s okay to want to have a family with Sadie someday, Mikey. You’re committed
to her and you love her.”

“I might not have a
someday
,” Mikey sighs. “And so were you and Brian. Committed and in
love, I mean.”

I shake my head. “I don’t think so. I don’t
think that was love.” If it was, I’m not sure I ever want it again.

“How do you know the difference?”

I bite down on my lip and Mikey resumes his
dishwashing, much less violently this time.

“I don’t know, but I can tell you one thing. If
Brian and I had gotten pregnant, there’s no way he would have been talking to
his sister about it, trying to figure out how to make it work. That wouldn’t
have even been an option.”

“I’m scared, Maggie.” Mikey shuts the water off
again and drags the dishtowel down his face. “I’m scared to die. I’m scared to
live. I’m scared that Sadie’s pregnant and that we’re not ready for this. I’m
scared that I’ll never play football again. I’m scared of my next round of
chemo. I’m scared that I’m always going to be sick.” He throws the towel on the
counter. “I’m scared out of my mind and I don’t know where the hell to go from
here.”

I don’t either. And I don’t know what to say to
him to make things better. There’s nothing that can make it better. We just
have to live it.

“This is your life now, Mikey.”

“I know.” He lifts up a pot from the sink by
its handle and crashes it back down. “You think I don’t know that? That this is
my life?”

I press my fingers onto the granite counter. “I
don’t get it either, Mikey. I don’t get why some people get to skate through
existence and never have anything bad happen to them, when others get it in
abundance. I don’t get it.”

Mikey laughs one hollow snicker. “Look who I’m
talking to. Your life sucks just as much as mine. You freaking got plowed into
by some drunk on your way to see me at the hospital. I wouldn’t say life’s been
too kind to you either, Mags.”

I shrug my shoulders up to my ears and keep
them there. “I don’t know,” I begin. “I think it could be a lot worse.”

Mikey flattens the towel onto the counter and
starts stacking the clean dishes on top of it. “Things could always be worse.
But when it’s your life and you’re right in the middle of it, it’s hard to keep
that perspective.”

“You’re right,” I agree, joining him at the
sink. I hand him another recently washed pan and he sets it onto the towel. “It’s
much easier to see things from someone else’s point of view.”

***

Me: When can I see you?

I try not to stare down at the phone balanced
on my bathroom counter and instead focus on applying my eyeliner, but it’s like
my eyes are magnetically pulled to it. After several looks back and forth from
the mirror to the cell, it vibrates loudly and I abandon my makeup routine
altogether.