Rule(88)

Chapter 16
Shaw

It had been three weeks give or take a day with no contact from Rule.  No text messages, no phone calls, no e-mails, no carrier pigeons, just a whole lot of silence and heartbreak on my end.  Rome hadn’t even returned my calls or texts telling him goodbye and that I would miss him while he was gone.  He had left for the desert mad at me and as upsetting as that was the daily battle I had with myself to call Rule and beg him to forgive me, to plead with him to understand that it was never my secret to tell regardless of our relationship was soul crushing.  Ayden kept saying he would cool off and come around while Margot and Dale firmly believed he wasn’t going to speak to any of us ever again.  They were in the same boat as me, neither of the boys was speaking to them and Margot had nearly had a nervous breakdown when Rome had refused to allow them to drive him down to Fort Carson for his send off, instead the brothers went together leaving the rest of us out in the cold.

I was hurting but I was also sick and tired of my love and affection not being enough for anybody.  I had loved Rule longer and harder than anyone else in my life and that still wasn’t enough for him to look beyond his own hurt feelings and sense of betrayal to work things out with me.  I was still pissed that he had spent the week prior to the bomb being dropped trying to act and behave in a way I had never asked for or wanted, but when I was alone at night and crying in bed I had to admit that while it was misguided it was still a really sweet gesture and if things hadn’t gone so south we could have totally gone somewhere great with everything.  I remembered telling him to beware of how bad things could be if we tried to do this and somehow even finding him in bed time and time again with every skanky girl this side of the Platte River couldn’t hold a candle to this complete freeze out.

I tried really hard not to worry about what he was doing or who he was doing it with, but every day that passed it seemed more and more fatalistic.  Whatever he had felt for me wasn’t enough to get him past the hurt he was feeling and it came nowhere near the heart wrenching emotion I had for him so as much as it nearly killed me, as much as it pained me to let it go after so much time I had to get over him, had to work at moving on because even if he did get back in touch with me there was just too great a chance he had relapsed into his old ways and there was just simply no way I was going to survive that kind of betrayal from someone I cared so deeply about.  So instead of languishing about it I forced a smile every day, picked back up the shifts I had dropped at work, threw myself into my school work and spent as much time as I could with Ayden and Cora.  I was carful every time I was around Cora to give nothing away and she was just as carful to never, ever mention Rule or anything having to do with him.

To say my parents were excited that Rule was no longer in the picture was an understatement.  My dad was so happy he took my newly repainted BMW and traded it in for a Porsche Cayenne because I was complaining one day about wanting an SUV to have when it snowed.  I tried to refuse it, because I didn’t need to be bribed considering Rule had effectively left me, but the title was in my name and the BMW was already gone so I begrudgingly accepted it.  My mom was even worse.  She called every day to check on me.  The woman that had never had the time of day for me was suddenly overly interested in everything I did and everyone I spent time with, I think she was trying to subliminally let me know that as long as I kept unsavory characters out my life I would eventually gain her approval.

The funny thing was now that Rule was gone I didn’t want it.  I would have taken being disowned and disinherited a million times over if it meant I could just get him to talk to me, just get him to feel one half of what I had always felt for him.  I think my disinterest made both my parents nervous.  They were so used to dangling approval and acceptance in front of me like a golden carrot that now that it held no appeal for me they didn’t know what to do.  Having the power now should have felt exhilarating or exciting but instead just left me hallow.  I should have fought them sooner, should have felt this way as soon as Rule and I started whatever it was we had been doing.  I wasted so much time it just made me pile more sadness and regret on top of what I was already managing.

“Thanks Lou.”  I gave him one of the strained smiles that I was becoming a pro at and let him scoop me up in a bear hug as he walked me to my car after my shift.  I hadn’t heard a word from Gabe in as many weeks as I hadn’t spoken to Rule, but it made me feel better to know someone still cared enough to make sure I was safe so I never turned Lou down when he offered to see me to my car, plus this was an odd night on for me meaning I had just picked up a shift because one of the girls was sick so Ayden wasn’t working and I was alone.  In fact my roommate seemed to have shaken out of her funk and was on a date with a very cute physics major that just happened to be as opposite from a rock and roller as one could get.  She had gone out with him twice this week and seemed a little more like her old self so I was happy for her even if it meant it was one more night I spent wallowing in misery by myself.  No one said the road to recovery was pretty after all.

Lou set me back on me feet and gave me a peck on the forehead.  “I miss that young man of yours, Shaw.  He was a smartass but a good kid.”

I sighed because at least once a week I had this conversation with Lou.  “I know.  I miss him too.”