9 >> Say What You Need To Say
It was mid-December now, and Justin was in a much better place than he had been five weeks earlier “ especially where Talis was concerned. They had been peacefully coexisting in his Hollywood Hills home, not quite as a couple, but not just friends, either. They were getting along as well as could be expected, grocery shopping, enjoying dinners together, sleeping in the same bed “ all those things that couples did together. But neither of them knew what to call their situation. Talis was too scared to ask, and Justin was too unwilling to answer. Either way, they had each made peace with the arrangement, as they knew that was all Justin was willing to offer.
Adding to the oddity of the ordeal, Justin hadn’t heard a thing from Rie since her drunken spiel on Halloween night. She hadn’t called, nor had she returned any of his calls or texts, and he’d sent tons of them. He knew they didn’t part on the best terms, but things couldn’t have been that bad, could they?
“The shit I don’t get,” Justin was explaining to Jessica over dinner, “is that, like, she was really cool, right?”
“She was,” Jess nodded nervously. “I mean, she is.”
“But like, fine don’t call back after the first three or four times, okay. She probably thought nothing of it, but I sent her personalized Thanksgiving messages and shit,” he explained in frustration. “I’m highly offended.”
“Jus, I think you’re overreacting.”
“I know I am!” He inhaled a forkful of his chicken Caesar and looked up to Jess. “It’s actually driving me crazy a little bit, because I’ve suddenly got this obsession with checking my phone. And you know how much I hate my phone.”
“I know,” she smiled.
“And there’s nothing more of a smackdown than running to your phone at the slightest chance that it vibrated, to see if it says, ‘One missed call,’ and all it fucking says is the time and date,” he shook his head. “Shit drives me insane.”
“Okay, I do know what you mean there,” Jess finally laughed. “Whenever I’m waiting for Ry--.”
“And another thing,” he obliviously cut her off, “that fucking voicemail lady? That bitch has an attitude when she says that whole, ‘You have no messages,’” he imitated her electronic voice. “Why she gotta say it like that? It makes me wanna run over to AT&T and smack the fucking shit out of her.”
“Do you have any idea how insane you sound right now?”
“Yes!” he chuckled. “This is what Rie has done to me, Jess! Because I just don’t get it.”
“Well, maybe she feels bad about that whole thing with Huch?” she suggested naively.
Jess was just as clueless as he was, because she and Rie had gone from being relatively cool to no contact whatsoever over the month of November. Jessica still hung out with Jac on a regular basis, but whenever the subject of Rie was brought up, Jac would just change it. It was weird all around.
“Wait,” Justin dropped his fork back into his plate. “What whole thing with Huch?”
“You know he fucked her,” she revealed casually, using a low voice, “right?”
“No?”
“Seriously?”
“When did this occur?” he demanded with narrowed eyes.
“The night of that Halloween party,” she recalled, resuming her task of slicing what was left of her stuffed pepper. “I thought you knew that.”
He shook his head vehemently. “I’m sure I could’ve figured it out, I guess, but I never really thought about it, and Huch never mentioned it.”
“I’m sorry, Jus; I wouldn’t have brought it up if I didn’t think you already knew.”
He shrugged offhandedly, going back to his salad. “It’s not a big deal.”
“You sure?”
“Umm, yeah. They’re two single people, why shouldn’t they?”
Jess only glanced at him, as the last thing she wanted to do was push his buttons over something so unimportant. She didn’t believe a word of his act, but if this meant pushing him further into Talis’s corner, she was all for it. “Well all ri--.”
“Will you excuse me?” he interrupted, instantaneously popping up from the table. He escaped the clamorous restaurant, pulling out his phone as he found a spot near the valet stand, and dialed Rie’s number for the first time since November ended.
He was fairly certain that she wouldn’t answer, but due to all the damage she’d already done to his ego, he figured that one more call wouldn’t matter all that much. He waited the four rings it usually took to get to her voicemail, but hung up before he had to hear her greeting of, “Hey, it’s Rie…” for what seemed like the hundredth time.
He stood there in the mild evening, staring out to the cars pulling up to the restaurant, wondering what he would’ve said if she actually had answered. He couldn’t tell her he was angry to find out that she fucked his best friend, because it wasn’t like he had any right to be. She was single, like he said; Huch was single, too. What could he justifiably be upset about? Nothing. Which was why he wasn’t. Perturbed a little, yes. Irritated? Yeah. But no, not angry. He had no reason and no right to be.
As he got lost in this internal debate, he almost didn’t realize that his phone was vibrating until it started to play a ringtone version of The Fresh Prince theme song. He looked down, almost shocked to find that Rie was calling back. “Hello?” he answered cautiously.
“Hey, long time no talk,” she saluted, not especially cheerfully.
“Yeah, thanks to you.” He was already smiling at the sound of her voice. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Oh,” she sighed, “just busy, I guess. “The holidays can be kind of crazy, ya know?”
“You liar,” he chuckled. “I mean, I know you said you wanted your space or whatever, but I thought you were just being drunk.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Oh, I was just saying how the last time we talked, you were kinda mad at me, but I thought it was just ‘cause you were drunk,” he explained. “I didn’t think you really meant that you didn’t want to speak to me anymore.”
“Oh god,” she groaned in realization.
“And I mean, if you meant it, that’s fine. Like, I don’t know if you thought I was mad about the whole thing with Huch or “ I mean, I just want you to know… it’s fine. I’m fine,” he was nodding. “Like, that’s you and your business, so don’t worry about what I think. I just was wondering where you’d been and…”
She let out a short chuckle as his long-windedness trailed into silence. “Justin, I’m really, really sorry about that. I… umm “ I don’t know what that was.”
“Hey, don’t mention it. I mean, it’s not like you have to answer to me anytime you wanna sleep with somebody,” he laughed nervously. “Even though it was my best friend, but still, it’s not even any of my business. I’m just--.”
“Justin?” she tried to interrupt him.
“”Glad that you’re not still mad at me,” he continued. “’Cause I got your message, and then I heard about this whole thing with Huch and I just had to call one more time just to see if maybe I missed something… I dunno. But yeah, I’m just relieved that we’re cool and you answered the phone. And hey, I’m totally willing to forgive you.”
“Really?” she remarked, a bit seriously.
“Yeah, it’s cool. Don’t even worry about it.”
“Wow, that’s very big of you.”
He noted the sarcasm in her tone and frowned to himself. “Rie, what’s wrong? I thought you were apologizing.”
“I’m not apologizing for having sex!” she chirped. “With your best friend or whoever it was. I’m apologizing because I, apparently, left some ridiculous message for you while I was drunk, and I can’t even imagine how embarrassing I was.”
“Oh. So you don’t think that fucking one of my best friends behind my back was wrong?” he replied.
“No?”
“Wow,” he scoffed.
“Didn’t you just say that it was fine?” she remembered. “Why are you being so bitchass?”
“Rie, don’t start that shit with me right now.”
“Fuck you, Justin,” she spat back quickly. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”
“In fact, I do,” he began walking back towards the restaurant entrance. “I’m having dinner with my friend, so… I’m gonna let you go.”
“I figured,” she retorted. “Bye.” Frustrated, she dropped the phone to her coffee table and sunk into her couch. With a long exhale, she covered her face with her hands in anguish, looking up to her ceiling. Before she knew it, tears were rolling past her eyes and into her hair. “What the hell am I doing?” she whispered to herself.
The past month of her life had been so unexpectedly difficult, and she found herself lashing out at people for no reason at all. She was in pain, undeniably, and she was finding it near impossible to be around anyone but herself. Not even Jac, her lifelong friend, was able to cure her of her misery.
She wanted nothing more than to live again, and she thought she was taking a step towards that by returning Justin’s call a few minutes before, but talking to him only seemed to make it worse. Which is why she had no idea why she was calling him back; but just a few seconds later, she was sniffling and pressing the green button on her BlackBerry twice.
“What is it?” he answered, sounding bored.
She knew she didn’t have any right to lay this on him the way she was about to, but he did deserve to know why she was acting so oddly. So she let out a shaky sigh before quietly telling him, “Justin… my mom died.”
>>>>>>>>>>
Justin let himself into Tina’s humble abode at Rie’s direction, and headed for the kitchen at the back of the house. He entered to find her sitting at the rectangular glass table with several small photo boxes, filled with pictures. “Hey.”
She looked up from her handful of photos and gave him a weak smile. “Hey.”
“What are you doing?”
“Just going through some of my mom’s stuff,” she sniffled, clearly fighting tears. She held up a picture of herself and Tina from her graduation ceremony at UCLA. “This was the hug of my life,” she remembered clearly. “I think we must have hugged for at least five minutes.”
Justin took a seat in the chair adjacent to her and stared at the picture. “You look happy,” he commented.
“I was. It’s probably the first and last time I’ll ever finish something I’ve started,” she chuckled. Her tears were falling freely now, but she continued to look at the picture with Justin. “I can’t believe she’s gone.”
He didn’t know what to say, so he took a moment to step outside of himself and take her free hand into his, affectionately rubbing his thumb along her hand. “I’m so sorry.”
She closed her eyes for a bit, though tears still seemed to escape them, and reveled in the sensation of his touch. It was so soothing. When she opened her eyes, his azure orbs were staring back at her. “I’ll be okay,” she assured him. “I’m not sure how or when, but I will be.”
He squeezed her hand one more time before letting go. “I know you will.”
She let out a wobbly exhale and then dropped the picture to the table with the others. “So,” she began, “what did you wanna talk about?”
“Well,” he sighed, trying to figure out a way to switch gears completely. “I wanna take you skydiving.”
She immediately burst into laughter and got up from the table. “Thank you. I needed that.”
“I’m serious,” he chuckled back, getting up as well. “I already made the appointment for Saturday. We can drive down to San Diego tomorrow afternoon and then we’ll go out at like seven in the morning and do the jump.”
“Justin, are you crazy?” she exclaimed. “I’m not jumping out of a freakin’ plane!”
“You need this,” he replied calmly.
“I think not.” She stood with her hands propped against the sink, wondering how he could even be considering something so absurd. “Hell no,” she added.
“Rie, do you trust me?”
“Not if you want me to jump out of a perfectly good plane!”
He let out a soft chuckle and joined her at the sink, rearranging his words. “Rie, trust me.”
“There is nothing you can say that will get me to do this, so you can take your dysfunctional self and go sit down somewhere.”
“You’re gonna do it,” he smiled.
“I’m really not.”
“Listen, I know it sounds ridiculous,” he agreed, “but I did it when I was twenty, and it was the most freeing experience I’ve ever had in my life. So you’re gonna get on that plane with all this baggage and pain you’re carrying around, and then you’re gonna jump out of it, and leave all that bullshit behind. And then you’ll thank me for it.”
She gave him a look that told him she really was considering it, and then glanced back down at her hands. “Justin, I can’t jump out of a plane.”
“Why not? What’s stopping you?”
“Umm, plummeting to my death?”
“Okay, first of all, the likelihood of that happening is so low, you shouldn’t even be thinking about that. Second of all, if you die, then you die, and all the pain in your life will be gone anyway. Thirdly, that’s not gonna happen, so… give me an actual good reason.”
“It’s scary!”
“That’s the point, Rie! Face your fears, head on. Just throw all caution to the wind and jump.”
“I can’t,” she whined. “And this is so sudden. Saturday is like --.”
“The day after tomorrow,” Justin finished for her. “Yes, which means you need to stop thinking about it and just do it.”
“You make it sound so easy,” she laughed with a roll of her eyes.
“That’s because it is, Rie.”
She eyed him expectantly, hoping he’d bust out with one of his signature, ‘Nah, I’m just kidding’s, but no such luck. “And you’re gonna jump with me, right?”
“Well you’re gonna have a professional attached to you, but I’ll be jumping right behind you.”
She looked down again, but began to nod slowly. “God, you’re such a bad influence.”
“You have no idea how glad you’ll be that you did it,” he proclaimed excitedly.
“All I know is, if I die, I’m kicking your candy ass.”
He smiled at her knowingly, but played along. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
>>>>>>>>>>
The following afternoon, Justin and Rie drove down to San Diego together, as planned, and took a brief training session for their tandem jump the next morning. Rie was becoming less apprehensive and more excited about the idea as every moment passed. At dinner, all she could talk about was the jump and how she couldn’t wait to feel the air on her face, the wind in her mouth, the feeling of flying. Justin was proud.
It was close to 11:00 PM when she was knocking on the door of his hotel suite at the Loew’s Coronado Bay, nervously awaiting his answer. “Hey,” he eventually opened the door groggily, dressed in his pajamas. It was safe to assume he’d been asleep.
“Hey.” She let herself into his luxurious room, which was identical to hers, and took a seat at an empty desk.
“Come on in,” he mumbled to himself, following her back inside.
“I wanna do something,” she announced to him. She found the hotel stationery she’d been searching for and then directed Justin to the couch with her, pulling off a sheet of paper.
“All right, what are we doing?”
“You know yesterday, how you said I needed to get on that plane with all my bags and leave without them?”
“Something like that,” he nodded, knitting his eyebrows. “Yeah.”
“All right. Well I want us both to write down everything we need to be rid of in our lives,” she explained. “All the toxic shit, all the sadness, everything we could do without. And then we’re gonna take these sheets of paper with us and let them go as we’re falling. Okay?”
He bit his lip, but he was inwardly smiling at the idea. “Okay.”
“I think it’s a good way to start off the New Year,” she added. “I feel like we really need this.”
“I’m excited for you,” he grinned as he placed his paper on the coffee table. For a moment, he watched Rie write out what appeared to be an entire soliloquy, and he couldn’t be happier that she was getting so into this. “What in God’s name are you writing?” he finally interrupted.
She looked back at him with a smirk. “I carry a lot of stuff around with me.”
“No shit,” he stared at her paper with raised eyebrows. “What’s on your list?”
“I’m not telling you until you write something on yours,” she told him, adding another item to her sheet of paper. “So write.”
Take all of your wasted honor
Every little past frustration
After about ten minutes of silent contemplation and writing, Justin looked back to Rie, who seemed to be reading over her list. “You done?” he asked.
“Just about,” she decided. “I feel like something’s missing, though.”
“Something’s always missing,” he simpered. “Tell me what you wrote.”
“Okay,” she exhaled sharply, giving him a nervous look before beginning. “You ready?”
“I’m ready.”
Take all of your so-called problems
Better put ‘em in quotations
“As of this day, December 20, 2008, Adrienne Olivia Torrey is free of the following,” she took another deep breath and dove into her list. “Resentment, regret, doubting myself, fear of the unknown, fear of the known, any ounce of me that’s overly-confident, every part of me that’s unjustifiably insecure, holding on to negativity, projecting negativity to others, disappointment, feelings of failure for not being who my mom wanted, the timeline I put into place before I even knew who I was, feelings of guilt for things that are beyond my control,” her voice was cracking and tears were beginning to sting the back of her eyes. “Feeling like I don’t deserve happiness,” she went on to read, “laziness, fear of commitment, fear of finishing, fear of finishing last, and most importantly, using my mom’s death as an excuse not to live my life.”
Digesting her words, Justin smiled and nodded. “I’m so--.”
And say what you need to say
“What makes life so compelling,” she went on, “is that nobody can avoid darkness, but in the moments when things fall into place, as I am falling now, they are to be enjoyed as much for what they are as what they won’t be someday. I realize that all the scars I have, from all the stupid little accidents in life, from things I wish I did or didn’t say, brought me to where I am now. And I’ll look in the mirror and think, ‘Well, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind, but it’ll take it.’ Because it’s life, and you get dirt on it. And it’s not about how long you can go without getting it dirty, but about how you deal with it when you do. And as much as I try to live my life with regret control, taking notes and taking pictures, I realize that I have to take it and live it and deal with it anyway.
So thank you, mom, for teaching me and loving me and accepting me, even when I thought you didn’t. Thank you for raising me in the wonder that is Los Angeles, to be a thinker, and a leader, and for allowing me to grow into Rie Torrey, Whomever Extraordinaire. At some point, somewhere along the way, I began taking you for granted, and that was never my intention.” She was crying now. “Somehow, I forgot to say Thank You for being you, because I was off somewhere being me. Ma, thank you. You are… irreplaceable.” With tears flooding her face, she finally looked up to Justin, who was tearing up as well. “Goodbye.”
“Rie.” He seemed stunned.
Say what you need to say
“I told you, I carry a lot of bags.”
“Shit, why didn’t you let me go first?” His smile widened into a chuckle and then he bit his lip. “You’re amazing,” he stated simply.
“I’m really not.” She was grinning as well, but tears were still coming down.
“No really, you are. You’re just… it’s ridiculous how perfect you are.”
“I’m so much weaker than I let on.”
Say what you need to say
“I know,” he nodded. “That’s why I like you.”
“What’s on your list?” she finally asked, wiping her face with the tail of her tank top.
“Well, it’s not quite as thorough as yours,” he warned, “but all right.” He pretended to clear his throat and then gave one of his signature flirtatious looks before starting. “The need to be perfect, the need to be loved, the need to always be right, self-doubt, self-deprecation, fear of not being there, fear of close objects, the need for approval from anyone but myself, holding myself and others to standards that can’t be reached, resentment, and finally…” he sighed, “Talis.”
“I really want those for you,” she beamed. “Especially the last one.”
“Yeah, me too.” He sat back in the seat and turned his head towards her. “Are you nervous?”
“Not really,” she rationed. “I’m a little anxious, but mostly just excited.”
“I feel like you’re gonna be jumping into a new life or something.”
“That’s how I feel! Except, I hope I can live up to these expectations I’m setting for myself.”
“Wait, is that you being insecure?” he teased, referring to her list.
“Shit. I can’t say stuff like that after tomorrow, can I?”
He shook his head and let his eyes fall closed, though he was still facing her, their noses only inches apart with their cheeks resting against the back of the sofa.
Rie took that moment to study his delicate features. He had long, light brown eyelashes that gave him a bit of an angelic undertone. His nose, though relatively pronounced, was rather cute to her. From the right angle, it actually appeared to be kind of button-like, which she found adorable. The lower half of his face was covered in a relatively sheer beard, patches of blond infused with his regularly brown hair. Even better, it provided a frame for his small pink lips, which resembled the shape of the heart he kept locked away. He was, irrefutably, a beautiful man. Looking at him didn’t do him justice. “Staring is the only thing that makes sense,” she said out loud.
His eyes fluttered open to find Rie’s magnetic brown eyes boring into him. “What?”
Walking like a one-man army
Fighting with the shadows in your head
“I am so stupidly attracted to you right now,” she grinned.
“I am always stupidly attracted to you,” he answered honestly with his own smile.
She moved her face closer to his and whispered, “It feels like somethin’s heatin’ up.”
He swallowed hard at the feel of her breath on his nose. “Rie.”
“I’m not gonna kiss you,” she assured him. “You’re not ready yet.” She noticed his eyes avert towards his hands below them, which immediately justified her decision, but still, she told him, “But just know that I really want to.”
Living out the same old moment
Knowing you’d be better off instead if you could only
Say what you need to say
>>>>>>>>>>
The next morning, Rie and Justin arrived at the field designated for San Diego Skydive, in high spirits. By 8:00 AM, they were suited up, and their skydive professionals were at their sides. Brian would be jumping with Justin, and Rie’s professional was named Woody.
“I’m getting a little nervous,” she admitted to Woody as they boarded the plane. “So if you need to just push me out, just to get the party goin’, that’s fine.”
“Well ‘No’ sounds a lot like ‘Go’ to me, so no worries,” he chuckled. “You’re gonna have a blast.”
“I know, I know. Just… jumping out of a plane still sounds ridiculous to me,” she exclaimed. “My mom would tell me to go sit down somewhere.”
“Your mom would be proud of you,” Justin corrected her. He took a seat next to her, directly in front of his tandem jumper, and pulled out his list. “You have your paper?”
“Oh yes.” She dug into her shirt and pulled out the white sheet of paper with all her burdens listed.
“What’s that you got there?” Woody asked, sitting down ahead of her.
“The weight of the past.”
Have no fear for giving in
Have no fear for giving over
You better know that in the end
It’s better to say too much
Than never to say what you need to say again
Not long thereafter, the plane was taking off and Justin and Rie were giving each other nervous glances. Justin wasn’t really very apprehensive for himself since he’d done it already. This was all about Rie, and he just hoped that she got out of it what she needed “ freedom from pain and grief.
“You ready?” Woody yelled from behind her, the two of them squatted at the edge of the small aircraft, gazing out into an endless atmosphere.
Even if your hands are shaking
And your faith is broken
She nodded and looked back to Justin, who was absolutely beaming in pride for her. “I’m ready!”
As Woody counted their descent into the air, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. He moved forward, and suddenly, her feet no longer had floor beneath them. She gasped at the sensation, realizing that she was flying.
“I’m flying!” she screamed, holding on to her list for dear life.
Even as the eyes are closing
“How does that feel?” he shouted.
“Amazing!” was all she could get out. And indeed, it was.
Do it with a heart wide open
Her eyes opened to the breathtaking view of San Diego below her. She breathed in the fresh air of the Pacific Ocean as she floated through her free fall, still screaming and flying, and now crying. Through her tears, she could see Justin a short distance away and watched as he ripped his paper into several pieces and let them soar through the air.
It was then that she recognized she was still clutching her paper, still gripping at the past. Just as her parachute opened up and she was safely under canopy, she looked at her list one more time. “Goodbye, ma.” She kissed the paper and finally let it fly out of her hand. With a rickety sigh of relief and tears fogging up her glasses, she fell back into the wind and floated to the ground.
Say what you need to say
The moment Justin’s feet hit the ground, Rie ran to him in excitement and awe. She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, shrieking as she kissed the side of his face. “Dude!”
He was a bit taken aback, but in mostly a good way. “Dude,” he laughed. “You did it!”
“I did it!” she repeated, still holding onto him. She threw her goggles off of her face and stared into his eyes. “You told me I could jump out of a freakin’ plane, and I did it!”
In that moment, everything seemed a lot clearer to Justin as well. With Rie physically attached to him, and having thrown his fear of closeness out the window, almost literally, it all seemed to fall into place. He gave her a long, intense look and then his lips found their way to her mouth, which shocked them both. She melted off of his body so that her hands could grip his face as he deepened the kiss, his tongue grazing the outside of her lips. As they pulled apart, eyes still closed, still smiling, they both felt like they were still flying.
“I feel like I’m about sixteen years old in this moment,” he grinned as they looked around the field. “And the moment is kicking my ass.”
She was still smiling and crying tears of joy as she looked up to the sky, not really believing that she’d been up there just a few moments before. “Thank you, Justin. You might've just saved my life.”
Say what you need to say
Author's Chapter Notes:
Okay guys, this is definitely one of my favorite chapters, so I really, really hope you guys like it. I can't thank you enough for all the feedback. Keep it comin'! Enjooooy. -Ash
Story Tags: interracial unrequited boyfriendj love fiancej vulnerablej
