The Fates (Book I) - 2014 Watty Award Winner!

4.11 - Shades of Blue

Dear Readers: The second-to-last scene of Episode 4! :)

Let's head back to the Campions' honeymoon suite, for another look at the first night of their married life, and a glimpse into the couple's troubled past...

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Scene 11: Shades of Blue

A.D. 2015

The bride in the bed began prattling on about plans for their itinerary in Greece, and Ryder listened to her as well as he possibly could. He saved the email to Noelle as a draft. That could wait until after his wife fell asleep; she deserved his full attention, for now. Or at least whatever fraction he was physically capable of devoting to her.

Ryder considered joining Lacey in the bed, to sit beside her in the snow-white sheets and let her snuggle up to him and cling onto his bicep, like she always did when he was anywhere within a two-foot radius. He decided against it. Too afraid that he would imagine that the grip on his arm belonged to someone else, no matter how hard he struggled against such thoughts. Paranoid that Lacey would pick up on that, and terrified of how that’d make her feel. So he stayed put.

He decided to browse the internet in sync with ideas that his bride blurted out from the travel brochure, as she flipped through the pages. The perfect solution. They’d be doing something together, though a safe distance apart.

A pattern that would probably characterize their entire marriage.

“Oh—did you know we could rent an ATV, on the islands?” she chirped. “That sounds neat! You’d drive it like a pro, I’m sure.”

He dutifully typed ‘Greek islands ATV’ into the search engine.

“And I could ride with you! Unlike on the Ducati,” Lacey noted, referring to the motorcycle that Ryder rode everywhere, living up to the middle name that his mother had given him. Everywhere that he could go alone, at least—the streamlined Italian-made monster had been built for one rider only.

Unlike these ATVs, apparently. “You’d really be up for that?” he asked his wife. “Bumping around on a big, clunky bike-thing?”

The thought of Barbie perched on one of those machines made him uncomfortable. No less uncomfortable if she were perched snugly behind him. Maybe more so.

She answered with an open smile and open heart. “I’m up for anything you’d like.”

He cringed invisibly; it always hurt to hear her talk like that. The words chipped at the corners of his heart. Only the corners, though—no words from Lacey ever reached the core of it. His wife could just never access the center of his heart, even though he was clearly the center of hers. He tried to let her in. Every day he tried, he really tried, and every day he failed. And yet that core seemed fortified with walls that even he himself was powerless to penetrate. As if the stronghold of his heart were just eternally reserved for something else. For someone else.

The thought was stupid, very wrong and very stupid. So he shut it out. He'd made his vows. And he would have to keep them till the day he died, or else his bride...

Ryder shut down that train of thought as well. He did not need to remind himself why he had married her, the dire imperative that had forced his hand, the jarring memory of what she'd tried to do when he'd declined her first proposal. He had left, trying to make the message clear that he could never truly love her, no matter how much he cared for her. Not willing to linger in Lacey's life a moment more, to lead her on for any longer than his caring for her had already done.