Can't Bear to Run - Lynn Red Page 0,2

whatever. I kind of got sidetracked.

“Well,” Dan said with a sly little note in his voice, “want to let those two crazy kids be, and go get some of those really nasty stuffed pancakes? I could use some carbs topped with sugar topped with carbs.”

My stomach rumbled in a way that would probably embarrass most people who aren’t me. “Well,” I began, unconsciously starting to fumble with that fallen curl of hair. “I mean, what could it hurt? You haven’t drank much tonight have you?”

“Nah,” he said. “Couple beers. Been awhile since the last one.”

I nodded. “If you’re sure. I don’t want to put you out or anything.”

I don’t want to end up wrapped around another guy’s finger and have him break my heart... again, I thought. The next time my heart breaks, it could kill me. That is, unless the guy does it first.

“No worries,” he said with a little half-smile. “I gotta get some food in me anyway.”

Michael Bolton and cream-stuffed pancakes.

Thinking back it’s all so stupid, but at the time... well, like I said. It’s hard to tell you’re making one of your life’s great blunders when you’re making it. And it’s harder still to figure out you’re living in one until you’re on the other side. But then, the real trick is getting to the other side, isn’t it? Sometimes – most times, I guess – the only way out is through, or just giving up.

I might be a little impulsive sometimes, and I happily admit to burying my head in the sand to keep from facing reality. I’m no quitter though.

If nothing else, I don’t give up. I just have to remember that, no matter what, Raine Matthews does not give up.

-2-

Six Years Can Feel Like Forever

Pancakes turned into a ride back to my place turned into “one more drink” at my place. The next thing I knew, six years were gone and my whole life had become the inside of a decently-sized house in suburban Boston. I’d become the “Mrs.” on letters addressed to “Mr. And Mrs. Dan Dodson.”

I hated that. But, outwardly, everything was fine.

It was all so “normal” that I felt like I was living in a sitcom from the 60s.

Dan went off to whatever job he’d lined up that week, sometimes carpentry, sometimes drywall, sometimes tile. He did pretty well for himself. We took vacations, mostly nature-type trips, to go hiking in the mountains, to explore Yellowstone, normal city-dwelling hippie kind of stuff.

He’d come home every night, I’d have his dinner ready, and then he’d eat it, mumble some conversation over whatever sporting event he’d decided was really important that night, and then he’d go to bed.

If it sounds stiflingly boring, it was. But when you’re in the middle of it, you feel like an idiot for getting upset about having a normal life – or what you think is a normal life – because, damn it, there are kids starving in Siberia or Rwanda, and what the hell is my problem that I complain about being bored.

Of course, it was anything but normal. Exactly how abnormal life was revealed itself slowly to me, like a millipede unwinding himself to test his surroundings and make sure there are no... er, whatever eats millipedes waiting to eat him.

Every time Dan told me to stay in rather than see a friend. Every time he made me turn down an invitation to go have dinner because he “wanted to see me,” it became a little clearer. But it was slow – so, so goddamn slow – that by the time I realized what was happening, I’d gotten myself so wrapped up in comfort and not having to think or worry, that the only thing more frightening than staying with him and surviving his jealousy and his rages, was not staying with him, and facing the unknown.

The weirdest thing of all is that in my darkest moments, most of them in the middle of lonely nights, I kept thinking back about that gruff stranger from the night Dan and I got together. I remembered every single feature of his face. I never knew his name, and I never saw him again after that night, but there it was, hanging in my memory like a dream that never fades.

One night – it was a Tuesday, in the middle of December – Dan called from whatever job he was working and told me he’d be late. About ten minutes before he phoned, Karen had called and wanted