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“Of course you don’t,” she replied. “That is called fear. It’s in everything that you do in life that turns out to be important. If you let it keep you timid then you will go your whole life not living one day. I can’t tell you what to do, but if you follow your heart, it will take you where you need to go.”
“Do you have any idea how cliché that is?” I asked.
“Yeah, but do you have any idea how most cliché’s are completely true?”
I laughed. “You got a point there.”
“Of course I have a point. I always do.”
Tessa pulled up some more photos and linked them back to other places online. Nothing much was turning up except what we already knew. The biggest storytellers were the articles about several of the close calls that Ricky had endured over the past few years. He had barely made it out of several fires.
I felt a tear touch my eye and I furiously wiped at it. “Wow,” I said. “Ricky has almost died in several fires within the past two years. Since his wife died.”
“Hmmm.”
“That man has a death wish, doesn’t he?”
“Do you think he might be subconsciously risking his life unnecessarily? I know he would never do that purposely. He loves Zoe too much to ever risk leaving her. But what if he actually is risking his own life because inside he just feels so tortured?”
I had tears streaming down my face now. I grabbed a tissue and dabbed at them. “That’s too much. Ugh… that’s awful. That’s so sad.”
“Yeah, it is,” Tessa said. She closed the laptop. “Are you ok?”
“Yes,” I replied. “I just feel so much more confused now.”
“How?”
“Well, I’ve been having these feelings that have drawn me to Ricky ever since I met him. These are feelings I just can’t explain and I can’t understand. But now, I get it a bit. Ever since I was younger, I’ve always been drawn to men that I felt I needed to nurture and fix. These have usually turned out to be the wrong types of men. The relationships have caused me nothing but pain. But now… I get it. I see why I’ve been so drawn to Ricky. I can sense his pain so much and I want to be the one that is there to fix him. And that feels like dangerous territory for me. It really seems like I am just chasing down the same pattern that I’ve been chasing since I was sixteen.”
“But what if it is different this time? I’m not saying it is. Hell, I have no way of knowing that. But what if just you being there for him, and caring about him is enough to help Ricky?”
“Yeah, that is the debate going on in my head right now,” I said before finishing the beer. “I just don’t know if I can handle all of this stuff. I haven’t even told him how I feel about him yet and I’m already going nuts thinking about all of this emotion. It’s insane.”
“Ok, no one said you have to make a decision today,” Tessa pointed out.
“No. I’ve made one. I’m not going to pursue this thing with Ricky. I just think it will end up in heartache for the both of us. He is my employer and that is the extent of our relationship.”
Tessa nodded.
I sat there and wrestled with my thoughts for a few minutes. This had become too much too endure for me. Ricky seemed to be a wonderful guy and I could feel my heart yearning for him with each passing day. I longed so badly to be touched by him. I wanted to be with him. I thought I was falling in love with him, but I might have just been going crazy or reacting to the same familiar patterns I always reacted to. What was it about me and wounded men? They were like little birds with broken wings that I wanted to nurse back to health. But in the end they always flew away from me without so much as a glance. It had happened time and time again. I couldn’t do it anymore.
“Shit,” I said. I went to the kitchen and grabbed a bag of chips and a soda from the fridge. Then I sat down on the couch to start binge watching the new season of Stranger Things. I needed something fantastic to take my mind away from the real world for a while.
Tessa looked at me and smiled. She always kept everything in a calm perspective. I had never seen her get upset about anything. She was so sure of herself. I admired her strength. She definitely had a wisdom to her that was far beyond her years. There were times when I felt like I was talking to a very frank, and understanding grandmother, and not my roommate who was not much older than I was.
She’d lived a lot in those extra few years though. I hoped to have earned at least a fraction of her knowledge in the next five years or so of my life, but to do that I would have to take those risks. That was the one thing about Tessa. She always took risks. She’d explained to me one time that she hardly ever felt like doing half of the crazy, random things she did, but she knew that if she didn’t do them then there was a good chance that she would never really experience anything in this world. Our world had become one of convenience. It was far too easy nowadays to live your whole life inside of some kind of bubble.
But that was no way to live or experience life. You had to go on and make mistakes, learn from them, and keep trying new things out until you figured out what you really wanted from this world.
I had always been a bit of a free spirit, but I realized living with Tessa that there was so much I subconsciously closed myself off to. Like this thing with Ricky. I was scared of what might happen and I was worried about how much work and stress might be involved if I did decide to pursue this thing.
And how would that even happen? How would I break through that barrier and let Ricky know that I wanted him?
I sighed and watched the show trying to get into it. The world of fiction was often so much less complicated than real life, but somehow way more entertaining. I knew that I was going to end up with Ricky in some capacity, if he wanted me to that was. If he expressed any real interest in me at all, I would melt at the knees and become totally engrossed in him. He was the type of man that I had always dreamt of being in my life. And now he was there.
I just had to be willing to say yes, and accept that I felt the same way. What would it take for me to do this?
Chapter Eleven
