21. Ris

Ris

"Ijust don't know what to do."

Ris took a shuddering breath angrily wiping away her tears as her mother made sympathetic noises from the other side of the video call. She was tired of crying. Tired of raging. Tired of running. Spring had started early, after that last cold snap, and she had been taking advantage of the mild weather, jogging through the streets at night, vowing that if she ever ran into that shifty toothed bartender again, she was going to smash his face into a wall.

Ainsley was resolute.

He'd already packed up most of his apartment, and had already found a place in Bridgeton. He was going to be there permanently by the end of the following month, moving back to the city, even closer to her, and they would be finished.

I just need some space to think about things, Nanaya.

Ris did know how she was ever meant to go anywhere ever again. The symphony, the ballet, even the fucking library. Everything would remind her of him. Reading, one of her favorite hobbies — him. Music, theater, museums. Him, him, him. Everything was ruined. For if she couldn't go there with him, what was the point in going at all? If she was going to go places to not be with him but still be thinking of him endlessly, what was the point in ever even leaving her house again? She could work from home like Silva, adopt a cat, and call it a day.

"Ris, baby, tell me what you want."

Her mother was endlessly sympathetic. Ris had been on the phone with her for the better part of the last hour, catching her up on all that had happened since the last time she called, earlier in the week. She teased Ainsley for the way he told his mother everything, but she wasn't any different. She'd gone home that terrible night, after he'd told her their relationship had run its course. She'd been too numb to cry, too shocked to do anything but go through her routine like a zombie that night and the following morning, her eyes open without seeing a thing the following day at work. When she'd come home, the silence of the house hit her like a freight train. She'd begun sobbing and couldn't stop, calling her mother once she was finally able to wheeze in a breath.

"I don't want to overstep. Do you just want someone to talk to? Because you know you always have that, baby. Advice? Just a shoulder to cry on?"

"Advice," Ris blurted.

She appreciated her mother asking. Her parents were perennial bootstrappers, never asking for help when they were barely scrimping by, and she knew she had internalized the ‘need to take care of every problem herself' mindset. Sometimes, though, she just wanted to call and be heard, without receiving the Elvish spin on things, and her mother always intuited that.

"I think I'm at the point where I need advice. Because right now I just want to walk around town with a baseball bat and wreck shop on anyone who gives me a hard time."

The sound of her mother's laughter calmed her down, a bit. "Remind me what your hesitations are. Let's talk them through. Sometimes it helps just to just talk it out."

Ris huffed in exasperation. "I mean, the main problem right now is he has me backed into a corner. We agreed from the beginning that this was a stress-free relationship! And now he is giving me all of the stress! We said no strings, nothing serious. I didn't want some heavy expectation hanging over us every step of the way. You should see how some of my friends are fucked up from that," she added, thinking of Silva, who was a shell of herself and had possibly, potentially become a sociopath.

Ris shivered just thinking about the dead look in Silva's eyes, and she had watched from across the room the way the younger elf was able to snap on a cheery, the belle of the ball smile, going zero to sixty with no one paying attention. You were wrong all along. They were both switchblade rabbits.

"I don't want to be responsible for someone else's happiness, not like that. And we both agreed on what we wanted. He's the one who changed things. With no conversation! And that was the one thing that we were really, really good at. So I'm upset that he's decided to completely change the parameters of our relationship on his own. I'm the second person here, I should get a say in things! I'm just . . . really fucking mad at him."

Her mother nodded emphatically from her tablet screen. "I completely agree. He had no right doing that without discussing it with you first. I don't like ultimatums either. Okay, so what's the other end of it? Because that seems like you're pretty certain."

Another deep breath, aggravation seeping from her pores. Ris opened her mouth to continue lambasting the way Ainsley had steamrolled her, changing their relationship entirely, but instead, her eyes filled with tears once more.

"He's the best guy I've ever met," she choked out, her emotions overwhelming her yet again. "He's smart, and he's funny, and he's sexy, and he's curious about everything. He loves music and books and we have so much fun together. I really do love him."

A sob ripped from her throat, one she'd not been expecting, nearly choking her.

"And his life is so small, mommy. I want to shake him! He doesn't understand that all of these big decisions he's making, these crazy changes with moving and changing his job, they're not important. He's rushing for nothing. His life is so small it fits in the palm of my hand, and it's not worth wasting time on things that aren't important."

"Is that the real problem, Ris?" Her mother asked gently, bringing her up short. "And I understand if it is."

She blew her nose, angrily wiping her eyes all over again. "It's not. Not really." She laughed, thinking of Ainsley's insistence on her wearing him in her watch. "We talked about that and everything. He said I can upload his consciousness to a server and we can keep traveling the world, after he's gone."

On the other side of the screen, her mother smiled, wiping her own tears away. "Sweetheart, you know all we want is for you to be happy. He sounds perfect for you. But . . ."

Ris blinked hard, sucking down her tears. But? But what? We're perfect together, the end. There's no but, that's the problem.

"If you told him that you don't want to be responsible for his happiness . . . well, isn't that what he's doing, Ris? Because if the way things are isn't making him happy, isn't taking care of himself what you told him you wanted? It would have been better if he'd had a discussion, rather than you giving you ultimatums, but . . . well, wouldn't a discussion imply that you are responsible for his happiness? And he yours? Making choices unilaterally seems in-line with the kind of relationship you asked for, baby."

For a small eternity, the world fell away.

She had done this to herself. Ris sat back in chair, mouth agape. She had spent so many years spinning her wheels with men who took her nowhere, so many bad dates and broken promises, and she had hardened herself off, like a solitary tree growing amidst an untamed garden. She was so concerned with maintaining her independence, with ensuring that she was never just a cog in the Elvish baby machine, intent on doing everything herself . . . and she had done this. Her eyes filled with tears again.

"So I guess you have to ask yourself, baby, is having this relationship on your terms the most important thing? Because Ris, I have to tell you, you're talking about him focusing on things that don't matter in the long run . . . Does this matter right now? Is it worth digging your heels in on something so small if it means you're going to lose him completely?"

Ris began to cry again. She'd not considered it that way, not a single time. She was the one at the center of their web, the one holding everything together for everyone else. Didn't that mean she was right? Unfuckingbelievable. All she had been able to see was him changing things on her. And that was exactly what she'd invited in. You told him you didn't want something serious. That was an invitation to leave.

His life was so small, such a tiny vial of sand. He's here for such a short time. Is any of this worth losing him?

"No," she mumbled. It wasn't. And she might change her mind. She might change her mind a hundred more times, but she had all the time in the world to change it. "No, it doesn't. You're right."