Madeline Sheehan - Unbeautifully

He cleared his throat. “I’m out,” he said.

Dorothy smiled up at him. “See you soon?”

Everyone else looked away.

“Sure,” he muttered.

And left.

• • •

Ripper was leaving.

Again.

And I felt like I was dying.

Again.

My stomach started churning and my body grew clammy.

This couldn’t happen.

This couldn’t happen again.

He couldn’t leave.

He couldn’t leave me, again.

“I gotta go to the bathroom,” I whispered to ZZ and quickly stood up, painfully aware of Hawk’s knowing eyes on me.

As soon as I’d cleared the kitchen, I broke into a run, racing down the hallway, through the front room, and slammed through the front door, stumbling out into the sunlight.

Ripper was already on his bike, stopped at the gate, punching in the code.

As if he could sense me there, he paused and turned.

And my heart broke for the millionth time since prom night.

It was all there, everything he was feeling, everything I needed to know, written all over his face.

He loved me.

And he hated me.

I stood there for a long time, long after the dust his Harley kicked up in his wake had settled.

I lost something that day, a piece of me that’s still out there, standing in that parking lot, staring after the man I loved.

Life goes on.

If there is nothing else in this world you can count on, you can count on that.

Life will go on.

With or without you.

Before you, after you, all around you, life has always done just that.

Gone on.

After Ripper left, life went on. The world didn’t stop turning, the sun didn’t forget its nightly duty to set in the west and rise again each morning in the east. The seasons still came and went. Everything, everyone, continued on.

Even me.

When my father and Eva came home from their honeymoon, it was back to business as usual only my father was home a lot more. Things settled.

And life just kept going.

Danny D. got married.

Cage had a girlfriend, a waitress from town, for an entire week.

Kami got pregnant and nine months later gave birth to her and Cox’s second son, Diesel. Tegen graduated from high school. Not even twenty-four hours after her graduation ceremony, she was on a plane San Francisco bound where she’d gotten a full scholarship to San Francisco State University and an internship at a small newspaper. She didn’t come back for Christmas, or spring break, or the following summer.

Bucket was arrested, carted off to jail out of state on assault charges.

Then Dorothy got pregnant.

Jase didn’t leave his wife. Other than Dorothy, no one was surprised.

Hawk left. Went nomad like Ripper, and never came back.

Anger, one of two prospects, eighteen years old, and half Native American, was patched in. From what I knew of him, like Dirty he too had been aptly nicknamed. Mostly, I tried to avoid him and his temper tantrums.

And through it all, Ripper would periodically appear. He’d show up out of the blue, stay for a day or two, and then just as randomly, he’d disappear again.

We never spoke. We barely looked at each other. But there were times when not looking was as unbearable as holding my breath for too long and so I’d give in and I’d look. And every time I did, he was looking back at me.

The pain that followed those brief glances was indescribable. And always took weeks to heal from.

And still…life went on.

Eventually two years had passed, during which I continued on with school, and made a concerted effort at spending more time with my family, or alone with ZZ, and less time at the club.

And then, three weeks after I turned twenty-one, during one of the many Horsemen summer barbeques, life came crashing to a stop.

Ripper stared at Danny. Stared at ZZ kneeling on the grass in front of her, asking her to marry him.

He was going to flip his shit.

These assholes all around him didn’t realize it, but they were about to get sprayed with blood, bone, and brain when his head decided to explode, which was in about five motherfucking seconds.

Five…

Four…

Three…

Two…

One…

Fuck him.

Married.

ZZ was asking Danny to marry him.

Ah, fuck. What was happening to him? Everything inside of him suddenly felt all fucked-up and wrong. His heart started beating faster and his skin began to tingle irritably. The air around him grew thick, stuffy, making it hard to breathe. He felt lightheaded, his nose stung, and his stomach clenched painfully.

Before he began shredding his own body to pieces, just to make all these damn uncomfortable and unwanted feelings go away, he grabbed Anabeth and yanked her up against him. She responded immediately and curled seductively around his body.

Feeling like ten times an asshole, he kept his gaze on Danny as he groped Anabeth’s ass.

Danny’s beautiful blue eyes filled with pain and her gaze dropped back to ZZ.

He stopped breathing. She was going to say yes.

Say something, his brain screamed. STOP HER!

FUCKING STOP HER!

But he didn’t.

He never did.

Because he was a useless pussy, who would never fucking deserve her.

So he just stood there like an asshole, manhandling her friend, and watching in horrified fascination as her lips parted and—

FUCK THIS SHIT.

Fuck the club and the code, and fuck brotherhood.

He would give it all up for her. For his woman. Because she sure as shit was his, and he’d go to hell and back ten times over before he lost her forever.

He shoved Anabeth aside, his right foot moved, and…

“DANNY!” he bellowed. “BABY!”

But no one heard him. His words had been drowned out by the cracking boom of a bullet being discharged and the horrified screams that followed.

I stared across the lawn, unable to move despite the hectic flow of traffic, people arguing, police officers running back and forth, children crying…

I just stood there and stared at the spot where not long ago Dorothy had been lying on the grass. Shot.

In the head.

There was so much blood.

And all I could think about was her swollen belly, her innocent baby inside.

What would happen to the baby?

Feeling sick, I placed my hand over my own flat stomach and dug my fingertips into my skin. Was this really happening?

Was Dorothy going to die? Her baby?

The bullet hadn’t killed her, at least not yet, and she’d since been taken to the hospital and her shooter, Jase’s wife Chrissy, had been carted off to jail, still screaming incoherently at Jase. I didn’t know where Jase was. Either at the hospital or the jail.

I hoped he was at the hospital.

There was so much blood.

“Danny?”

Recognizing Ripper’s voice, I didn’t bother turning. “Yes?” I whispered.

“Everyone’s either leavin’ or leavin’ for the hospital,” he said quietly. “You comin’?”

“Where’s ZZ?” I asked.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Ripper stiffen. “Hospital,” he said tightly. “With Jase. He told you he was goin’, yeah?”

I nodded distractedly. Yeah, he had. I think. God…there was so much blood. And I was freezing.

Glancing up, I noted the sun still shining bright and high in the sky and frowned. Why was I so cold?

“Danny.” Ripper stepped in front of me, blocking out both the sun and the blood on the grass.

I glanced up at him. “What do you want?” I whispered. What did he want? Shouldn’t he be on his way to the hospital or out of town, whatever…?

“You’re shakin’,” he gritted out. “I’m tryin’ to get you to stop starin’ at the motherfuckin’ blood and go inside.”

I blinked. “I’m no stranger to blood, Ripper,” I said softly. “Or bullets,” I added.

“Or…dead babies.”

He visibly flinched and I immediately felt bad. I shouldn’t have said it, I don’t even know why I had, but I didn’t seem to be in control of myself. I was in shock and shaking.

And selfishly thinking about my own tragedies in place of the one that had just occurred right in front of me. During my marriage proposal…

Oh my god.

I glanced down at my left hand, at my ring finger. The ring was simple yet elegant, a band made of white gold with what I guessed was a two-carat diamond, princess cut, and circled by a thin line of diamond chips.

It was beautiful.

I hated it.

What was going on?

God, what the fuck was going on?

DANNY! BABY!

Ripper’s voice was suddenly echoing through my head, instantly returning my memories. Startled, I glanced up at him. He took one look at me and knew what I was thinking, knew I’d heard him yelling.

Everything about him told me he wanted me to drop it, to let it go, to not do what he already knew I was going to do.

Trembling, I reached out and grabbed his hand. He responded immediately, engulfed my hand inside his much larger, infinitely warmer one.

“What were you going to say?” I whispered.

He shook his head. “Danny, let’s get you inside, baby, get you warm.”

“No!” I yanked my hand from his. “Tell me what you were going to say!”

His mouth flattened. “Does it matter?” he asked, nodding briskly at my ring-laden hand.

My insides seized and I fought the urge to scream at him, to beat him senseless. Did it matter? What was wrong with him? He no more wanted me to marry ZZ than I wanted to marry ZZ.

He still loved me.

“Say it,” I demanded, refusing to let him leave me again, every bone in my body suddenly protesting the very thought of it.

“Stop it,” he hissed.

“You started it!”

“Still so fuckin’ immature,” he growled. “Thinkin’ ’bout yourself when all around you, shit’s goin’ bad.”

“Are you really going to do this?” I cried, no longer caring who heard me, who knew about us. “Especially now? Are you going to keep running from me? From us? Because I can’t! Dammit, Ripper, I can’t! Not after this!”

I couldn’t. Not after I’d just watched Dorothy take a bullet to the head, all because she refused to let go of the man she loved, a man she might have died just to keep. Standing right in front of me was the man I loved and I didn’t want to spend one more second aching for him.

“You’re gonna fuckin’ spew this shit at me!” he yelled. “Right the fuck now? Right after Z puts a motherfuckin’ ring on your finger?”

“Stop it!” I shrieked, feeling him in his anger slipping away again. Retreating. Knowing that the second he could, he was going to get on his bike and put Montana and me in his rearview. And I couldn’t, I fucking couldn’t, let that happen.

“Stop ignoring this! Me! Just stop it! Admit it! Fucking admit you love me!”

“Yeah!” he yelled, grabbing my biceps and shaking me hard. “I fuckin’ love you, bitch! I’ve only ever loved you and I ain’t ever stopped!”

Despite his painfully bruising grip on my arms or that he was shaking me so hard I could feel my brain rattle inside my skull, I felt an instant relief flood me. He loved me. And right now, it seemed to be the only thing that mattered to me.

“Don’t matter though, does it? ’Cause you didn’t give two fucks about me! Proved it when instead of tellin’ me about my fuckin’ baby, you started fuckin’ Z! You coulda told me about the baby, Danny! You shoulda told me about the baby!”

Tears burned in my eyes.

“Don’t fuckin’ cry!” he yelled, shaking me again. “Don’t you dare fuckin’ cry!”

“You left me!” I cried. “You just left me here all alone! I needed you and you left me!”

“You’re Z’s now! You’re his fuckin’ old lady and I got no right to be lovin’ you!”

“I’ve never been his,” I whispered. “Ripper, I’ve always been yours.”

His features tightening, he squeezed his eyes shut, and trembled ever so slightly.