015:

It was Mother's Day still. Melia had walked the short distance back to the cottage, feeling grounded and just slightly headachy. Her mother had been right, she needed to ground out all the way, rather than dealing with this, but what would do it? She couldn't keep a permanent set of people around that could ground her. She had to get on with life. It seemed to be getting worse not better.

She got into the cottage and put Hannah in her crib where she arched and stretched and then slipped back into that languid baby unconsciousness, and Melia thought she might go wash the dishes. There were a few. When her cell buzzed.

She looked at the number on the screen, as was habit with just about everyone she knew that owned cell phones and her brows knit in consternation. A name was there, so somebody she had in her data base.

Ryan.

A name she hadn't seen in almost a year.

She held the phone out as it buzzed. Answer it, she commanded herself, but something held her back. She stared at it in shock.

Ryan.

Now.

She clicked on and held it to her ear. No one was there, that blank sound of no connection. She hit the send button and it started to ring again. He picked it up quickly.

"Did you call me?" Melia asked quickly, not being able to think of anything else to say, her heart was beating a mile a minute. She made it to her own bed and sat down on the dark purple coverlet, smoothing it automatically, as if touching reality for a moment.

"Hi. Yeah, I called you. I wanted to... to wish you a happy Mother's Day."

Melia let out her held breath. She didn't know what to think. He was a missionary. He shouldn't be calling her. "Shouldn't you be calling your mother?" Her voice wasn't snide, it was just a comment.

"I called her already today." He said, "But I've talked to her more recently anyway."

Because of Jared, she thought vaguely, closing her eyes and willing herself not to build at all. She had to remain calm.

"How are you doing, Mia?" His voice was familiar, but the face she saw when she thought of him was red and angry. What was going on here?

"I'm okay." She managed to say, not knowing what else to say. "How are you?"

There was a hesitation. "Dealing, I guess. It hasn't been easy."

Well, no, it wasn't easy. She didn't know what to say to that either. She didn't know how to comfort him, or if she even wanted to. It was his one singular event, his reaction to their marriage that had sent him flying into a rage and her to feeling confusion and unhappiness whenever she thought of him.

"Are you.... Dealing okay?" He finally asked her awkwardly.

"I don't like to talk about it." She answered honestly, no façade there, she thought. I don't like to talk about it.

"I guess that would be natural." He said and there was another long awkward pause. "H-how's the baby? It's a girl, right?"

"Her name is Hannah." She said tightly, not sure she even wanted to share Jared's daughter with Ryan after the way he'd treated them.

"Oh." He said. "So, is that a family name on your side? I guess I don't know any Hannah's."

"Om, no." She managed, letting out that held breath, her heart thundering away uncomfortably. "It's after Hannah in the Bible."

"Hannah in the Bible, huh? That your idea? You share the gospel with him too?" Now that was a loaded statement, Melia thought, feeling defensive and annoyed at the same time. Was he jealous that she shared the gospel with someone else besides him?

"I can't talk right now, Ryan." She finally said, ignoring his 'maybe' jealousy.

"Why? What are you doing that is so important?" He sounded a little hurt. Why would he be hurt? He wasn't supposed to be calling her anyway.

"I just do." Now that sounded stupid, she thought and slapped herself on the forehead.

"You know, I debated calling you today. I've wanted to call you, but I knew I should probably wait till after the mission, but so much water under this bridge, Mia. I am having a lot of trouble focusing. I think it might be better if I just talk to you a little."

"What would your mission president say?" she asked.

"Actually I've talked to him, and I'm glad you're still concerned about what the mission president might think, since..."

"Since what?" She blurted, picturing a thousand things that 'since' could mean.

She could hear him sigh.

"I guess I'm not being very nice about this. I'll be really honest, the whole thing really pisses me off."

She felt her headache blossoming angrily and she held her hand to her head. I shouldn't be entertaining this conversation after what I've been through today, she thought and held the phone to her ear anyway. "This whole thing? What whole thing?"

"I thought.... Melia." He said her name in three distinct syllables the way people did when they were mad at her. "I thought we were together. I've thought all this whole time that we had planned a life together. That we loved each other, and were waiting."

"I think that was true." She said stiffly. "But you also knew when you sent Jared to protect me that he had strong feelings for me already. He basically told you if he went in and got me, that we'd disappear together forever."

There was a pause as he apparently digested this piece of information.  "I trusted him. I trusted you."

"Really? Trusted us to what?"

"Not screw with me. He knew how I felt about you, he shouldn't have....are you telling me that he seduced you? Did he force you Melia? Did he take it without permission?"

"Why would I have married him if that had been the case, Ryan? No. I'm not proud of the way it came about, but there were a lot of extenuating circumstances that I had no control over. But one of them wasn't being forced. Jared would never have forced me."

"So, you're saying you returned his feelings from the first?" This hurt, she knew it did, the whole conversation was taking her breath away.

"The fact that I had the feelings opened a window for me to realize that maybe we-- you and I-- were taking things a little fast committing to each other so quickly. I had no other experience and you came along and swept me off my feet. Yeah, I loved you, don't think I didn't, but perhaps it was with a love that wasn't very mature, or experienced."

"Bullshit." He said under his breath. "Bullshit, Melia."

"Nice words coming from one of the Lord's anointed." She shot back, blazing into temper.

" I never expected you to sleep with him!"

"I never expected it either!" she cried.

"Then why did it happen? I assume you married him after you slept with him? It was Jared, for heaven's sake, I told you he just takes what he wants."

"I fell in love with him." She said.

"Yeah, the way you fell in love with me? Not real love. You fell in sex love." He sneered.

"Ryan, you're making me hate you. You really are. I—like I want to say sorry. I'm sorry, Ryan! I am. It wasn't planned to happen that way, but I'm glad it did. I love Jared." She was choking on her words, feeling the throat clogging tears that had never been shed. When would they actually come out? They were killing her. Couldn't she even cry in rage?

"Just answer me this..." She could tell that he was crying too, she could hear the tears in his throat. "Why, Mia, why do you love him and not me?"

"I don't." she stammered instantly.

"What?"

"I don't love him and not you." She sobbed, and now she just felt broken and sad.

"What the hell are you saying?"

"It doesn't matter anymore, what's done is done and you hate me, so it doesn't matter if I say it, does it? But I don't love him and not you. I- I loved you both." And with that she hung up.

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