Roxy Muñoz (sticksandrox) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2021-06-03 12:36:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | #june 2018, caden, caden x roxy, roxy |
Who: Caden and Roxy
When: late night, Friday, June 15th
Where: their place
Status: complete
Roxy had planned this as carefully as she could. She’d picked a night when Caden was working late but not closing, she’d waited until he was gone and then called Mila and Aaron over. They’d helped her pack her things -- mostly clothes and photo albums, she was only taking a few small pieces of furniture and some kitchen stuff that had been hand-me-downs from her family -- and load it all up into Aaron’s truck. Roxy had stayed outwardly calm through this process, but there was a nervous tension simmering underneath it all. She kept expecting Caden to somehow know, to come home early, to shoot them all in some family-annihilator rage that she heard about on true crime shows.
It was terrifying and felt so surreal at the same time. Was she really going to do this? They’d been together for years. It was hard to think that her life was about to drastically change, and Roxy had felt the impulse to stop everything more than once, to put all her stuff back like she’d just gone temporarily crazy. She knew she couldn’t do that, the break had already happened in her mind and heart, she just had to keep pushing forward. Not to mention, Mila probably would’ve strangled her. So she just kept moving, clearing out her things from the mobile home.
It looked meager and sad when they were done, hardly anything in the closet and the bathroom, the place reduced to just Caden’s stuff. Would that gut him? Would he miss the smell of her perfume and shampoo and how her hair ties ended up everywhere? Would he miss her? Or would he be happy to have the bed all to himself? To not have to speak to anyone after work? Would he be happier alone? Roxy didn’t know, and she tried to convince herself that it wasn’t her business anymore.
She’d asked Aaron and Mila to wait outside, around the time Caden was due home. Aaron moved the truck out of Caden’s spot but stayed parked in front of the mobile home, angled so everything in the back wasn’t in immediate view when Caden pulled in. He might question their presence there anyway, but Aaron felt prepared enough to handle his brother. Roxy stayed inside, glancing at the oven clock every few seconds while she waited in the quiet house. She fiddled with the engagement ring where it sat on the table and silently prayed that Caden would surprise her and take this all calmly.
It probably said something about his state of mind that Caden was completely oblivious to anything Roxy was doing. He had been in something of a haze since he and Aaron had buried Joseph and even he was self aware enough to realize he wasn't handling it well. The problem was, he didn't know how to handle it. Tonight he was lost in his own thoughts as he pulled into the driveway and while he acknowledged the truck parked out front in some bizarre, vague way, it didn't even click that it was Aaron's. All Caden wanted to do was drink a couple of beers and go to bed. He was finding when he drank enough, he didn't dream, which meant to nightmares about what was rotting out in the woods.
Stepping into the house, he spotted Roxy and Caden glanced at her before he began to work on untying his boots to take off. "You didn't have to wait up," he muttered, more out of exhaustion than any real annoyance.
Roxy’s spine stiffened and her heart leapt into her throat when she heard the front door open. She wondered for a brief second why she hadn’t just written him a letter and disappeared, but she knew that wouldn’t have worked any better. Point Pleasant was too small, and in spite of everything, Roxy felt like she owed Caden some in-person closure. Their relationship hadn’t been all bad, after all, and he hadn’t hit her in months. Things were better in that regard, it was just everything else that was unlikely to change. She stayed put at the kitchen table while he got his boots off, clearing her throat a bit to hopefully keep her voice from shaking. “I did though ... I have to talk to you, Caden.” There was a tremor there, but it was small, at least.
Caden recognized the tone of her voice. It was timid, even if she was trying to sound otherwise. And he already knew whatever it was Roxy wanted to tell him was Bad News. For a second he thought she might be pregnant, but then he remembered that was practically impossible. Something else then. Caden got his second boot off and then walked over to sit down at the table, across from her. That's when he noticed the ring she wasn't wearing on her finger, though he didn't let his expression betray whatever it was he was feeling. Probably because he had no idea what it was he was feeling. "Okay, so talk," he said simply, trying not to sound as exhausted as he felt.
It was impossible for her not to see that Caden was worn out and not in a good mood, and the part of Roxy that was always trying to manage his moods wanted to put this off until he felt better. She knew that was impossible at this point though. She was already packed, there were people waiting to take her away from here, she couldn’t pretend this wasn’t happening anymore. Besides, how often did Caden take her feelings and exhaustion into account before he was shitty to her? Still, she hesitated as her eyes roamed over his face, then she wet her lips and took a deeper breath. “I’ve done a lot of thinking lately, and ... I think it’s time for us to break up,” she told him. The words weren’t easy to get out, and Roxy’s throat already felt tight, but at least she had started and that was the hardest part. So they said, anyway. “I care about you a lot, and I know the timing sucks, but I don’t want to pretend everything’s okay when it’s really not. I can't anymore. I don’t think it’s really working for either of us, we want different things, and I just ... it’s time. I’m sorry.”
Caden's brow cocked high when Roxy said the words break up. In his head, they sounded so juvenile, like the two of them were in high school. Out of all of the bad news Roxy could have sprung on him, he honestly hadn't thought her leaving was a possibility, so Caden didn't really know how to respond at first. Was the instinctive urge there to break her nose? Yeah, it was. But there was another part of him that knew she was right, even if he hated himself for admitting it. It was like something was fundamentally broken inside of him, but something else had shifted the day he watched his own dad get beat to death. His emotions, including his anger, felt muted and he'd gotten to the point where he didn't even care to try and rile them up anymore. What was the fucking point? "Where are you going to go?" Caden asked her finally. Not in an accusatory way, just genuine curiosity. It was pretty clear she was the one leaving and if that was somehow in question, he wanted to make sure she understood this was his place and he wasn't going anywhere.
Roxy was tense through the silence, the muscles in her shoulders and upper back aching with how tight she was holding herself. She hadn’t known what to expect from him, every reaction she could think of was one extreme or the other -- she could equally imagine Caden flying across the table in a rage to attack her for daring to think she could leave him, or Caden just shrugging and telling her to fuck off then. Roxy honestly wasn’t sure what her preference was, but it wasn’t up to her anyway. The question he finally asked seemed more of a practical one than anything derisive, and it threw her for a second. Was he asking so he could come find her later? Or did he really just not care that she was leaving him? “I’m uh, I’m not sure yet, long-term,” she answered. “I’m going to stay with Mila for a little while until I figure it out.” Caden could easily find that out, Aaron couldn’t keep a secret to save his life, so she didn’t bother to lie. Except for the fact that she had a good idea of where she would end up, and it wasn’t at Mila’s. “I’m packed, everything’s out. And ... here.” Roxy pushed the engagement ring toward him with her fingers.
She was going to stay with Mila. Which meant she was staying with Aaron. Which meant his brother probably knew about this before Caden did. And he hadn't said a word. For some reason that made Caden's blood boil a hell of a lot more than Roxy leaving him. If he was in any mood for inner reflection, that might have told him something. His gaze ticked down to the ring she had taken off and was now offering him. With a sardonic twist of his lips, Caden lifted his eyes back to her face. "That didn't take you long, did it? Kinda feels like you were sneaking around. Why'd you even bother waiting here for me?"
It was just like him to see it that way, wasn’t it? And for him to pretend he had no idea why she might want to ‘sneak around’. Why she might need to. “What, did you want to hang around for hours while I got all my shit out?” Roxy suggested, arching a brow at him, her lips a little tight. “It was planning, not sneaking. I waited for you so we could do this face to face, with respect.” She had no idea if that would matter to him or not, if he would’ve preferred she just clear out and then send him a text or something. Maybe he wanted her to just disappear like so many others. Roxy had no idea anymore, if she ever truly did. She reminded herself that trying to read Caden’s mind wasn’t her job now. She was quitting.
"I could've helped you," Caden said shortly. That was probably mean, but he didn't really care at the moment. She was the one sneaking around to pack up her shit without telling him. She was using his brother, who probably helped her get her shit packed up too. Was that respect? Caden reached out across the table to take the engagement ring. He wouldn't get back what he paid for it, but he'd get something, he supposed. A lot of different emotions were churning about in his gut, agitating him further. He was frustrated. Frustrated because he knew she wanted him to be someone else. Frustrated because he knew he couldn't be. Wasn't even sure he wanted to be. And yeah, frustrated because he knew she deserved better and maybe that stung a little. "Where's your key?" he asked abruptly, because he wanted her gone before the urge to beg her to stay grew too strong.
Maybe he would have helped. Or maybe he would have started breaking her stuff. Or maybe he would’ve brooded and stewed long enough to decide to beat her ass before she could get out. It wasn’t something Roxy had wanted to risk. That clipped tone in his voice stung, but Roxy tried not to let it show while she reached for her purse where it was sitting on the floor. She found her keyring inside of it and started to twist off the house key, her heart beating hard in her throat. Roxy hadn’t expected some tearful emotional scene from Caden. She couldn’t even imagine him crying over her when he was alone, much less begging her for anything. But it was hard knowing that the relationship that had taken up most of her life for the past five years was ending with nothing but coldness from him. Roxy got the key free and set it down on the table, swallowing thickly. “I hope you know I loved you the best I could,” she murmured. “And I hope you find some peace someday Caden, I really do.”
Coldness was really the only way Caden knew how to get through this. Other than getting violent or drinking himself to death. It was easier to feel nothing and let her know she hadn't affected him. Moving her things out while he had been working, blindsiding him with this while disguising it as respect. It made him angry. But it also made him sad and that made him uncomfortable. "I don't need peace," he told her, reaching out to take the key. It clinked softly against the ring in his palm. "But, you know, I'm sorry I made it difficult to love me." Caden had meant to make the words sound sarcastic, but they simply came out defeated. And quiet. He was a pain in the ass and he knew it. It made sense that Roxy had finally had enough.
Tears burned the backs of Roxy’s eyes and she tried hard to hold them back, but a few spilled over anyway. She brushed them off of her cheeks and swallowed again, not trusting herself to speak for a moment. There were so many things she wanted to tell Caden -- that it wasn’t his fault, he’d gotten a shitty hand dealt to him from the start, and it took real work to dig yourself out of that hole. She wanted to tell him she would have done that work with him, if he’d been receptive to doing it, to getting the help they probably both needed. But she’d tried to convince him of that many times, and it had never worked, only pissed him off. She couldn’t wait forever. She couldn’t wait anymore at all, in fact. Part of Roxy was tempted to try a final ultimatum, to tell him that she would stay if he agreed to therapy, but in her heart she knew she’d be wasting her breath. She obviously hadn’t been enough of a reason for him to want to change, that wasn’t going to magically happen now, at the last minute. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make you happy,” she said softly, her voice a little unsteady. “And that I need more. And ... I’m just sorry. Please take care of yourself.” That was probably a waste of words too, but Roxy felt compelled to say it anyway.
Caden didn't want to get into some kind of tearful goodbye. Roxy made her choice and it was what it was. He knew on some level that he probably should have told her that he wasn't sure anything could make him happy. Caden was broken and had been since he was a kid. It wasn't the kind of damage anyone else could fix and he was far too tired to try and fix it himself. Right now Caden just wanted her to go so he could be alone. So he nodded, not wanting to say anything more. He had the ring and her key and she had all of her shit already. There was nothing left to say.
She stared across the table at him for what felt like too long, willing him to say something else. Roxy didn’t know what she wanted to hear. That he loved her, maybe. That he didn’t want her to go, or he understood, or he wished her happiness, or he would miss her, or something to mark the end of their long and tumultuous relationship. Something to signify that she’d meant something to him. But it seemed that one small, self-pitying ‘I’m sorry’ was going to be it. It made her even more sad, but not all that surprised. She supposed she ought to just be grateful that he hadn’t gotten violent, and leave. Roxy stood up as quietly as she could and slipped her bag onto her arm. She lingered for another couple of heartbeats as the “goodbye” stuck in her throat, then turned to head for the door. She’d already probably said too much.
There was plenty that Caden wanted to say but what would have been the point? She was leaving. And if he listened to the voice in his head that sounded a lot like his deceased father's, Caden would have accused her of trying to manipulate him emotionally to get what she wanted. Wasn't that what women did? Wasn't that how she got the ring in the first place? The ring itself seemed to burn against his palm so he set it down on the table with the key and stood to see her out. He had no idea what to say to her. Goodbye seemed stilted on his lips, as did everything else. So Caden pulled the door open, his gaze drifting to the truck that was parked by the curb. Aaron's truck. His jaw clenched, but still he said nothing.
Roxy flinched a little when she heard Caden’s chair push back behind her, and his approaching steps made her shoulders tense. Part of her expected to get hit, or shoved into the wall, or something similar, but Caden didn’t touch her. He just opened the door instead, like she was some unwanted guest he was ushering out. It made the lump in her throat even more painful. Roxy glanced sideways at Caden’s face as she stepped out the door, still feeling like there was so much more to say. She doubted it would do any good, though. She knew when Caden Lucas had shut down. He always had walls up, but she was sure they were fortified at the moment. Maybe it didn’t matter anyway, she’d made her decision. Roxy would just have to find closure on her own and hope he did the same. She walked down the porch steps toward Aaron’s truck, intending to tell them to go on home -- Roxy still had her own car to drive, and she honestly wanted to be alone for a little while.
It was much easier to focus on his brother's truck and presence than Roxy walking away from him. He could be angry and justifiably so. Caden was of the mind to walk out to the truck himself, maybe pull his stupid, younger brother from the driver's seat and break his nose. It would at least make him feel better about all of this. But Caden stayed put, determined now to shut the door until they were all gone and far away from his house. Aaron would have to know Caden was pissed. But that was something they would have to deal with later.
It was a relief to get off of the porch without Caden pushing her down the steps or grabbing her hair or a dozen other awful possibilities, but Roxy still fought not to run to the truck. He hadn’t even raised his voice to her, but old, deeply ingrained fear was hard to shake. She stayed composed as she leaned into the passenger side window of Aaron’s truck to have a quiet word with them. Roxy reassured Mila that she was okay and she was just going to take a drive, she would check in, everything was fine, they could even go to bed, she would let herself in later. Somehow she managed not to cry. Feeling weird and numb and sad and relieved and all kinds of things at once, Roxy went to climb into her car. It was a bittersweet feeling to pull out of the driveway and away from the house for the last time, and Roxy was kind of grateful for the headlights of Aaron’s truck in the rearview mirror -- they kept her from looking back as she drove out of Seaview.