He watches me for a long moment, his expression flickering through a spectrum of emotions so fast I can’t identify a single one of them.
“You think this is over.” The words are incredulous as he gestures from his chest to my own — as though the very notion is ludicrous to him.
My breaths are coming too fast. “No — Iknowit’s over. It’s been over for two years, now.”
“Felicity. Let’s get something straight.”
My eyebrows lift as I wait, trying not to suffocate under the weight of all the words I won’t allow myself to say. Trying not to plummet headfirst into the well of emotion I see swimming in his eyes.
“You and me?” He leans closer and I swear, the whole damn world goes still. “We aren’t over. We weren’t over two years ago. We aren’t over now. We’llneverbe over, no matter how much time passes or how much distance gets between us.”
“I…” I open my mouth to contradict him, but I can’t get a single syllable past my lips.
“I don’t care if you don’t believe me. I don’t care if you hate me,” he says simply, his words a jarring juxtaposition to the passion in his stare. “You’re part of me, Felicity. You’re imprinted on my DNA. You’re embedded in my fucking bone marrow. That doesn’t go away. Not after two years. Notever.”
Without another word, he turns and walks out of the room, leaving me alone with his words still ringing in the air like a promise.
Like a vow.
Chapter Seven
ryder
I take the stairs,my feet pounding upward. Flight after flight, my pace never drops off as I ascend to the second-highest floor, where Francesca arranged an apartment for me to crash in.
I’m so fucking furious I can hardly see straight.
I didn’t come back here for you, Ryder.
I came back because I was contractually obligated.
I knew seeing her again would be tantamount to torture, but I didn’t expect this — didn’t expect her to have changed so vastly since I last clapped eyes on her. It’s not just the blonde hair or the new sharpness in her cheeks, the drawn look on her face or the wan pallor of her skin. It’s the way she looked at me. The coldness in her stare that was never there before. The distance in her tone that told me, in no uncertain terms, I am a stranger to her now. One who cannot be trusted or allowed to get too close.
We have nothing to say to each other.
Oh, baby, but you’re wrong. So, so wrong. There’s a fuck of a lot to say.
No, not to say — to scream at the top of my lungs.
Things likeI’m sober. AndI’m sorry.
Things likeI missed you.AndI can’t live without you.
I’d yell till I was blue in the face, if I thought she’d listen.
As soon as the tour is done, I’m gone. So there’s no need for some big, dramatic discussion. No need to dredge up ancient history.
Since the first day we met, she’s had her walls up. But now she’s got a fucking fortress around herself, so damn high I can’t see her at all. So thick, so fortified, I can’t find even a trace of the girl she used to be, with those liquid gold eyes, full of light despite the horrors she survived as a child.
That’s the thing I always loved most about Felicity — somehow, the pain she went through, all that damage her parents inflicted, didn’t make her hard or cold when it would’ve ruined just about anyone else. She walked through that darkness and shined bright in spite of it. She was strong without being severe. Filled with a quiet resiliency most people made the mistake of overlooking. A steel magnolia, like her grandmother before her.
My fragile-winged nightingale, singing in the shadows.
But now, there’s a new edge in her voice that wasn’t there before. A shield of grief and pain over her eyes, hiding things away from view. As I stared at her just now, looking like a stranger instead of the girl I love, I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake the answers from her about where she’s been, why she left without ever giving me a chance to explain. To yell until she was forced to listen. To explain away the past two years with a few reckless words.
It took every ounce of strength I possessed to contain the urge. Every bit of self-preservation to stand there, watching her sing through a barrier of glass, her shattered lyrics echoing through the speakers all around me, each verse slicing a little deeper: death of a thousand cuts, delivered in the form of a song.
Now the kingdom’s torn up at the seams