And there is no long run, I remind myself jarringly.This is not permanent.
In four months, I’m going back to my cottage on Cape Cod and this will all be a distant memory.
They’llbe a distant memory.
Ryder is watching me carefully from across the room, his eyes scanning my face as though he can tell exactly what path my thoughts have just ventured down. I tear my gaze from his and turn toward the door, striving for a casual tone as I toss the words back over my shoulder.
“I have some things to take care of, so I’m heading out. I’ll see y’all tomorrow.”
I don’t look at their faces or wait for a response as I push through the door and cross to the elevator. I jam my finger rapidly into the call button, hoping it arrives before one of them can follow me upstairs. When it opens with a low chime, I think I’m home free…
Until Ryder slips inside with me at the last moment.
Mother fudger.
I stop breathing as the doors slide shut, sealing us in the enclosed space together. He punches the button for the seventh floor — one below mine — before leaning back against the opposite wall. There’s an unreadable expression on his face as he examines me. His eyes are crystal clear, no sign of the drugs that clouded his gaze in the weeks before I left him.
Maybe he’s finally clean,my highest hopes suggest.
Or maybe he’s just gotten better at hiding it,my bitterest memories remind me.
I can’t read him at all. Not the thoughts in his head or the intentions that accompany them. His gaze lingers on my hair and, after a moment, his head shakes as he glances away.
“What?” I snap, unable to stand his silence another instant.
“Your hair.”
I don’t respond.
“I hate it,” he says bluntly.
A scoff of disbelief flies from my mouth. “I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
“You don’t look likeyouanymore.”
“Well,youdon’t know me anymore.”
“And whose fault is that, Felicity?” he snaps back in frustration.
Except for a slight flinch I can’t quite contain, I don’t react. My eyes, though — they blaze with anger, broadcasting my thoughts at him like a flashing neon sign.
Whose fault is this? It’syours, Ryder, and you know it.
I may’ve walked away… But you’re the one who made me go.
His face falls so fast, it’s hard to track the instant it shifts from rage to remorse. Glancing away, I focus on the number panel overhead. We’re almost to his floor.
I can feel his eyes lingering on my face for the remainder of the ride. And I can still hear his words from last night, echoing in the air between us.
We aren’t over. We weren’t over two years ago. We aren’t over now.
We’ll never be over, no matter how much time passes or how much distance gets between us.
When the doors spring open on his floor, he steps through them in stony silence. I think he’s going to walk away without another word to me, but at the last second, he turns back.
His corded muscles flex as he braces the doors open. There’s a challenge in the depths of his eyes as they lock on mine — just the sight of it makes my knees weak. And when he finally speaks, his tone is a meld of such passion and frustration it makes the breath catch in my throat.
“I know this is my fault, okay?I know.I’m the bad guy. I fucked this up, I broke us into pieces. I know you’re pissed at me. Guess what?I’m pretty fucking pissed at me, too.” His jaw ticks with barely-leashed emotion. “If you have to blame me, if you need to hate me —get in fucking line. You can scream and cry and curse me, you can rage and loathe and scorn me… but none of that is going to change this reality.”