Chapter Nineteen
Sydney
Be still, heart. Please, be still.
I don’t want him to be standing here in front of me. I don’t want him to be looking at me, wearing the expression that mirrors my own feelings. I don’t want him to hurt like I’m hurting. I don’t want him to miss me like I’ll miss him. I don’t want him to be falling for me like I’ve been falling for him.
I want him to be with Maggie right now. I want him to want to be with Maggie right now, because it would make this so much easier knowing our feelings were less a reflection of each other’s and more like a one-way mirror. If this weren’t so hard for him, it would make it easier for me to forget him, easier to accept his choice. Instead, it makes my heart hurt twice as much knowing that our good-bye is hurting him just as much as it’s hurting me.
It’s killing me, because nothing and no one could ever fit my life the way I know he could. I feel as though I’m willingly forking over my one chance for an exceptional life, and in return, I’m accepting a mediocre version without Ridge in it. My father’s words ring in my head, and I’m beginning to wonder if he had a point after all. A life of mediocrity is a waste of a life.
Our eyes remain in their silent embrace for several moments, until we both break our gaze, allowing ourselves to take in every last thing about each other.
His eyes scroll carefully over my face as if he’s committing me to memory. His memory is the last place I want to be.
I would give anything to always be in his present.
I lean my head against my open bedroom door and stare at his hands still gripping the doorframe. The same hands I’ll never see play a guitar again. The same hands that will never hold mine again. The same hands that will never again touch me and hold me in order to listen to me sing.
The same hands that are suddenly reaching for me, wrapping themselves around me, gripping my back in an embrace so tight I don’t know if I could break away even if I tried. But I’m not trying to break away. I’m reciprocating. I’m hugging him with just as much desperation. I find solace against his chest while his cheek presses against the top of my head. With each heavy, uncontrolled breath that passes through his lungs, my own breaths try to keep pace. However, mine are coming in much shorter gasps, thanks to the tears that are working their way out of me.
My sadness is consuming me, and I don’t even try to hold it in as I cry huge tears of grief. I’m crying tears over the death of something that never even had the chance to live.
The death of us.
Ridge and I remain clasped together for several minutes. So many minutes that I’m trying not to count, for fear that we’ve been standing here way too long for it to be an appropriate embrace. Apparently, he notices this, too, because he slides his hands up my back and to my shoulders, then pulls away from me. I lift my face from his shirt and wipe at my eyes before looking back up at him.
Once we make eye contact again, he removes his hands from my shoulders and tentatively places them on either side of my face. His eyes study mine for several moments, and the way he’s looking at me makes me hate myself, because I love it so much.
I love the way he’s looking at me as if I’m the only thing that matters right now. I’m the only one he sees. He’s the only one I see. My thoughts once again lead back to some of the lyrics he wrote.
It’s making me feel like I want to be the only man that you ever see.
His gaze flickers between my mouth and my eyes, almost as if he can’t decide if he wants to kiss me, stare at me, or talk to me.
“Sydney,” he whispers.
I gasp and clutch a hand to my chest. My heart just disintegrated at the sound of his voice.
“I don’t . . . speak . . . well,” he says with a quiet and unsure voice.
Oh, my heart. Hearing him speak is almost too much to take in. Each word that meets my ears is enough to bring me to my knees, and it’s not even the sound of his voice or the quality of his speech. It’s the fact that he’s choosing this moment to speak for the first time in fifteen years.
He pauses before finishing what he needs to say and it gives my heart and my lungs a moment to catch up with the rest of me. He sounds exactly as I imagined he would sound after hearing his laughter so many times. His voice is slightly deeper than his laughter, but somewhat out of focus. His voice reminds me of a photograph in a way. I can understand his words, but they’re out of focus. It’s as if I’m looking at a picture and the subject is recognizable, but not in focus . . . similar to his words.
I just fell in love with his voice. With the out-of-focus picture he’s painting with his words.
With . . . him.
He inhales softly, then nervously exhales before continuing. “I need you . . . to hear this,” he says, cradling my head in his hands. “I . . . will never . . . regret you.”
Beat, beat, pause.
Contract, expand.
Inhale, exhale.
I just officially lost the war on my heart. I don’t even bother verbalizing a response to him. My reaction can be seen in my tears. He leans forward and presses his lips to my forehead; then he drops his hands and slowly backs away from me. With each move he makes to pull apart from me, I feel my heart crumbling. I can almost hear us being ripped apart. I can almost hear his heart tearing in two, crashing to the floor right next to mine.
As much as I know he should leave, I’m a breath away from begging him to stay. I want to fall to my knees, right next to our shattered hearts, and beg him to choose me. The pathetic part of me wants to beg him just to kiss me, even if he doesn’t choose me.
But the part of me that ultimately wins is the part that keeps her mouth shut, because I know Maggie deserves him more than I do.
I keep my hands to my sides as he backs away another step, preparing to turn through my bedroom door. Our eyes are still locked, but when my phone sounds off in my pocket, I jump, quickly tearing my gaze from his. I hear his phone vibrate in his pocket. The sudden interruption of both of our phones is only obvious to me until he sees me opening my cell phone at the same time as he pulls his out of his pocket. Our eyes meet briefly, but the interruption of the outside world seems to have brought us both back to the reality of our situation. Back to the fact that his heart belongs with someone else, and this is still good-bye.
I watch as he reads his text first. I’m unable to take my eyes off of him in order to read mine. His expression quickly becomes tortured by whatever words he’s reading, and he slowly shakes his head.
He winces.
Until this very moment, I’d never seen a heart break right before my eyes. Whatever he just read has completely shattered him.
He doesn’t look at me again. In one swift movement, he grips his phone tightly in his hand as if it’s become an extension of him, and he heads straight for the front door and swings it open. I step out into the living room, watching him in fear as I walk toward the front door. He doesn’t even shut the door behind him as he takes the stairs two at a time, jumping over the edge of the railing to shave off another half a second in his frantic race to get to wherever it is he desperately needs to be.
I look down at my phone and unlock the screen. Maggie’s number shows as the last incoming text message. I open it and see that Ridge and I were the only recipients. I read it carefully, immediately recognizing the familiar string of words she’s typed out to both of us.
Maggie: “Maggie showed up last night an hour after I got back to my room. I was convinced you were going to barge in and tell her what a jerk I am for kissing you.”
I immediately walk to the couch and sit, no longer able to support my body weight. Her words knocked the breath out of me, sucked the strength from my limbs, and robbed me of any sense of dignity I thought I had left.
I try to recall the medium through which Ridge’s words were initially typed.
His laptop.
Oh, no. Our messages.
Maggie is reading our messages. No, no, no.
Another text shows up from Maggie, and I don’t want to read it. I don’t want to see our conversation through Maggie’s eyes.
Maggie: “I never thought it was possible to have honest feelings for more than one person, but you’ve convinced me of how incredibly wrong I was.”
I turn my phone on silent and toss it onto the couch beside me, then start crying into my hands.
How could I do this to her?
How could I do to her what was done to me, knowing it’s the worst feeling in the world?
I’ve never in my life known this kind of shame.
Several minutes pass, full of regrets, before I realize the front door is still wide open. I leave my phone on the couch and walk to the door to shut it, but my eyes are drawn to the cab pulled up directly in front of our complex. Maggie is stepping out, looking up at me as she closes the door. I’m not at all prepared to see her, so I quickly step back out of her sight to regain my bearings. I don’t know if I should go hide in my room or stay out here and try to explain Ridge’s innocence in all of this.
But how would I do that? She obviously read the conversations herself. She knows we kissed. She knows he admitted having feelings for me. As much as I can try to convince her that he did everything he could not to feel that way, it doesn’t excuse the fact that the guy she’s in love with has openly admitted his feelings for someone else. Nothing can excuse that, and I feel like complete shit for being a part of it.
I’m still standing with the door open when she makes it to the top of the stairs. She’s looking at me with a stern expression. I know she’s more than likely here for anything other than me, so I take a step back and open the door wider. She looks down at her feet when she passes me, unable to continue the eye contact.
I don’t blame her. I wouldn’t be able to look at me, either. In fact, if I were her, I’d be punching me right now.
She heads to the kitchen counter, and she drops Ridge’s laptop onto it without delicacy. Then she heads straight to Ridge’s room. I hear her rummaging through stuff, and she eventually comes out with a bag in one hand and her car keys in the other. I’m still standing motionless with my hands on the door. She continues to keep her eyes focused on the floor as she passes me again, but this time, she makes a quick movement with her hand and wipes away a tear.
She walks out the door, down the stairs, and straight to her car, never speaking a word.
I wanted her to tell me she hated me. I wanted her to punch me and scream at me and call me a bitch. I wanted her to give me a reason to be angry, because right now, my heart is breaking for her, and I know there isn’t a damn thing I could say to make her better. I know this for a fact, because I’ve recently been in the same situation that Ridge and I have just put her in.
We just made her a Sydney.
Ridge
The third and final text comes through when I pull up to the hospital. I know it’s the final text, because it’s pulled from the conversation I had with Sydney less than two hours ago. It’s the very last thing I messaged her.
Maggie: “Don’t thank me, Sydney. You shouldn’t thank me, because I failed miserably at trying not to fall in love with you.”
I can’t take any more. I throw the phone into the passenger seat and exit the vehicle, then sprint into the hospital and straight up to her room. I push open the door and rush inside, preparing to do whatever I can to persuade her to hear me out.
When I’m inside her room, I’m instantly gutted.
She’s gone.
I press my palms against my forehead and pace the empty room, trying to figure out how I can take it all back. She read everything. Every single conversation I’ve ever had with Sydney on my laptop. Every single honest feeling I’ve shared, every joke we’ve made, every flaw we’ve listed.
Why was I so damn careless?
Twenty-four years I’ve lived without ever experiencing this type of hatred. It’s the type of hatred that completely overwhelms the conscience. It’s the type of hatred that excuses otherwise inexcusable actions. It’s the type of hatred that can be felt in every facet of the body and in every inch of the soul. I’ve never known it until this moment. I’ve never hated anything or anyone with as much intensity as I hate myself right now.
Chapter Twenty
Sydney
“Are you crying?” Bridgette asks without compassion as she comes through the front door. Warren follows closely behind her, but he pauses the second his eyes meet mine.
I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting motionless on the couch, but it still isn’t long enough for reality to have been absorbed just yet. I’m still hoping this is a dream. Or a nightmare. This isn’t how things were supposed to turn out.
“Sydney?” Warren says hesitantly. He knows something is wrong, because I’m sure my swollen, bloodshot eyes clearly give me away.
I attempt to form an answer, but I fail to come up with one. As much a part of this as I am, I still feel that Ridge and Maggie’s situation isn’t mine to be sharing.
Luckily, Warren doesn’t have to ask me what’s wrong, because I’m spared by Ridge’s presence. He’s barging through the front door, taking both Bridgette’s and Warren’s attention off of me.
He pushes between the two of them and heads straight for his room. He swings open the door, then comes out through the bathroom seconds later. He looks at Warren and signs something. Warren shrugs and signs back, but I can’t follow their conversation at all.
When Ridge responds again, Warren looks directly at me. “What does he mean?” Warren asks me.
I shrug. “I failed to learn sign language between now and the last time we spoke, Warren. How the hell should I know?”
I don’t know where my unwarranted sarcasm is coming from, but I feel Warren should have anticipated that one.
He shakes his head. “Where’s Maggie, Sydney?” Warren points at the counter toward Ridge’s computer. “He says she had his computer, so she had to come by here after she left the hospital.”
I look at Ridge to answer but can’t deny the fact that jealousy is coursing through me at watching his reaction when it comes to Maggie. “I don’t know where she went. All she did was walk in, set your computer down, and grab her things. She’s been gone for half an hour.”
Warren is signing everything I’m saying to Ridge. When he finishes, Ridge runs a frustrated hand through his hair, then takes a step toward me. His eyes are angry and hurt, and he begins signing with forceful movements of his hands. His obvious anger makes me wince, but his disappointment in me fills me with my own share of anger.
“He wants to know how you could just let her leave,” Warren says.
I immediately stand up and look Ridge directly in the eye. “What did you expect me to do, Ridge? Lock her in the damn closet? You can’t be mad at me for this! I’m not the one who failed to delete messages I wouldn’t want someone else to read!”
I don’t wait for Warren to finish signing for Ridge. I walk to my bedroom and slam the door behind me, then drop down onto my bed. Moments later, I hear the door to Ridge’s bedroom slam shut, too. The sounds don’t stop there, though. I hear things crashing against his bedroom walls, one by one, as he takes his frustration out on any inanimate object in his path.
I don’t hear the knock through the sounds coming from Ridge’s bedroom. My door opens, and Warren slips inside. He shuts my bedroom door, then leans his back against it. “What happened?” he asks.
I turn my head to face the other direction. I don’t want to answer him, and I don’t want to look at him, because I know anything I say to him will only cause him to be disappointed in Ridge and me. I don’t want him to be disappointed in Ridge.
“Are you okay?” His voice is closer now. He sits down on the bed beside me and places a comforting hand on my back. The reassuring contact from him causes me to break
down again as I bury my face in my arms. I feel as though I’m drowning, but I have no fight left to even bother coming up for air.
“You said something about messages to Ridge. Did Maggie read something that upset her?”
I turn my head back over and look up at him. “Go ask Ridge, Warren. It’s not my place to tell you Maggie’s business.”
Warren purses his lips in a tight line, nodding slowly while he thinks. “I kind of think it is your place, though. Isn’t it? Does it not have everything to do with you? And I can’t ask Ridge. I’ve never seen him like this before, and frankly, I’m a little terrified of him right now. But I’m worried about Maggie, and I need you to tell me what happened so I can figure out if there’s anything I can do to help.”
I close my eyes, wondering how I can answer Warren’s question with a simplified response. I open my eyes and look at him again. “Don’t be angry with him, Warren. The only thing Ridge has done wrong is fail to delete a few messages.”
Warren tilts his head and narrows his doubtful eyes. “If that’s the only thing Ridge did wrong, then why is Maggie avoiding him? Are you saying that the messages she read weren’t wrong? Whatever has been going on between the two of you isn’t wrong?”
I don’t like the condescending undertone in his voice. I sit up on the bed and scoot back, putting space between the two of us as I respond. “The fact that Ridge has been honest in his conversations with me is not something he did wrong. The fact that he has feelings for me also isn’t wrong, when you know exactly how much he’s fought those feelings. People can’t control matters of the heart, Warren. They can only control their actions, which is exactly what Ridge did. He lost control once for ten seconds, but after that, every single time temptation reared its ugly head, he walked in the other direction. The only thing Ridge has done wrong is fail to delete his messages, because by doing so, he failed to
Maybe Someday Page 24