Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
RYDER
I don’t think I have ever felt such rage. I want to hurt something as badly as I am hurting right now. How could he do this to me? I poured my fucking soul out to him last night. I told him my intentions. He knew I was going to tell Elizabeth today how I felt about her. I understood that finally telling him and Julien about my feelings for her would cause problems—would hurt them, would hurt him —but I never imagined that Jay would do what I saw him do. They were holding hands. He fucking kissed her right in front of me.
Not wanting to go home, I take refuge in Dad’s garage. I find him bent over the engine of a station wagon.
“Since you’re here, mind handing me that work light?”
When I pull it off its hook, it slips from my fingers and crashes to the floor.
“Son?”
My legs give out like dead weights, and I drop to the concrete floor.
“Ry, are you okay?”
I shake my head.
“What happened?”
I shake my head again.
“Hey. Talk to me.”
Dad joins me on the floor, rubbing his large, grease-stained hand up and down my back, helpless on what to do or how to comfort me. He doesn’t know my life just exploded apart. My best friend betrayed me in the most awful way. The girl I love to the depths of my being has been taken from me. Other than last night, I haven’t cried since I was four years old when I fell off my bike for the first time. But the anger, deception, and hurt eviscerating every pore of my body breaks me.
“Dad.”
I turn to grip his shirt. And I cry.
“It’s going to be okay. Whatever it is, you’re going to be okay.”
But it’s not. I’m not.
Sensing someone is watching, I hastily wipe my face dry.
“Thought I might find you here,” Julien says, his tone sober.
Dad gets up and murmurs something to Julien, then leaves us in privacy.
I rub my hands over my face a few times. “Did you know?”
My anger is like tinder, ready to combust with the tiniest of flames.
“I had no clue until several hours ago after he got home.”
“What do you mean after he got home?”
Julien shrinks back, looking guilty. Then it hits me, and that ember of anger flares to life again.
“You’re fucking kidding me. That’s where he ran off to last night? He ran straight to Elizabeth’s? He went to her right after I poured my goddamn heart out to him!” I punch the metal cabinet next to me. “ Motherfucker! ”
“Ry, it’s a difficult situation for everyone.”
Julien, always the peacekeeper.
“Like hell it is. I’m the one who manned up. I’m the one who put it all on the line. I didn’t go behind his back. Your back.” I jab my finger at him. “I put my friendships with you first. What he did…he’s a fucking coward.”
“Hey, I’m not going to justify his actions. I agree with you. What Jay did was wrong. I told him that. But what’s done is done. They’re officially dating, and we have to accept that. If you want to keep her in your life, if you want to keep me in your life, if you want to someday rebuild any type of relationship with Jay, you’re going to have to learn to deal with it.”
“That’s all bullshit, and you know it.”
I walk out of the garage bay, intent on going back to Elizabeth’s house and telling her everything.
“Just take a minute and think before you make things worse.”
I stop and scowl at him, and it’s then that I notice his cut lip.
“I’m on your side. I confronted him last night. We got into a fight. But I also listened to him explain everything to me. Ry, man, he is torn up about it. He knows he fucked up, but he panicked. All he could think about was Liz not being in his life anymore because she would be with you, and he freaked out. You remember how he reacted last night. He was scared out of his mind.”
Dad walks back in with an ice pack and hands it to me.
“Put this on your hand.”
Julien doesn’t wait for Dad to go before saying, “Do you love her enough to let her go? Will you be able to forgive Jay for his weakness for loving her, too?”
Julien cuffs my neck and touches his forehead to mine, then leaves me alone to think about the things he just said.