Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Cole
I’ve been waking up early for so long, it’s just become ingrained in me. Even days when I wouldn’t need to get up before the sun crests the horizon, I find myself awake anyway. It usually frustrates me, but today I’m grateful.
I was holed up in my bedroom for hours yesterday. As soon as my food was done, I snuck away before Riley was out of the shower.
I want to drink a cup of coffee in peace before a particular house guest is awake, and I have to face her once again. Or… maybe I’ll hide out in my room again.
That sounds more appealing than putting up with her presence all day.
I snag my journal and pen from my nightstand before peeking out into the hallway. The house is silent. The three bedrooms on the opposite end of the hall are all closed. I breathe a sigh of relief, making my way to the kitchen.
I quickly make a cup of coffee with a splash of half-and-half before sitting on one of the barstools. Flipping through my journal, I find the next blank page.
The tip of the pen looms over the paper, but for once, I don’t even know where to start.
I started journaling after Riley left. I was a mess, and I let myself wallow in that messiness for far too long. Then, one day, I decided it was time to move on and dig myself out of the hole I was buried in.
I started seeing an online therapist and journaling. Turns out, being heartbroken wasn’t the only issue I was dealing with.
I still see my therapist once a month, and I journal almost daily. Usually, the words spill out of me as soon as the pen hits paper, but today I’m sitting here frozen.
It was the same thing yesterday. Believe me, I tried. The words just didn’t come—or it’s more so that there are too many words that I can’t make heads or tails of any of them. It’s just a jumbled mess.
I take a deep breath, trying to focus on each of the emotions I’m feeling.
Anger. Seeing her again has brought up a level of anger I thought I had processed a long time ago. Apparently, I haven’t fully let it go.
Frustration. I wish there were some other way I could have handled everything yesterday, but to keep both of us safe, there was no other option. And despite the complicated emotions I have concerning Riley Graham, I would never want anything to happen to her.
Hurt. Anger might be what I show, but hurt is what sits at the core of it all. I’m hurt that our relationship meant so little that she ruined everything without even discussing it with me.
It hurts to see her pick up the relationship she had with my brothers like she saw them a week ago and not almost a decade, yet she stares at me like I’m the worst thing to ever exist in her world.
I still can’t wrap my head around her reasoning for leaving. I’ve replayed those last few days repeatedly in my mind so many times that they feel like a movie I’ve memorized frame by frame. I’ve tried, but I can’t think of anything I did that would have made her this mad.
So, this leaves me still unsure of what the hell happened. I know I could ask her now that she’s here in my house because she never responded to any of the messages or phone calls I made in the days, weeks, and months following her abrupt departure from my life.
At this point, do I want to know the answer? Yes. On some level, I need to know. It’s the only way I’ll truly be able to move on.
I blink a few times, surprised to find the two pages in front of me are now covered in my blocky script. I needed not to think about writing, and the words appeared.
Quiet footsteps upstairs make me freeze. Fuck. I didn’t mean to be down here this long.
The tension in the air shifts. I know without even looking; my brothers aren’t the ones stepping off the bottom step and onto the hardwood floor. I take a deep breath, glancing over my shoulder.
Her hair is piled on top of her head in a mess of wild waves. Her hair was always a mess when she let it dry naturally without using any hair products. I always thought that was when she looked the most beautiful.
Stop. Fuck no. I can’t think about her like that anymore. She isn’t mine, and I don’t want her to be. I might be hurt by what she did, but I’m not longing for her to be back in my life.
At least… I don’t think I do. No… I don’t.
She’s covered head to toe in Theo’s clothes. A wave of jealousy crashes into me. There is zero reason for me to feel this way, but I obviously don’t have any control over my feelings this morning or really any time Riley is around.
She looks sleepy and gorgeous… and fuck. She walks past me like I’m not even here and goes about making herself a cup of coffee like she’s done it a million times before.
I guess we haven’t really changed anything major in the kitchen because she knows exactly where everything is. Rearranging it might piss her off.
Asshole really isn’t my default setting, but Riley has an uncanny ability to bring that part of me to center stage.
She finally turns to face me from the opposite side of the island.
“Did you sleep well?” I ask. Really? Small talk?
She stares at me like I’m as big an idiot as I feel like for asking the question.
She sighs, seemingly arriving at some unknown conclusion. “I slept fine.”
That makes one of us. I slept like shit, knowing she was in the same house as me yet again.
We stare at each other. The chasm between us is blatantly apparent. There are so many questions, unsaid words, and words that shouldn’t have been said floating between us.
There’s nothing I could say to build a bridge between us, but I don’t even want to.
Liar.
This space exists because of what she did. And I don’t even fucking know why. It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask, but just before the words fall from my lips, I clench my jaw closed.
Grabbing my now-cold coffee in one hand and my journal and pen in the other, I walk away. I guess I’ll be spending a lot of quality time in my room today.