Chapter 17
Ryan
When Scarlett and I met, she was a spitfire. On our first two dates—which were a month apart because she wasn’t sure she wanted to see me again—we spent half the time trying to one-up each other with literary knowledge and the other half making out like teenagers. Over the course of the two years of the rest of our relationship, I think I saw her cry twice, and neither of those times were the waterworks that explode from her when she crumples onto the floor in a literal puddle of bath water and tears in the hallway outside her bathroom.
By the time I walked out of that bathroom, I knew I had crossed a line. The flush of my overheated skin and the hardness between my legs were clear signals, and even though I knew leaving right then and there was probably the best thing for everyone involved, I sat down on the couch to wait for her, as if touching her hair and imagining her curves below those bubbles had caused my body to act on its own.
But the look on Scarlett’s face when she flew out of the bathroom, her threadbare robe clinging to those curves that had only existed in my memory, was thankfully enough to spur me into action.
“Oh, shit.” I jump to my feet as her ass hits the ground. “Scarlett, what happened?”
Huge, aching sobs are wrenched from her throat. That’s the only way to describe the sound—it’s as if she’s having an out-of-body experience, the entirety of her pain and emotion being sucked out of her with each cry.
I drop to the ground next to her and pull her close. She doesn’t even resist; she just folds herself into me and presses her cheek to my chest. The warm water from her hair blooms over my sweater, soaking through to my skin. I wrap my arms around her and hold on tight as waves of sobs crash out of her.
I don’t know how long we sit like this. All I know is that when I exited the bathroom, the sun was just starting to set, and by the time her sobs have calmed to more manageable sniffles and the occasional gasp, it’s almost completely dark outside.
She shifts so the crown of her head rests just under my chin. I kiss it without even thinking. Even in her sadness, touching her like this is automatic. As easy as breathing. And now that I’ve done it again, maybe it’s as necessary, too.
“What happened?” I risk asking quietly.
She sniffles and wipes her nose with the sleeve of her robe. I make a mental note to wash that later for her, too.
“I don’t know.” Her voice is hoarse. “I don’t usually… That’s not…” She lets out another gasping sob.
I squeeze her even tighter. “Hey. It’s okay. I’m here.”
She nods against my chest and wraps her arms around my torso. I rest my cheek against the still-wet crown of her head.
“The last time this happened,” she starts haltingly, “was the day after I quit writing.”
I hum, and she snuggles closer to me as if trying to chase the sound of it in my chest. “You had a good run, I guess.”
She huffs a wet laugh, wipes her nose again, and goes back to squeezing my middle.
“It makes sense, though,” I say. “You had a lot going on then. You’re going through a lot of change now, again. Sometimes you have to let it all out.”
Scarlett had held me like this once, on the anniversary of my father’s death. He died when I was in high school, but there have been so many times in my life when I have wished I could ask him one more thing. One more piece of advice. Whether or not I’m on the right track. If I’m good man. If I could be a good husband, a good father one day…
She had found me drowning my worries in a bottle of whiskey. I hate whiskey, but he loved it. I thought maybe one drink would make me feel closer to him, but the situation quickly devolved. Scarlett let herself into my condo after I hadn’t answered her calls, silently cleaned up my picked-over meal and the glass I had forgotten after I started drinking directly from the bottle. She pressed two ibuprofen into one palm and a glass of water into the other. When the glass clinked against my father’s ring, I lost it again. When the wave of sadness passed, she urged me to take the medicine and finish the water, then she wrapped me up in herself and a blanket and held me until morning.
“Sometimes you have to let it all out,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with missing your dad.”
I hadn’t even told her what was wrong. That’s how well she knew me—how in sync we were.
A tear leaks out of the corner of my eye as the full weight of the loss of her hits me again, as it has so many times over the years. It mingles with the wetness on her hair.
“You sound like my therapist,” she grumbles, tearing me away from the memory.
“I sound like you.”
Her body stiffens ever so slightly under me. “Ryan—”
“I’m sorry,” I say quickly, then shake my head as I backtrack. “No. I’m not, actually. I won’t pretend that I haven’t missed you, Scarlett. I can keep this professional, but I won’t lie. I loved you, and I won’t wish that time of my life away. Not for anything.”
She’s quiet for a moment, which is about as long as it takes me to replay everything that happened in the last ten minutes and decide that the best course of action is to curl up in a hole and never come back out.
“This is…keeping it professional?”
I can’t see her face, but I can hear the smile in her voice. The relief that washes over me is intense. This is the Scarlett I know: teasing, irreverent, sarcastic. I can work with this.
“I go above and beyond for my writers, Scarlett. I am often their editor, confidant, and meal-delivery service.”
“Do you bathe them, too?”
Chuckling deeply, I plant another kiss on her head, hoping it’s an innocent enough gesture. “That one’s special for you.”
She pushes off of me and scoots about an inch away. Immediately, my body leans toward her until my brain rudely reminds it who we are now and what we’re doing here. As she rolls her shoulders, her robe slips down to expose the smooth expanse of her skin, and I have to ball my hands into fists at my sides as a reminder that her skin is not mine to touch anymore.
“Well, I wouldn’t want to keep you from taking meals to your other writers.” The way she ends the sentence, it seems like she’s going to continue, but she doesn’t.
“I can stay,” I whisper, afraid that if I speak any louder, it’ll startle her into remembering she didn’t want me around to begin with.
Her blue eyes are rimmed with red, and her nose looks like she could guide Santa’s sleigh through the darkness, but her expression is something akin to hope.
“It’s okay.” She clears her throat. “I wouldn’t want your other writers thinking you’re giving me preferential treatment.”
“My other writers haven’t been around as long as you. It’s a seniority thing.”
Snorting, she turns her eyes to the ceiling and presses her left thumb into the palm of her right hand, making soothing circles as she thinks.
“Look,” I say before she can talk herself out of it. “You need rest, and I want to help. I’ll stay until you fall asleep. I have some work to do anyway.”
A crisp nod is my only response, but I’ll take it. The cold tile floor bites into my palms as I press against it to stand up. I reach out to help her up, but she stands by herself. I try to remind myself that’s a good sign rather than feel the sting of her choosing not to allow me to touch her again. She retreats into the bathroom, and I hear the water running from the sink faucet. I busy myself with digging my laptop and some papers out of my bag, so when she emerges from the bathroom and closes herself in her bedroom, I’m not looking at her.
After a few minutes, I’m left wondering if I should set myself up on her couch or her table. As I’m weighing my options, her bedroom door opens. She’s not standing there like I expect her to be, but it seems as clear an invitation as any. I gather up my things and peek inside the door. She’s snuggled under the comforter, her face turned away from me and her brown hair falling in waves over her pillow. Her body is tucked all the way to the right side of the bed, and there’s a space on the left. Every other light in the room is off except for the one on the left-hand nightstand.
She left a space for me.
Swallowing thickly, I walk around the bed and sit on top of the blankets, stretching my legs out and crossing them at the ankle. Scarlett’s face is visible to me now, her eyes closed and her expression slowly relaxing. She must have been exhausted to slip into sleep this fast.
I tell myself I’ll work for an hour until she’s more deeply asleep, and then I’ll leave. That was what I told her, and though I could stare at her all night, I don’t want to freak her out. So I wiggle a bit to get more comfortable and drag my laptop to my lap.
It isn’t long before I become focused on my work. The book I’m working on isn’t the most interesting, but it’s fine. Working on Scarlett’s manuscript while I’m sitting next to her would feel too much like times long gone, so this one will have to do.
My fingers quietly glide over the keyboard, and I let the sound of the keys lull me into a rhythm. I always did my best work sitting next to Scarlett. It would seem that hasn’t changed in all these years, either.
As I’m puzzling over a passage that isn’t quite right, I feel something on my thigh. When I look down, Scarlett’s hand has found me in her sleep. My heart cracks wide open, and my breath catches in my lungs.
A glance at the time tells me it’s long past the hour I told myself I’d stay. But now her hand has found me, as if she needs me to stay as much as I want to be here.
I’ll leave when her hand moves , I tell myself.
It’s not long before I drift off to sleep, too.