Chapter 19 Ryder?
RYDER?
“We know something bad happened to you.” My mother rested her hand on my shoulder, pretending not to be hurt when I flinched.
We both knew better. I could see it in her eyes, the way she agonized over what had happened — that she hadn’t been able to stop it, even though she didn’t know what it was. “Please, Ryder. Just tell me.”
“I can’t,” I said hoarsely for what felt like the thousandth time since going home.
“Why not?” Some of her frustration spilled over into her voice, and she continued, “I want to help you, but I can’t help you if I don’t know what happened.”
“I’m fine,” I told her. And I was, physically. I wasn’t malnourished, I hadn’t been beaten bloody, and there were no signs upon my body that anything had ever happened to me. Mentally, though, I didn’t know what I was doing.
I’d thought going home would be a relief, but it was turning into a nightmare.
Everyone wanted to know where I’d been, and it hadn’t been until I’d snapped at them that they’d clued in to the fact that whatever it was, it hadn’t been good.
Whatever it was, it hadn’t been because I’d wanted to disappear.
They were on a witch hunt, and they wanted to find out what had happened so they could retaliate against someone or something on my behalf.
What they could never understand was that as deep as the mental scarring went, I wasn’t going to tell them who had done it. I wasn’t going to give them any details that might let them put the pieces together either. I would stay perfectly silent about it until they finally gave up.
If they ever gave up.
It had been two weeks, and the pleas and even threats hadn’t stopped for even a day.
After the initial shock of my return, everyone had been so determined to find out what had happened that they didn’t give me time to even breathe.
It was overwhelming, and I hid in my room as much as they let me — which wasn’t much.
She had arranged for me to see a therapist, but he wasn’t having any luck getting anything out of me either. I didn’t know when they’d understand that I was never, ever going to tell them, but it was starting to seem like they were just as unlikely to give up.
There was no meeting in the middle for either of us. It was all or nothing, and none of us were willing to yield even a centimeter.
“You aren’t fine,” she said, her eyes filling up with tears. “Ryder, you need to talk to us, to someone. You can’t keep going on like this.”
I reminded myself that she was only this insistent because she loved me and wanted to help me, but there was a part of me that resented the incessant questioning. I just wanted to be home living the life I’d been stolen away from.
But that life didn’t exist anymore.
Everything was tainted by the specter of my disappearance, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t get away from it. My family’s incessant questioning, the news vans eager to cover my return, the way people gaped at me in public and speculated about where I’d been…
Most of them had decided that it had been a prank, that I’d run away from home and decided to come back, but my parents knew better.
They’d seen the haunted look in my eyes when I’d first collapsed into their arms, and they’d heard me cry when I was supposed to be sleeping. Over and over, they tried to help.
Over and over, I pushed them away.
And I started to realize there was no going back.
Classes were over, my apartment was gone, I didn’t have my phone and didn’t even care, my girlfriend had moved on, and my friends were more interested in trying to get the dirty details than they were in letting me move on.
Maybe there was no moving on.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I told her even as my mind drifted back to Griffin. I wondered how he was doing. I wondered if he’d locked himself away again.
I wondered if he’d found someone to replace me.
I hadn’t expected the jealousy that surged up within me at the mere thought. I didn’t know what it meant — that, or the fact that I missed him sometimes.
A lot of times.
All the time.
I thought about him when I first woke and when I was falling asleep. I thought about him when I ate, when I talked, when I daydreamed, when people tried to find out the truth. I thought about him, but that was all I could do.
I couldn’t pick up the phone and call him even though I wanted to hear his voice. I hadn’t realized how much cutting him out of my life would hurt. I’d thought I’d be okay once I’d returned home.
I wasn’t.
I wished I hadn’t left.
But there was no going back to that, either. I was stuck in this half-life, neither able to go back to how things had been nor to return to him. I couldn’t rebuild until I could move on, and I couldn’t move on until my life no longer consisted of reminders of my absence.
“Ryder—”
“Just let it go,” I said, voice sharp. “I’m not telling you anything.”
She reeled back as though I’d slapped her, and tears started to roll down her cheeks.
Guilt immediately raced through me, and I sighed. “I can’t tell you anything,” I amended. “I’m sorry. I wish I could.”
“You need to talk about what happened,” she pushed, wiping her tears away. “Ryder, you can’t keep…”
She kept talking, but I wasn’t listening. Over and over, she said my name.
Over and over, I knew I wasn’t the person she thought I was — not anymore.
Hearing the name Ryder was an irritant, something that grated on me more and more each time I heard it. I wanted to shout at them that I wasn’t Ryder, but that would mean acknowledging that the damage had gone much deeper than I wanted to admit.
It would mean acknowledging that I’d become Toby.
There wasn’t any doubt about that, not really. Not anymore. I knew, and I couldn’t escape that fact any more than I could escape the fact that I missed him.
I had to mourn the loss and move on, but I couldn’t get him out of my thoughts.
Was he okay? He’d been so fucking lonely…
Which was why I’d ended up there in the first place. Without me there, what would he do?
“Ryder!”
I jumped, blinking at her. I realized she’d kept talking to me, but I didn’t have any idea what she’d said.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
She reached out to touch my cheek, and all I could think about was when he’d do the same thing. He’d touch my cheek and pull me close, and he’d want so much more than I could give…
Except I’d started to give it to him, hadn’t I?
The bitter truth was that I’d given everything to him, and he’d still sent me away.
He’d sent me away because he’d thought I’d wanted it. Hell, because I’d thought I wanted it. But now…
“I’m so worried about you,” she said, just as she had so many times before.
I was tired of hearing it.
“Can’t we just… go back to how things were?” I pleaded with her, looking into her eyes and knowing her anguish was reflected in my own gaze.
She shook her head. “No,” she said softly. “We all thought you were dead. I can’t…” She swallowed hard. “There’s no coming back from that.”
There was no coming back from what I’d been through either, but she would never, ever know the truth. She’d never understand. She’d insist on trying to find out who’d taken me, and she’d never stop trying to find him — to find him, and to punish him for what he’d done.
Once, I’d have been vindictively happy about that, but now…
Now, I had to protect him at all costs.
What he’d done had been wrong, nightmarish, but…
I understood more than I’d ever thought I could.
It hadn’t been until he’d fallen ill that I’d truly gotten it, that I’d understood how someone could become so utterly twisted.
There was a good heart inside of him regardless of his exterior, and I’d seen it even before he’d let me go.
He had to have expected me to go to the police, to point fingers and name him as my captor. But he’d set me free anyway, despite knowing what the consequences could be.
Maybe that was part of why I hadn’t named him as the reason I’d been gone for so long, but he would punish himself far more than any penal system could.
I’d seen as much in his eyes. My leaving had pushed him one step closer to the edge he’d been living on for so long, and I was scared to think of what he might do now that he was all alone.
It wasn’t as though he had anyone to talk to. He hadn’t had any friends, and I was pretty sure he’d pushed away anyone who hadn’t pushed him away first. And I understood why, really and truly understood, in ways I’d never thought possible. They hadn’t wanted him, and they’d pushed him aside.
“I’m going upstairs,” I told her abruptly, getting up from the couch.
She rose too, reaching for my arm, but I shook her off.
“I just need to be alone for a little while.”
For longer than that. I knew why he’d withdrawn from the world now.
They’d never be able to understand what it was like to be broken and try to rise from the ashes, only to be rebuffed by everyone around them.
They might’ve claimed they were trying, but they just weren’t capable of seeing the truth.
I left her standing there, hand still outstretched, and returned to my room.
I closed the door behind me, even going so far as to lock it, then I returned to my bed.
My bed, at least, had welcomed me back without judgment or accusation, and I’d spent as much time there as I could since I’d returned.
I didn’t want to get up, didn’t want to go out, didn’t want to face the world.
I stared up at the ceiling, pulling the covers up to my chest, and I imagined he was asleep beside me.
I could rest then, with his warmth nearby.
I’d gotten used to having someone close, and the absence was as tangible as his presence had been.
I grabbed a pillow and curled onto my side around it, burying my face against it and pretending I was back there.
Why?
It didn’t even make any sense, even to me.
But there it was anyway, the knowledge that I’d go back if I thought I could.
The problem was…
There was no going back. There never was, and there never would be.
There was only moving forward.