Chapter 21
It’s after two in the morning when I arrive at Elizabeth’s house.
I get out of my car and instead of going up to the front door, I walk around the side to peer up at Elizabeth’s window.
Since Jay’s parents and Julien are at the hospital with him now, their house is silent and dark.
I hope the other neighbors are asleep and don’t look out their windows.
I have no doubt that I probably look like a freaky creeper that’s up to no good standing under a tree and looking up at a window in the middle of the night.
There’s a faint light coming from Elizabeth’s window, so I take a chance that she’s still up, even though she hasn’t responded to any of my texts.
I take a lingering examination of the tree that sits between the two houses.
There’s no way I’m going to climb this tree without falling and breaking my neck.
Jayson and Julien do it, so can you. Even Elizabeth climbs up and down the thing.
I take a few steps back and leap off the ground to grab one of the low-hanging branches and pull myself up.
This isn’t as hard as I thought it would be, as long as I don’t look down.
I take my time climbing and when I reach Elizabeth’s window, I pluck an acorn from a branch and chuck it at the glass.
I do it a second time. I remind myself, once again, not to look down.
Elizabeth’s curtains pull back and I see her shocked face looking at me as she unlatches, then pulls up her window.
“Ryder, what are you doing?”
“Hey, Elizabeth. Do you mind waiting to yell at me until I get inside? I hate to admit that I’m a little terrified up here.
” My stupid eyes decide at that moment to look down and I go green, stomach rolling like I’m about to puke.
Yeah, not the best idea I had coming up here.
Elizabeth must see the color drain from my face.
“Ryder, aren’t you afraid of heights?”
“Yep,” I croak. One might find it ridiculous that someone like me, a guy who races cars and bikes—bikes he does backflips and tricks with—would be afraid of heights. But I am.
“Oh, crap. Oh, okay. Here, take my hand and inch forward just a bit.”
She guides me on what to do and I breathe a sigh of relief when my feet touch her bedroom floor. My body slides down to a sitting position. Elizabeth sits cross-legged in front of me, rubbing my legs and arms vigorously.
“I don’t have hypothermia.”
“Just shut up. I can’t believe you did that.”
“You do it all the time.”
“I also don’t have acrophobia.”
I have no comeback for that.
Her hands slow their rubbing when she notices my busted knuckles.
Without saying a word, she gets up and goes into her bathroom.
I can hear Hailey’s voice faintly before a door closes and then sounds of rummaging around.
Elizabeth comes back out with a first aid kit and sits back down, grabbing my right hand.
“Here. Let me take a look at that.” Her fingers ever so gently feather across where scabs have formed over my middle three knuckles.
She takes out a square packet from the kit and tears it open.
“This may sting a little.” Elizabeth takes her time wiping away the old blood and applies some ointment.
She repeats it all again on my other hand.
“Do I get a lollipop for being a good patient?”
Her light green eyes trail up to my golden ones. She lifts my curled hands to press a soft kiss on each one, then blows.
“I’m out of lollipops. Will that do?”
No, I want to say. I want her to kiss me and not my bruised fingers. I lean back against the wall at her window, needing the extra space between us, before I do something stupid to make this awful night go from bad to worse.
“Elizabeth, I came here to see how you were doing and to tell you about Jay. You didn’t answer any of my texts or calls.”
“I turned it off. And we’re not talking about him right now.”
“Elizabeth, you don’t understand.”
“I said, we are not talking about him right now!” she snaps at me and then immediately backs down, exhaling loudly. “Sorry. I’m not mad at you. I shouldn’t be yelling at you. You did nothing wrong.”
“I understand. But I really need to tell you—” she slaps her hand over my mouth to shut me up.
“I said no, Ryder. I just can’t right now. Please drop it. For me.” Since her hand is over my mouth, I nod yes.
Elizabeth removes her hand and gets up to pace back and forth in front of me. “What if I made a mistake, Ryder? It’s something I think about all the time. It’s something I thought about tonight. God, this is all so crazy. So insane. My thoughts are all jumbled and I’m angry. I’m confused.”
“Elizabeth, you’re not making any sense. And I really do need to talk with you.”
She stops pacing. “What if it was you that came through my window that night?” she says at the same time I say, “I really do need to talk to you.
“What?” we say at the same time again.
She’s the first to continue. “That’s what I think about sometimes. I think about you. What if it was you that night? There’s always a part of me that wonders what if.”
My brain is malfunctioning at her words and what they mean.
I need to stop this. I need to tell her about Jayson, how he was drugged and is in the hospital, how he needs her there with him.
But I just can’t because my mouth won’t cooperate with what my brain is telling it to do. So I sit back and listen.
“There’s a part of me that knows that no matter what, no matter how much I love him, I will always love you, too,” she confesses, and I'm totally speechless.
“He ripped my heart out tonight, Ryder. He destroyed me. I gave him everything. I chose him over you and look at what he does. It hurts so much, so, so, much,” she cries, huge, silent tears tracing down her face.
“Part of me wishes that I never said yes to him that night. That I said yes to you instead. You would never hurt me like that, would you, Ryder?”
Elizabeth’s liquid, verdant eyes bore into me, begging me to ease her pain, make it go away. Give her promises that I know I won’t be able to give and still live with myself without a heavy burden of guilt weighing me down.
I decide to, once again, be the better person.
I lift myself up and go to her, taking her in my arms. “Elizabeth, I know you’re upset and angry and confused.
I know you’re feeling hurt and want that hurt to go away.
I wish I could be the one to give that to you.
I wish things were not what they are between us.
But they are. I told you I’m not going anywhere.
Perhaps, one day, we’ll get our chance. I hope and wish for that with everything in me.
But today—” I kiss her temple. “Today, you need to be with Jayson.”
“I’m so sorry,” she cries into my chest, shoulders shaking, her hands gripping the front of my shirt, wet with her tears. “You must hate me for saying these things to you. I’m screwed up, and I’m selfish.”
“Not selfish, Elizabeth,” I tell her. “Just wishing for something right now that’s not possible.
And after you truly understand what happened, you would hate yourself if we allowed things to happen between us tonight.
” I lift her chin, cradling her face, needing that small contact before I say the words that will once again send her to be with him.
“Jayson is in the hospital. He needs you, Elizabeth. I came here to bring you to him.”
Her voice cracks with grief. “What? How? Why?”
“I think we need to sit down for this.”
I pull her to sit on the side of her bed.
We don’t let go of each other yet. Elizabeth and I will forever be tied together, just like she is with Jayson and Julien.
I meant what I said, believing the words my dad told me the day my world fell apart, and I lost her to Jayson.
She needs to experience life and love, the good parts and the bad.
And I will continue to dream of the day that she will be free and mine to love; hope that all of this, the things we feel and do and say right now, will be worth it in the end.
“He didn’t do it, Elizabeth. He told you the truth.”
Her eyes go wide, then she frowns. “How do you know for sure? We saw the same thing. I know what I saw!”
“He was drugged, Elizabeth. He didn’t know what he was doing.”
“Drugged?” she almost shouts before lowering her voice. “What do you mean, Ryder? How do you know?”
I fill her in on everything. How he was acting, the dizziness, vomiting, memory loss.
As I explain it all to her, she goes from worried to furious to murderous.
“The bloodwork confirmed it. He had GHB in his system. I looked it up and everything he did—the over-the-top way he went after Marshall, the dizziness, vomiting, not remembering stuff, even winding upstairs with Jacinda with no memory of how he got there—it was because of the drug.”
Elizabeth grabs her tablet and looks GHB up on the Center for Disease Control website to confirm what I’m telling her. “How can we be sure that he didn’t take it willingly?”
“I talked to Maria on my way over here. He was never out of her sight, even when she went to grab the bottles of water. She saw Jacinda and Samantha give him the red cups. That’s the only thing he drank before they came outside to find us.”
Elizabeth growls when I say Jacinda’s name.
“It’s not his fault, Elizabeth.”
I hold her face between my hands and force her to look at me. “You also didn’t see him after. He’s torn up and kicking himself knowing that he hurt you. He’s blaming himself, wanting you to forgive him. He needs you, Elizabeth. Will you let me take you to see him in the morning?”
She bites her lip and nods slowly.
“I’ll pick you up at seven. If everything's good overnight, they’ll discharge him in the morning.” I stand up and wipe my hands on my jeans. “Is it alright with you if I exit through your front door and not the tree?”
Her hand on my arm stops me from leaving. “Will you stay with me? Or just hold me until I fall asleep?”
“My beautiful, Elizabeth. I would do anything for you.”
She looks so lost at that moment, like a butterfly whose wings have been damaged.
She reaches out and takes my larger hand in her smaller, more delicate one, and leads me back to her bed.
I remove my shoes and climb on top of her comforter, leaning back against her headboard with my legs outstretched.
She joins me and snuggles into my side and closes her eyes. I can smell her jasmine body lotion.
“Would you rather,” she begins in a soft cadence as her voice turns husky with sleep. “Would you rather be rich and feel somewhat content, or poor and be extremely happy?”
“That’s easy,” I say. “I’d rather be poor and happy.”
“Me too,” she replies, eyes fluttering down in exhaustion. She’s had a very long, hard night. “You make me happy, Ryder.”
“You make me happy, too,” I murmur, but she’s already asleep.