Chapter 30
Hailey, Daniel, and I spend hours talking.
It’s mostly Hailey asking questions and us answering as best we can.
I coax her into helping me make dinner, wanting things to be as normal as possible, even if they really aren’t.
After we eat, Hailey says she’s tired and excuses herself to the bedroom that Daniel prepared for her
I make a quick call to Ryder, anxious to hear how things went with Faith and Randy.
“Hey, babe. Everything good?”
“I don’t know,” I answer him honestly. “How did things go with the parentals?”
I hear the sound of a door closing and assume he’s in his bedroom. “Eh. It could have gone better. How is Hailey? I haven’t told Brea yet that she’s back.”
I roll over onto my back and look up at the ceiling, forgetting that I took down all the paper stars that Jayson gave me. “Hailey is a mess. It’s like she’s my sister, but not. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah, it does.”
“She acts like she doesn’t know me anymore. Being in the same room together is awkward as hell. I think she hates me.” And boy, does that hurt. Hailey and I used to be so close.
“She doesn’t hate you,” he softly says. “Give her time.”
“She had me tell her everything,” I say, a sheen of tears glazing my eyes. “That part of our conversation was brutal. I’ve heard the reference “ugly cry” before, and I’m pretty sure Hailey and I more than met the criteria. We set Daniel off. It was pitiful, and bizarrely cathartic.”
“Jesus, baby. I wish I was there to hold you.”
“Me too,” I whisper into my phone. “Ryder?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you to the moon and back.”
His chuckle helps warm the coldness that had seeped into my bones. “Not as much as I love you.” Faith’s voice shouts in the background. “Hey, babe, can I call you later?”
“Sure.” I send him a few kisses and we hang up.
Rolling my head to the side, I stare at my closet door and an idea comes to me.
Getting up, I pull the door open and rummage through the cardboard containers stacked one on top of another at the back of the closet.
Pulling out the banker’s box that holds the photos and notebooks from my old bedroom, I search through its contents until I find the item I’m looking for.
Crossing the hallway with the notebook in hand, I rap six times on Hailey’s door.
Hailey and I used to have our own distinctive knocks.
We’d use them like secret passcodes so we would know it was one of us and not Mom or Dad
Hailey quietly calls out, “It’s unlocked.”
I click her door open and find her sitting on her bed, cross-legged and still wearing the same clothes she was in earlier.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” She doesn’t smile.
“I found this the night my memories came back.” I place the notebook filled with her poetry on the bed next to her. “I thought you might want to have it.”
Hailey used to write such beautiful poetry. She also wrote heart-breaking poetry like the poem she left for me in my locker the day she ran away.
Hailey’s eyes lock onto the binder, but she doesn’t make a move to touch it. Please open up to me. Please let me help you, Hales.
“Do you need anything before I go to bed?” I ask her.
“No.”
One word. An empty, hollow word—a good metaphor for the sister before me.
“Alright. I’ll see you in the morning then. I love you, Hailey,” I tell her, slowly closing the door behind me.
Needing to clean today off my skin, I take a long, hot shower, and then linger a little while longer to think.
The cascade of water helps soothe me as my mind wraps around the realization that Hailey is here.
She came home. That, in itself, is significantly huge.
Whatever happened to her these past nine months, she chose to come back home.
She chose her family over him. Thank God.
Now I just need to figure out a way to get her to choose herself, too.
I slip the robe off its hook on the back of the bathroom door and put it on, then do a quick blow dry of my hair. When I walk into my bedroom, I emit a high squeak of surprise when I encounter Ryder sitting at the end of my bed, grinning at me.
“How? You said you would call…Oh, never mind,” I gleefully ramble as he stands up and I jump into his arms, wrapping my legs around his waist, and crushing my lips to his. He turns us around and lays me down on top of the bed covers, scooting us both up so he can settle on top of me.
“You’re not grounded?” I ask him.
“Not exactly,” he gets out between kissing me stupid and laving the column of my neck with his tongue.
I don’t care that it’s only been hours since I last saw him. I missed him like crazy. “You spending the night?”
He kisses the skin under my ear knowing the effect it has on me. “If that’s okay.”
“More than okay,” I sigh as a swarm of goose bumps cascades down my skin when he slides his hand inside my robe. I tug at his shirt, wanting it off so I can touch him. “Go lock the door.”
He kisses me hard and lifts himself off the bed. “Yes, ma’am.”
Sometime during the night, I wake up to find Ryder covered in sweat.
His arms are wrapped around me and my back is to his front.
Right before we went to sleep, I put on a tank top and boy shorts, which I’ll need to change now because the top is soaked through.
The wet feeling must have been what had woken me up.
I roll over to face Ryder and place a hand on his forehead to check for a fever.
Thankfully, he’s cool to the touch. Maybe he’s coming down with something.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he was after all the travelling and lack of sleep he has endured over the past couple of days.
That could definitely knock your immune system out of whack.
As carefully as I can, I disentangle myself from his arms and remove my damp sleepwear, tugging on a dry T-shirt and a pair of Ryder’s old basketball shorts I stole and refuse to give back.
The sheet on the bed has to be wet too, so I take a new one out of the linen drawer in my dresser and drape it over Ryder’s body.
He’s out cold and doesn’t move a muscle.
I check my phone to see what time it is.
Four-thirty in the morning. Might as well get dressed and go running with Julien, even though Ryder and I will be skipping school today.
I’m glad he’s staying here with me; he needs the sleep and I just need him.
Navigating my darkened bedroom, I find my cold-weather workout clothes and cross trainers.
Tucking the clothes and shoes under my arm, I grab my phone, then slip out of the room as quietly as I can.
I peek over at Hailey’s room. The door is closed, and it’s quiet. I hope she was able to get some sleep.
Tiptoeing down the hallway, I go into the guest bathroom to change. Fallon had my car brought back to me from his house last night. It hadn’t even occurred to me that it was still parked in his front drive.
Silent like a ninja, I shove two trail bars in my pocket, snatch my black key fob off its hook near the front door, and exit the house.
It’s been almost three weeks since I’ve spoken to either Julien or Jayson, so part of me is a little trepidatious about showing up unexpectedly at their house.
I guess what I’m about to do is what Fallon would call ‘womaning up’ with a side of sneaky ambush.