Chapter 44
It’s Sunday, and just like I promised, I’m back at the hospital to visit Ryder.
I saw Faith and Jamie when I arrived earlier, and we talked for a while before they left to give me and Ryder time alone.
Nurse Paula helped me scrub and suit up like before.
Ryder is almost at the end of his ablative chemotherapy and then it’ll be a one-to-two week wait to see if the chemo worked so they can plan and schedule for the allogenic transplant.
Faith told me that Ryder still had been throwing up, but the doctors were able to control it with medicine so he could eat and keep food down.
I’ve been sitting next to his bedside for an hour now, watching him sleep.
My amber-eyed daredevil with a dimpled smile that lights me up with happiness every time I see it.
He looks so boyish and young now in slumber.
The worry lines that have etched his gorgeous face the past couple of months are no longer there in sleep.
He must be dreaming. His eyes are flitting side to side under his lids.
I hope he’s having a good dream. Maybe one where he’s driving his Hellcat.
Maybe I’m in the passenger seat and we’re blasting music as he slides into a drift around a corner, the centrifugal force plastering me to the door.
I would laugh out loud as the adrenaline coursed through my blood, and Ryder would look over at me, the smile on his face a mile wide.
“Hey. I didn’t know you were here,” Ryder’s sleepy, gravelly voice rasps as he rolls over to his side and looks at me.
I brush some errant strands of hair away from his face and he sighs when my fingers comb along his temples. “Nowhere else I’d rather be. How are you doing?”
I retrieve the cup of mostly melted ice water from his bedside table and hold the straw to his mouth. He lifts his head from the pillow with effort and takes a few sips.
“Better now that you’re here.” He snuggles back down under the covers, and I lean over to tuck the sheet in around him like a burrito. “Talk to me. I miss hearing your voice,” he sleepily says. The chemo wipes him out so it wouldn’t surprise me if he soon falls asleep again.
I reach for his hand and hold it in mine, then rest my chin on the siderail. “Where do I begin?”
“Did you have fun last night? Fallon sent me pictures.”
My grin is automatic. The hot air balloon was one of the craziest, most wonderful things I have ever experienced.
I went up once with the guys, and then again with Daniel and Hailey, and a third time with Meredith and Trevor.
Even though we couldn’t fly it anywhere, it was still awesome being up in it and overlooking the Montgomery estate.
“We never did get to celebrate our birthdays together like we planned.” I bend over to the side and pick up the new tablet I set on the table. “Happy belated birthday.”
He sits up and I place the electronic device in his hands before I help bunch a few pillows behind his back to support him.
“It’s a proper gaming tablet already loaded with your favorite games and apps and a few car magazines,” I smile as I tell him.
I had to take it out of its box and then Paula wiped it down with disinfectant wipes before placing in under some UV light contraption that would kill off any remaining germs.
“It’s also great for video chats,” I strongly hint.
Ryder powers it on. “This is really great, Elizabeth. Thank you.” He looks at it for a long minute. “I, uh, got you something too. But I don’t want to give it to you yet. Is that okay?”
Even though I’m curious, I don’t ask him why. There are more important questions I have.
“Did the guys tell you that Daniel transferred me and Hailey to Highland?”
Ryder’s face is aghast. “What the hell for?”
I nibble my bottom lip. “No one has told you what happened at school?” Surely his dad told him about my car since I had it towed to Randy’s garage.
Ryder is not happy. He throws his arms out to indicate the room we’re in. “I’ve kind of been stuck in a bubble the past two weeks. What happened at school?”
I stand up to slowly pace the room, stopping briefly at the window.
A cold drizzle has started to fall. Whenever I see foggy mist I think of London, England for some strange reason.
In fifth grade, I was one of the leads in our school’s musical production about the Revolutionary War.
There was this song I had to sing about how rainy and dreary England was and how happy I was to be a new colonist in America where it was sunny all the time.
Having visited London with Fallon, I know that stereotype isn’t true, but I still think it whenever it rains.
“Elizabeth,” Ryder pointedly says since I haven’t answered him yet.
I spin around and it makes my long hair whip across my shoulders.
I rub my chin because the face mask is making my cheeks sweat, of all things.
I’m also a tad irritated with him. Has Ryder not asked at all about me since he’s been here?
I know he still refuses to ask about the baby.
And it hurts. I’m twelve weeks now, the end of my first trimester.
Jayson, Fallon, and Julien have been with me every step of the way.
They come to all my appointments and make sure I’m eating and taking my vitamins.
They treat this baby like it’s their own child.
I should have told Ryder about the pregnancy sooner, but the way he has pushed me away is cruel.
I know he must feel betrayed that the baby might be Jayson’s.
I know he’s scared about the cancer. But damn it, Fate gave us a second chance at our what-if.
And now it’s over before it even had a chance to begin, and I’m angry.
“Marshall told me that he came to see you.”
Ryder’s confusion and ire rise. “When did you talk to Marshall? What the heck is going on? I feel like I’m stuck in a Twilight Zone episode.”
“A lot has happened in two weeks,” I reply. And you weren’t there for me to talk to you about any of it. You shut me out and I miss you. I miss the guy who I could tell all my secrets to. I miss my best friend.
“Clearly,” he says in frustration and something inside of me snaps.
“Why aren’t you fighting for me?”
His mouth drops open from my out-of-the-blue statement.
It’s almost the same question I asked him the night after Fallon’s party when I found Jayson with Jacinda, and Ryder climbed through my bedroom window in the middle of the night to tell me what really happened.
We talked for a long time, and I remember asking him point-blank why he never tried to fight for me after Jayson kissed me.
He just stepped aside and gave up. He gave me up, just like he broke up with me and gave up for a second time a few weeks ago.
I need him to fight. For me. For us. For himself.
For the child that is more than likely his.
“I want to fight for you,” I continue since Ryder has gone mute. “But you make it so hard.”
“Elizabeth, I don’t know what you want me to say.”
My heart absolutely shatters. The fact that he says that and not the words I so desperately want to hear, tells me everything. It makes me sad. It makes me realize that sometimes love isn’t enough. That no matter how much you want to hold on, sometimes you just have to let go.
Mentally and emotionally exhausted, I sit back down in the chair next to his bed and grab the paperback of Where the Red Fern Grows. I had dogeared where I left off at chapter ten.
Ryder’s cold hand touches mine. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
So much has happened. Jayson. Fallon. Jacinda. Marshall. Beth. Maria. The pranks and bullying. My car. Going to Highland High. Decisions about college. Moving back to my old home. Seeing the baby’s heart beating for the first time.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sigh. I’m tired. I feel defeated. “I will. But first, I’m going to read to you, so you can rest. I just want to spend time with you right now. The ugly stuff can wait because, honestly, it’s not important.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about how things used to be between me and the guys. How simple and pure they were when we were kids. The friendships we shared. I was their princess, and they were my princes. Aren’t fairytales supposed to end in happily-ever-afters?
I open the book and begin.