24. Ryder
Ryder
The joy on her face quickly vanishes, and her expression morphs to blank. I know what she’s doing. She’s always done this when she feels out of place—she’s disconnecting.
“You can’t,” she mutters as she climbs off my lap and moves back to the other side of the truck. She’s still watching me, more like staring at me, and I don’t know what to say.
Shifting in my seat, I adjust myself to attempt to cover up just how turned on I am.
Not that I necessarily mind being this way in front of her, but if we’re going to start this conversation, I don’t need it tenting my pants as a distraction.
Internally, I shake my head, thinking about how many times over the years I’ve had to do this around her.
Alice is gorgeous, and she doesn’t even have to do anything to light up every part of me.
Her smile, her smell, her body that makes my mouth go dry.
She is the complete package and an instant turn-on for my dick.
“I’m sorry. Did I misunderstand what was happening here?” she asks. Her words are shaky, and the tension in her body is screaming confused.
“No, it’s just . . .” I don’t even know how to explain it to her. I run my hand over my face. It’s one breath where I can hide from her and even from myself.
The thing is, I was all in.
I would have thrown her over my shoulder, carried her inside, and made all our lifelong fantasies come true.
But when she pushed on my shoulders, it was triggering with her in front of me that I instantly was transported to another time when she did the same thing.
Reality crashed into me, effectively smothering the flame that we’d lit.
“Oh my God. I feel so stupid.”
She turns to leave. Her ponytail, which is now loose, whips over her shoulder as she grabs the handle, and my hand darts out to her arm.
“Wait. Please don’t go.”
I do recognize that the reason I’ve been terrible to her all these months is that I’m afraid of what will happen to me if I lose her again.
I had years of loving her, and it took me years to stop.
At least stop in a way where I didn’t feel emotionally debilitated.
But now, we’ve reconnected. This, us being intimate with each other—if there’s no future, then no matter how badly I crave her, I don’t want this.
I don’t want to know what it’s like and then lose her all over again.
“Ryder, I don’t know why you want me to stay. Right now, I feel humiliated.” She scrunches up her face and squeezes her eyes shut. “Is that why you did this? Are you trying to humiliate me?”
Of course she would think this. I haven’t been the nicest guy to her, and I’ve made it known that I never would be.
Taking her hand, I place it over my crotch, and she gasps. Her eyes fly open. They’re full and glassy. “Does this feel like something I did to humiliate you?”
She snatches her hand away.
“Why did I ever think this was going to go differently? I should have known,” she chokes over her words. “Over and over you’ve shown me your true colors. The first time shame on you, but this time, definitely shame on me.”
I run my hand through my hair and pull. “Alice, it’s not like that.”
“It’s not, because from where I’m sitting, I’m dragged back to four years ago when you did the same thing.”
I’m shaking my head. “What do you mean by what I did?”
She glares at me as if I’m being obtuse.
“Alice, four years ago, I was fully, completely, and irrevocably in love with you. I loved you so much it hurt, and not in the good way. The way that I felt a piece of me was being burned and cleaved off every single day that I didn’t tell you.
You and football, that was all I ever wanted.
And then you told me no. No, in front of the whole world.
You did this. Not me. You friend-zoned me, and at that moment, I felt something so crushing and devastating, I didn’t know what to do. ”
“I didn’t friend zone you.” Her expression is one of complete and utter devastation.
“I did nothing wrong that day. You know, the day you left me. You. Left. Me.” The words coming from her mouth are drenched in pain, I feel like I’m somehow having whiplash.
She didn’t feel the pain as I did. All of this was because of her.
“You said no,” I repeat.
Her jaw drops. “That’s it. That’s your reason? You didn’t even give me an opportunity to explain why.”
“What was there to explain?”
“How about everything?” She throws her hands out.
The tears are now rolling down her face, and my heart constricts hard in my chest. It borders on me gasping for air.
I hate seeing her cry, and the result has my eyes welling as well.
Or maybe it’s that we’re finally talking about this, and it’s breaking my heart all over again.
This is such a terrible memory for both of us.
“Well, if I didn’t make myself clear enough, at that moment, I didn’t want to hear it.”
A wounded sound escapes her, and she turns her head to look out the window. I don’t know what she’s looking at, but her back is rising up and down in a way that tells me she doesn’t have just tears. She’s crying. Heavily.
Seeing her react this way, it’s fucking devastating.
My tears silently fall too.
“Oh, you made yourself abundantly clear that after seven years, you thought so little of me you couldn’t even give me the time to have a conversation with me. You didn’t love me, Ryder. That’s not how love treats people.”
“You know that’s not true.”
Her head jerks back to look at me. Pieces of her dark hair have fallen from her ponytail and are now stuck to the wet streaks on her face.
“But isn’t it? Because that’s exactly what you did.
The very thing your father did to you that you swore was the most atrocious act someone could do, you did to me.
You walked out on me. You have no idea how badly you hurt me. You will never truly understand.”
My jaw drops.
Did I think my leaving her would hurt? Yes.
After all, we were best friends. But it couldn’t have been what it was for me.
Heartbroken doesn’t even encapsulate what I felt, but never once did I connect the dots.
Like father, like son. I was so concerned with history not repeating itself to me that I inadvertently did it to someone else. Someone I claimed to love.
And then my brain rewinds and sticks to her question. Why didn’t I ask her?
“Why did you say no? I mean, clearly we had something more than friendship.” I wave my hand between us. “Didn’t you want me too? Or is this a new development for you?”
“Of course I did. Ryder, I hung on you all the time hoping you would catch on. I hugged you, and I was constantly touching you. I all but threw myself at you. But time kept passing, and you never showed any interest. Everyone said we wouldn’t last. Everyone said once you left for college, our friendship would fade.
Out of sight, out of mind. You’d move on and meet new people.
Meet college girls. I just wanted to have a conversation with you.
A two-minute conversation to make sure we were on the same page about what that kiss would have meant.
I didn’t want to risk you breaking my heart without you knowing how I truly felt beforehand.
Because that kiss would have meant everything to me. ”
Is she saying she did to me then what I just did to her now? Can’t be.
“You didn’t want to risk your heart breaking, instead you chose to break mine. That’s what this boils down to. You listened to ‘people’ and not me. Why was I less important than them? What did I ever do or say not to make you believe in me, have faith in me?”
“Don’t you try to gaslight me. I could turn those questions right back on you.
But, Ryder, you didn’t say anything. Ever.
There was nothing to listen to from you.
Out of the blue, you tried to kiss me, and then you literally abandoned me.
I tried to call you, text you. I went by your house.
Nothing. I didn’t know what I did wrong.
I have never been able to understand how you, of all people, could hurt me like you did.
I could never do to someone what you did to me.
Ever. You may as well have died because that’s what it felt like, and as it turned out, all those ‘people’ you claim I shouldn’t have listened to, they were right.
Out of sight, out of mind. Instantly forgotten. ”
I don’t know how I thought this conversation was going to go.
Many nights I lay in bed and tried to create different scenarios where what happened that day would come up, and in none of them was the heartache and destruction my fault.
This isn’t how I saw things playing out.
So I stick with what I know, and I have to stand by what happened to me.
“You said no.”
“Yeah, because I loved you too. I”—she points at her chest—“was fully, completely, and irrevocably in love with you. I needed to hear you say you loved me too. I needed to know that you kissing me wasn’t just a celebratory whim of the moment, but because it truly meant something to you, like it did to me. That’s all.”
“That’s all.” I shake my head. “I did love you, Alice. That’s what all this boils down to.
I loved you in a way that was soul-deep.
It was debilitating. Everything that I did was about and for you.
My thoughts, my actions, my dreams, all you, and at that moment, when you pushed me away and said no, a moment which, by the way, I’ve watched thousands of times on my phone, I did the only thing I could do. Leave.”
“You weren’t a first love. You were a lasting love. The only love I ever wanted or ever needed.”
These are similar words that I said to Sully, and they hit hard.
“And now?”
She scoffs and runs her hands over her face to wipe off the tears.
“Now? What kind of question is that? Now, I don’t know.
Temporary insanity, I guess. You broke my heart, Ryder.
You were cruel and dismissive. The way you treat people, the way you treated me, I wouldn’t wish that upon my worst enemy.
You were right to stop us just now. I don’t know what I was thinking. A leopard doesn’t change its spots.”
I stopped us for the same reason she stopped me.
Truth hits hard.
“I did what I had to do.”
“You keep saying that, but what about me? In your mind, when you drove out of town, what was I supposed to do? Did you ever try to think about things from my perspective? You so easily moved on with your life. That’s not what happened for me.
Not that you would know. Not that you cared.
You say you loved me, but again, that’s not love.
That was the exact opposite. I did nothing wrong, and you tossed me away like I was trash.
” Her voice cracks. “And let’s not forget when I did see you next, you treated me that way too.
In front of my teammates and thousands of people. ”
More tears drip from both our eyes.
I did do that. I did treat her badly.
“I was still hurt. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” she mocks with sarcasm.
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m still hurt too. While this has been enlightening and all, it really changes nothing. Thanks for the ride home.”