20 #2
His voice broke again. He swallowed hard, and when he spoke next, the coldness returned with a precision that made his nickname feel inevitable.
“I was terrified, Charm. I stood there anyway.”
I reached for him because I couldn’t bear the distance between us. My fingers closed around his forearm.
“Ryan, please stop.”
He ripped his arm from my grasp so violently that I stumbled backward.
“Get your fucking hands off me!”
The shout filled the apartment and struck the walls hard enough to come back at us.
I froze.
Ryan’s chest heaved beneath his open collar. His eyes were bloodshot, and his face twisted around something too devastated to be simple anger. I had heard him furious, watched him fight, and seen him become dangerous for the people he loved.
I had never heard him sound destroyed.
The shock on my face seemed to reach him. His hands curled into fists at his sides before he deliberately opened them again. When he spoke, his voice had dropped into that terrible calm.
“Key.”
I stared at him. “What?”
He held out his palm. “My key.”
My entire body went cold. “No.”
“Give me the key, Charm.”
“Please don’t do this.”
“Key.”
“I’ll leave. I’ll give you space and let you calm down, but don’t take that from me.”
His jaw flexed. “You don’t get to keep access to my home after showing me I don’t have a place in yours.”
“That isn’t what happened.”
“It’s exactly what happened.”
“Ryan, please.” I dug through my purse with fingers that had stopped working correctly.
My keys snagged against the lining as I dragged them out.
The little silver key he had placed into my palm swung beneath the ring.
“Can we talk tomorrow? I’ll come to Flint.
I’ll tell you everything, and I’ll fix this. I swear I’ll fix it.”
“Give me the fucking key, Charm.”
The words came out flat.
I tried to pull the key from the ring, but my hands shook too badly to separate the metal. Ryan watched me struggle for several seconds before taking the entire ring from my fingers.
He didn’t touch my hand.
Ryan worked the key free with one sharp movement and dropped the rest into my palm. His apartment key remained between his thumb and forefinger.
Something so small shouldn’t have been able to hold an entire life.
“Get out.”
I shook my head. “I love you.”
“I don’t want it.”
“That’s a lie.”
His stare turned lethal. “You don’t get to call me a liar tonight.”
I pressed my keys against my chest as the sobs came harder. “Please don’t end us like this.”
“You ended us in that study with your eyes on the fucking floor.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You did.” Ryan walked to the door and pulled it open. Cold air rushed into the apartment, stirring the papers on the small table beside it. “I’m just the one willing to say it out loud.”
I couldn’t make my feet move. “Ryan—”
He looked directly into my eyes, and when he spoke again, the English disappeared.
“Vete. Ya terminé contigo. Sal de mi vida, de mi corazón y de mi puta alma. Me mataste. Ahora déjame descansar sin tu recuerdo.”
I understood only some of what he said, but what I knew was enough to shatter me.
Get out. I’m done with you.
My knees weakened, but Ryan didn’t reach for me. The instinct to catch me moved through his body. I saw it in the sudden tension across his shoulders and the twitch of his empty hand, but he forced himself to remain still.
That hurt more than if he had never moved at all.
I stepped into the hallway.
Ryan shut the door behind me, and the deadbolt turned before I reached the stairs.
I didn’t remember getting into my car. One moment, I stood outside his apartment with my keys cutting into my palm. The next, I was behind the wheel, sobbing so hard that every breath scraped my throat raw.
My phone kept chiming inside my purse. The first notification was followed by another, then several arrived close enough together for the sounds to overlap.
I ignored them.
I backed out of the parking space and drove toward the ABC apartment because there was nowhere else left to go.
Tears distorted the road, turning headlights and traffic signals into long smears of white and red.
I wiped at my face with one hand, only for more tears to replace them before I could see clearly.
Ryan was gone in every way that mattered.
He wasn’t angry for the night or waiting for tomorrow so we could say everything more gently. The key was gone from my ring. His door was locked, and his voice repeated inside my head in a language I couldn’t fully translate but understood down to my bones.
Ya terminé contigo.
By the time I reached the apartment, my entire body was shaking.
Easton’s truck sat beside Aura’s car. I parked crooked across the faded line and left my purse behind when I climbed out. The stairs tilted beneath my feet as I forced myself upward, gripping the railing with both hands.
The apartment door opened before I reached it.
Aura stood on the other side wearing leggings and one of Easton’s old KFU shirts. Her braids were pulled into a loose knot, and sadness softened every sharp line of her face.
Easton stood behind her with his arms folded across his chest. His expression wasn’t sad. His jaw was set, and his eyes were hard enough that I immediately knew who had been sending the notifications.
Ryan had told them.
Whatever he said had been enough to make Easton look at me like he didn’t know me anymore.
“Charm,” Aura whispered.
I walked past her without answering. My purse wasn’t on my shoulder, and I turned in confusion before remembering I had left it in the car. Then I realized my phone was still clenched in my hand.
The screen lit when I lifted it. The group chat held a string of messages, but Ryan’s appeared first.
Ryan: Leaving this chat. Leaving Kimball. Headed to Flint. Charm and I had a thing for a minute. It’s dead. I’m out.
A second message sat beneath it.
Ryan: Signed, El Cuchillo.
The notification below it announced that Ryan had left the conversation.
My hand dropped.
Easton continued staring at me. His anger filled the room without him saying a word, and I knew it was directed at me. He knew Ryan and understood what it had cost him to walk into my parents’ house. He knew exactly what El Cuchillo meant when Ryan used the name himself.
“I tried,” I whispered.
Easton’s nostrils flared. For one horrible second, I thought he might tell me trying afterward didn’t count.
Maybe it didn’t.
He released a hard breath and dragged one hand over the back of his head. His anger remained, but something in his expression gave when he looked at my face.
“Oh, fucking shit, Charm.”
My body folded before he reached me.
Easton caught me beneath the arms and pulled me against his chest. The first sob tore out of me so violently that my knees gave, but he held me upright while Aura moved behind me. She wrapped both arms around my waist and pressed her cheek between my shoulder blades.
Easton’s hand settled against the back of my head. He was still angry. I felt it in the rigid line of his body and the way his teeth remained clenched above my hair, but his arms tightened around me anyway.
“Bliss and Cade are on their way,” he said, his voice rougher than usual. “Just breathe. We’ll talk once they get here.”
I tried.
Ryan’s key was gone. His name had disappeared from the group chat, and somewhere between Kimball Falls and Flint, the man I loved was carrying every piece of himself I had broken.
Aura held me tighter from behind while Easton kept me from falling.
For the first time in my life, there were no words capable of making what I had done look prettier. The empty place on my key ring held the brutal truth Ryan had finally forced me to face.
When he asked me to choose him, I had let him stand alone.