Chapter Sixty-Two
SUNNY
I settle myself into the couch, placing a hot bowl of ramen between my crossed legs. Considering the night, I hadn’t really eaten much. I just wanted to make my appearance at Martha’s and leave soon after.
A pounding knock on my door has me jolting.
My brows crease, and my heart thumps a little harder against my chest. It’s midnight, and anything at my door at this hour can’t mean something good. I untangle myself from my blanket, and stand on trembling legs as I set my ramen down.
The knock happens again, and I swipe my phone to make sure I didn’t miss any messages.
When the knock happens again, I cautiously make my way to where my gun sits in my nightstand.
Before I can make it to the door, the knock occurs again, louder and more aggressive.
A familiar voice pierces through the barricade of wood. “Open the door, Sunny.”
Tyler is at my door.
Through the peephole, I see him standing there hollow eyed in my hallway, despite the wild threat that sits behind those emeralds. Both hands brace the door frame, his head tilting downward causing his hair to hang over his forehead. If defeat had a physical manifestation, it is this, right here.
I blink, easing from my toes, trying to decide which would be the best move. Open the door or not? The way his chest moves up and down, with ragged breaths, tells me he might kick it in if I don’t answer.
“Answer the door, Sunny.”
With a deep breath, I open the door. Immediately those kryptonite eyes are on me. “Can I help you, Tyler?”
“We need to talk.” He pushes past me.
There’s nothing to talk about. We have so many conversations without anything being resolved. I’m leaving in a few months, he will stay here, and marry Shelby shortly after. It’s as simple as that. I feel that tug in my chest laugh because it isn’t as simple as that.
We are not simple.
“Tyler, we can’t do this.” I point at the door for him to leave.
“Then when will we?” he places a hand above my head on the door, shutting it closed.
“Okay, calm down, because you’re going to disturb the entire apartment building.” I grab his arm, dragging him in my apartment.
He starts pacing in the small space of my studio. And I see it, the words trying to formulate, a plan being written in his beautifully, unhinged mind.
“You need to leave.”
He stops and looks at me blankly as he tosses his coat over a chair, indicating his refusal for my request. I groan, rubbing my hands over my face in frustration.
“You are ridiculous.”
“We have to address this thing between us.”
“Tyler…” I grumble.
“Don’t even start with me,” he cuts me off, raising a hand.
“You and I both know that there is this thing between us. And that thing, whatever this is, I don’t think it’s going to go away, Sunny.
” His voice catches at the end, proof that while he is trying to remain neutral, this is slowly destroying him.
I lick my trembling lips and break our eye contact.
“Little fire,” he says gently. “You and I both know that no matter how hard we try to avoid it or try to cut it off it won’t fucking go away.
It hasn’t now. It never will. I understand that you’re confused about these feelings and that it’s not something you wanted but it’s here.
It’s here, no matter how much you want to fight it off. ”
To my dismay, tears sting my eyes because yeah, he is right. The day I’d broken my tether to Ryan was the day my heart strings were finally able to tie to Tyler's.
I felt it that day, as I sat in the airport, despite my internal desperate cry, something echoed along that thread between us whispering come home with a gentle tug to coax my broken heart.
“Something pulled me into the coffee shop that day. You pulled me there.” He places a scarred hand over his broad chest. “I…I felt it here. Somehow.”
“Me too,” It’s barely a whisper.
“Nothing that has happened has been a coincidence. Not with meeting Sam or having Macey as your patient, or running into me in the coffee shop with Cole and Anthony. Because with me, comes them.”
I convinced myself to believe far bigger lies than trying to talk myself out of the reality of this situation, that seems too magical to exist in our world.
What I feel for him is something that you read about in fiction. And yet, here it is, the most real thing I’ve felt in my life.
“There’s a reason it never worked out with anyone else,” he says.
“It’s why when things happened with Ryan and you fled here…
Sunny, you were coming to me. I knew in that coffee shop that we weren’t done.
If Boston wasn’t going to bring us back together then I would’ve.
And when I saw you that night with Sam, I wasn’t surprised at all.
I knew we had unfinished business. That was the night that I knew, I knew I was going to fall in love with you.
I didn’t even know your name, but I knew, I knew I’d fucking love you.
We weren’t done then, and we aren’t done now. ”
“You’re marrying Shelby, Tyler.”
“No I’m not.” He takes a step closer to me. I rip my gaze to his. “I called it off.” Another cautious step towards me.
“How?”
He swallows hard. “Let’s just say I found a way. I found my way out, Sunny. Just like we promised.”
“Why?”
“It’s you Sunny. It’ll always be you.”
He found a way out. And I don’t even fucking care what way that was. All I care is that he did.
“I thought after you broke it off with us that you’d be better off anyways. But then, I…I felt you. I felt you through that indescribable thing between us. And while you were telling me one thing, I’d heard your screams on the other end, racing down that thread. Don’t marry her.”
My eyes widen hearing the exact words that played in my head being spoken off his tongue.
“Sunny, I didn’t see anything before you. I couldn’t see anything in my future before I met you. I didn’t see anything.”
Little Fire. The nickname rings in my head. Because somehow, the sad girl became the light in his life. What once was a dark future all of a sudden had an illumination of possibilities.
“You don’t have to say it, Sunny. You don’t have to say the words because I’ve already felt it.
I’ve already felt it as your tongue wrote across mine.
The way your fingers trace it over the scars that made me believe it couldn’t exist. The way the moment I met you, something told me that I’ll love you, and you’ll love me, too.
And that’s all there is to it. I love you, Sunny. I love you.”
Breathless, I finally look up at him. In the glow of the string lights that cast an orange hue in my apartment, he looks softer here. The words I’d suppressed far too long spill off my tongue in a desperate attempt for him to understand. No matter how it’s said, though, I know he will.
“Something died inside of me the day I left Ryan. I was a stupid, hopeless romantic girl who clung to the first boy who loved her in hopes that maybe, just maybe he could love me the way I loved him,” I finally say.
He watches me intently, keeping the silence to make space for my words. Something Ryan had never done for me.
“I was a girl who’d do anything to save what we had. Desperate to make all my firsts my lasts. He knew that. And maybe that’s why he did what he did to me.”
He ruined me, so nobody else would want me.
“Contemplation had turned to plan. If I wasn’t alive, he’d have no reason to go after my family. But something told me to…to just hold on. It was a small whisper over my cries, but I listened. And then I got a call from the recruiter.”
He rubs a hand over his mouth. “Yeah,” he whispers.
“And it was you. All of you.” I realize. That voice was a combination of all of theirs as a beacon through my brokenness telling me to just wait. To hold on. Wait for us.
In a time where my own life didn’t seem worth it, somehow the whispers of my future pulled through the devastation of my end.
“My eyes, they saw you Tyler. But my soul, it just, it feels you,” I admit.
He takes another step closer. “Sunny, he may have been your firsts, but I promise you, I will gladly be all your lasts.”
He gave me a feeling I didn’t think I could ever experience, especially after Ryan. Accepting every shattered part of me, and I accept every shattered part of him, working those broken pieces together to create a brand-new whole. And how will we ever be the same again?
I love you, Tyler. You made me fall in love with you.
“Say something.” He takes another step.
I slowly move my eyes from where his feet are, up his body and to that treacherously beautiful face. Thinking about all the things that have led up to this moment. Everything he risked, just to have a chance with me, even if it’s only for right now.
I realize that, despite what happened with Ryan, if it hadn’t happened, maybe I would’ve never left. Maybe I would’ve always felt that little tug in my chest, never truly knowing who was on the other end, and experiencing a life lacking Tyler.
What an empty life that would be.
Love is too weak of a word for what is threaded between us. It is the echo of each beat of my heart. It is the air that fills my lungs. It is the man who was somehow able to whisper to me from across the other end of the country, willing me to hold on when I was ready to end it all.
I’m not sure of anything but two things at this moment.
I am in love with him, and I want every part of him.
Now.
I touch the scar on my neck, the brand of his abuse forever embedded on my skin. My daily reminder. He was my best friend, and that was the worst part.
But how long will I punish myself for someone else's actions?
I flick my eyes to Tyler. “I am broken, Tyler. I am broken. But you showed me despite being broken, I’m still capable of being loved. And I’m capable of giving love. I’m in love with you, Tyler. I love you,” I finally admit.
Something wild flicks behind his eyes, and no longer are the cautious slow steps, but determined ones as he stalks towards me. Using both hands, he grabs my face and slams his lips into mine.
The momentum has us taking a few stumbling steps back, but he doesn’t falter. There it is, him writing the words across my tongue, his declaration forever embedded into me.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
He pulls back from me and presses his forehead against mine, meeting my eyes. “I love you, Sunny. I love you so much. All my love belongs to you. It always has. It always will.”
It’s me who presses my lips to his now, soaking in the words and storing them away to play over and over.
Keeping his mouth on mine, he grabs my thighs, pulling me onto him. He walks through my apartment and swipes everything off the small table I’m sure isn’t capable of withstanding my weight. He lays me on it, gripping my thighs and pulling me towards the edge.
Exploring hands move up my legs, his eyes looking down at me hungrily and admirably.
Without warning, he grabs my face, “I want you, Sunny. I want every part of you.”
“Then take it.”