Chapter Ninety-Five
SUNNY
My heart rate finally calms down to a reasonable, functional rate and my breathing has slowed from hyperventilating, but my panic is still very much alive.
The sun starts to slowly set, making the night air cool down rapidly. A shiver goes across my body as I make my way back to my apartment.
How do I even initiate a conversation after leaving him in the dead of night? After the argument we had?
The thoughts reignite the anxiety, my battered heart pumping the panic through my veins, singeing what little calm I’d managed to gather.
I stop in my walk, realizing he’ll be at his parents' dinner. Maybe I should wait at his place for him? I turn around, taking a few steps in that direction but quickly realize I need my phone to access the house anyways since I left it there and the key he’d given me I’d left on his kitchen island in my departure.
When I reach my apartment, I glance around, unable to shake the feeling of being watched. No one is around, so I walk up the stairs on shaky legs and open the door to my empty apartment.
My phone still sits on my mattress, lighting up in the dark with Tyler’s name on it as it flashes across the screen.
I only make it a few steps before I stop, seeing the light from my phone screen illuminate a figure standing in the corner of my apartment. The glint of my gun brings my eyes where he holds it in his hand.
I stumble back when a familiar sadistic smile spreads across those lips I’d memorized. Unhinged brown eyes meet mine from the few feet that separate us.
Instinct takes over, and I turn to the door but am immediately stopped when the safety of the gun clicks off.
I was so fucking close.
I feel a scream build in my throat, desperately clawing its way out but nothing comes out as I make eye contact with the ghost of my past standing before me.
His round brown eyes go wild with shock, as if he wasn’t expecting to see me, just as much as I wasn’t expecting to see him here.
The same man that I left six months ago stands here tonight. I realize the switch never turned off because the person I once saw in his eyes is long gone now.
If there's anything I know is that you don’t have to be anyone important to destroy another person’s life. Because he has destroyed mine. Over and over again.
Ryan’s voice echoes through my apartment, wrapping around my neck the way his hands did the night I left him, as he raises the gun at me.
“I finally fucking found you.”
To be continued….