Chapter 23
My plan is to hole up in my apartment, delete every app, and put my phone in airplane mode for at least a week.
I’ll curl up in bed and cry about what a fucking idiot I am and how I’ve ruined my career.
I’ll scream into my pillow in rage and embarrassment that something so private and personal is circulating in group chats and DMs and, from the limited scrolling I allowed myself on my pitiful walk home, branding me as a slut that sleeps her way to any sort of recognition.
My plan is to ignore everything and everyone, including Rylie, until I can look at my reflection and not want to break the glass.
But Rylie fucking Cooper has a keen knack of disrupting all of my plans, and he only grants me a few hours of solitary confinement before he’s knocking on my door.
“I know you’re home, Eva,” Rylie’s muffled voice calls from the hallway. I gave him a key last week that lets him into the building, and while I appreciate the fact that he didn’t use it to come into my apartment, I’d appreciate him a lot more if he left me alone to my misery.
“Go away,” I croak back, staring at the peephole from a few feet away. I can’t bring myself to look at him. Loneliness curls around me, arms cradling me to its chest as distance stretches between me and him.
“Let me in.”
“Don’t think I will, thanks.”
“Goddammit, Eva. Don’t do this. Don’t push me away.”
An uninvited tear rolls down my cheek. How else will I stay whole unless I push him as far away as possible? How am I supposed to drown in my shame, if not in isolation? Am I expected to let him bear witness to something like that?
But there’s a disconnect between my reasoning and my body, and my wobbly legs drag me to the door.
I stop in front of it, reaching out a shaking hand, fingertips glancing over the wood before my arm falls to my side.
There’s a leaden silence. It stretches and bends for so long, I wonder if he’s walked away.
Part of me hopes he has. Part of me will break if he has.
I lean my forehead against the door, a sharp, quick sob breaking out of me before I can bite it back.
“Please, Eva,” comes Rylie’s fractured beg. “Let me in, sweetheart.”
I shouldn’t. I’m a mess. This is a mess. I’ve never felt so succinctly wrecked. I shouldn’t let him see me like this.
I internally scream as I watch my hand move to the deadbolt. I flick it to the left, the snick of the undone lock echoing around me. I stumble back a few paces. I can’t do more than that. I can’t open that door. I can’t willingly give him a clear view of my inadequacies.
My heartbeat stutters, pulse pounding in every joint. With a definitive turn of the knob, the door swings open. Rylie stands there for a moment, only a step inside, his face lined with stress, eyes heavy with weariness. He’s drained of his usual spark; I’ve sucked all the energy from him.
“You’re dressed like a bruise,” I whisper, eyes flicking up and down his maroon pants and indigo crewneck that says PHILADELPHIA WOMEN’S ROWING SCHUYL KILL S IT .
“Thanks.” A smile ghosts across his face. He shuts the door. “It matches how I feel, I suppose.”
The silence is back, heavy and weighted, pulling me under. “I’m sorry,” I say at last, needing to break up the quiet, a final kick toward the surface before I fully sink under. I stare at the taut lines of his throat, the clench of his jaw, unable to meet his eyes.
“You’re sorry?”
I nod, a bone-deep exhaustion carving through me. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
I let out a surly snort, flicking through my files of self-loathing at a rapid pace.
“I’m sorry for all of it. The original stupid video I posted calling you out.
Showing up at your place when I knew it was a terrible idea.
Talking to Landry and William in the most unprofessional way possible during your friend’s beautiful evening. The leaked video of us… I’m sorry.”
Rylie stays silent, absorbing the reality of the mess I’ve gotten us into.
“I lost my job,” I say, eyes dropping to the floor in embarrassment. “As if all of this couldn’t get worse, there’s that.”
“I wish you would’ve quit first.”
My gaze flashes up to Rylie’s and it’s a mistake. His gunmetal eyes hook me, holding me. There’s so much frustration in his expression. So much disdain.
“Not like I’m a particularly desirable job candidate,” I say, voice monotone but laced with self-deprecation. “All I’m good for is eating hot dogs and acting bitchy.”
“Stop it.” The flare of anger in Rylie’s voice makes me flinch, my face falling into a frown. I take a step back. He follows me.
“You stop it,” I say, old habits dying hard and a decent response not at the ready.
“No, you stop it,” he repeats, taking another step. I square my shoulders, meeting him halfway.
“Everything’s a mess and it’s my fault. Don’t tell me to stop when I’m telling it like it is.”
“You are delusional,” he says, color high on his cheeks, nostrils flaring with the labor of his breathing.
“No, you are,” I snap with the petulance of a child. “This will only look bad for you—some lowlife social media wannabe clinging to you and your success and the goddamn kindness of you.”
I’ll be branded a whore, a fame fucker. The internet has already proven itself relentless and this is candy for the comments section. He’ll see what they say about me, he’ll get tired of defending my name. I can’t ask him to weather this storm when it will undoubtably tear our house to the ground.
Rylie’s lip curls in disbelief. “The last thing I care about right now is how this will look for me.”
“I think we should break up.”
“I know you do.”
The calmness of his voice slices me to ribbons, making me blink repeatedly so tears won’t fall. I scramble to compose my face, a placid mask so he can’t see the hurt. “Cool. Glad you agree. It will all be easier for you to do damage control that way.”
Rylie shakes his head, deep lines etched between his eyebrows and around his mouth. “That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what you meant.”
“No. It’s not.”
I go to fight, but he cuts me off, gripping my shoulders with a grounding pressure.
“I meant exactly what I said, Eva.” His gives me a gentle shake, and it loosens the knot of tears growing behind my eyes.
“I know you think we should break up,” he continues. “I know you think things just got exceptionally messy and the easy thing to do would be to part ways and lick our wounds in private, you adding another layer, another wall, around that heart of yours. Tough shit. I’m saying no.”
I gape at him. “You’re saying no ?”
Rylie shrugs, a flicker of a smile passing over his face.
“Yup. I’m saying no. You might say you think we should break up, but that’s the decision of two people, as far as I’m concerned, and my answer is no.
I’ll give you space. I’ll give you time.
I’ll give you anything you need as long as you actually need it and you aren’t doing it as some self-fulfilling prophecy of disappointment.
But I won’t agree to breaking up. Sorry. ”
I squirm out of his grip, scrambling back until I’m on the other side of the living room, my couch a barrier between us. I glare at him with a mix of astonishment and irritation. “Well, that’s a really fucking annoying thing to say.”
Rylie’s face shifts through various unreadable emotions, then settles on soft amusement. “Well, Eva, I hate to break it to you, but right now your hardheadedness is really fucking annoying. So I guess we’re even. Doesn’t change my decision, though. We aren’t breaking up.”
I splutter, scraping at the bottom of the barrel for something, anything, that will bring this man to his senses.
“Be serious, I’m begging you. The honeymoon phase lasted less than two weeks for us and now we’re already back to arguing.
This was a social experiment that was doomed from the start.
So stop being so obstinate and let it go. ”
“I love you, you little demon.” Rylie storms toward me, eyes lightning bolts. My pulse pounds, panic squeezing a tight fist around my heart and coiling my muscles with the instinct to run. He skirts around the couch. I take a frantic look around the room, but I’ve backed myself into a corner.
“Do you hear me?” he says, stopping only when his toes are touching mine. Both of his hands come up to face, cradling my head in a gentle but firm grip. “I love you.”
“Stop it,” I demand, fingers knotting in the fabric of his sweatshirt. I can’t tell if I want to push him away or pull him closer.
“No.” His voice is a growl. “I love you, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me, so you might as well accept it.”
“I refuse.” Tears slip down my cheeks. I’m horrified to realize my hands have landed on his hips.
Rylie’s laugh is a soft puff against my cheek, electrifying and soothing all at once. “I don’t care.”
He brushes his lips against mine in the gentlest of caresses, and sweetness floods through me. Nonsensical protests tumble from my lips, but he silences them with a firmer kiss, and I open to him, my body trembling as he anchors himself to me, steadying me.
“I love you,” he says again.
“You shouldn’t.”
Rylie pulls back to look at me, and I’m mortified at the way I cling to him. And then I realize that he’s still holding me too, just as tightly, one hand pressed against the curve of my spine, the other stroking away the tears from my cheek.
“You are the sharpest, fiercest person I know. I have never been more off-kilter than when you let me into your life. I can’t even begin to predict what godless thing you’ll say or do next, and I have a very healthy fear of your bad side.
And, fuck, I love you. I want to spend every day listening to you be an absolute shithead to me.
If at the end of my life someone asked me what I’d do with one more hour, one more minute, I would fight with you.
Argue with you. Kiss you and hug you and hold you.
Anything for one more second with you. I’d choose this every single time. Because I know you love me too.”
I suck in a stuttering breath through my sobs, resting my head against his chest. Rylie tucks me to him, swaying us gently.
“I’m scared to love you,” I choke. “I’m scared to feel this much and risk losing you. Risk you realizing I’m not worth it.”
“Eva, my love. I’ve had six years to let you go and decide you’re not worth it.
Give me six hundred more and it still wouldn’t matter.
I’m yours. It’s okay to be afraid. I’ll be brave for us both until you learn to trust it.
Trust me.” He places a kiss to my temple.
“Let me prove it to you.” Another on the tip of my sniffling nose.
“Let me take care of you.” A hot, gentle brush across my lips. “Let me love you.”
I’m wrung out from emotions, every cell depleted. But slowly, like a gentle mist swirling through my veins, a new sensation fills me. It’s luminous and warm and creates a weightless sensation in my chest. It takes me a moment to realize it’s hope.
With a shaky sigh, I seek out Rylie’s lips, kissing him, tasting him, luxuriating in the electric spark created with each new press of my mouth to his.
A soft hum vibrates low in his throat, and he moves us until our bodies are flush, my back to the wall.
With reluctance, I break the kiss, both of us breathing hard.
“While it goes against my nature to give you what you want,” I whisper, “your insistence has worn me down.”
I feel Rylie’s smile against my own, his hands threading through my hair. His rough laugh is equal parts relief and amusement. “I feel like the crewnecks also helped me win you over a bit.”
I laugh, then start to cry again. This time in release, deep waves of comfort rippling through my muscles as I hold him tighter. “You never left me any choice but to fall in love with you, huh?”
Rylie nods, forehead brushing mine, and he catches my mouth in a tender kiss.
“I love you so much,” I murmur against his skin as his lips create a hot trail along my throat and collarbone. “I have no idea how to do this, but I’m going to try with everything I have.”
He retraces his path up, his glasses askew and our noses clashing as we dive in for more. It’s such a luxury to love him like this, slow and unhurried, like we have nothing but time.
His words are a promise against my skin: “And that will always be enough.”