Chapter Ten
Sydney
It’s been two weeks since Ridge and I have
worked on lyrics together. A few days after Mag-
gie went home, Ridge ended up leaving for six
days because of a family emergency. He was
vague about what the emergency was, but it re-
minded me of when I still lived with Tori and he
was absent from his balcony for several days. A
family emergency was his excuse then, too.
Based on conversations I’ve heard Warren
have on the phone with Brennan, I know it didn’t
have anything to do with Brennan. But he’s never
mentioned having family other than Brennan.
When Ridge returned a few days ago, I asked
him if everything was okay and he said things
were fine. He didn’t seem to want to share any
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details, and I’m trying to remind myself that his
personal life is none of my concern.
I’ve immersed myself in school, and every
now and then, I’ll attempt to write lyrics on my
own, but it isn’t the same when I don’t have the
music to go along with it. Ridge has been home
for a few days now, but he’s spent most of his
time in his room catching up on work, and I can’t
help but wonder if he’s kept his distance for other
reasons.
I’ve been hanging out with Warren a lot and
have learned more about his relationship with
Bridgette. I haven’t had any more interactions
with her, so as far as I know, she still assumes
I’m deaf.
Based on what Warren has told me, their rela-
tionship is anything but typical. Warren never
met Bridgette before she moved in six months
ago, but she’s a longtime friend of Brennan’s.
Warren says that he and Bridgette don’t get along
at all, and during the day, they live separate lives.
But at night, it’s a completely different story. He
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has tried to go into more detail than I care to
hear, so I force him to shut up when he begins to
overshare.
I’m really wishing he would shut up right now,
because he’s in the midst of one of his overshar-
ing moments. I have to leave for class in half an
hour, and I’m trying to finish reading a last-
minute chapter, but he’s intent on telling me all
about last night and how he wouldn’t let her take
her Hooters uniform off because he likes to role-
play, and oh, my God, why does he think I care
to hear this?
Luckily, Bridgette walks out of her room, and
it’s more than likely the first time I’ve ever been
happy to see her.
“Good morning, Bridgette,” Warren says, his
eyes following her across the living room. “Sleep
well?”
“Screw you, Warren,” she says in return.
I’m beginning to understand that this is their
typical morning greeting. She walks into the kit-
chen and glances at me, then at Warren seated
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next to me on the couch. She narrows her eyes at
him and turns toward the refrigerator. Ridge is at
the dining-room table, concentrating on his
laptop.
“I don’t like how she’s up your ass all the
time,” Bridgette says with her back to me.
Warren looks at me and laughs. Apparently,
Bridgette still assumes I can’t hear her, but I’m
not finding much humor in the fact that she’s
talking shit about me.
She spins around and eyes Warren. “You think
that’s funny?” she says to him. “The girl obvi-
ously has it bad for you, and you can’t even re-
spect me enough to distance yourself from her
until I’m out of the house?” She turns her back to
us again. “First she gives Ridge some sob story
so he’ll let her move in, and now she’s taking ad-
vantage of the fact that you know sign language
so she can flirt with you.”
“Bridgette, stop.” Warren isn’t laughing any-
more, because he can see how white my knuckles
are, clasped around my book. I think he’s afraid
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Bridgette’s about to get hit upside the head with a
hardback. He’s right to be afraid.
“You stop, Warren,” she says, turning back
around to face him. “Either stop crawling into
bed with me at night or stop shacking up on the
couch with her during the day.”
I drop my book onto my lap with a loud slap,
then kick my feet up and down against the floor
out of frustration, anger, and flat-out annoyance.
I can’t put up with this girl for another second.
“Bridgette, please!” I yell. “Shut up! Shut up,
shut up, shut up! Christ! I don’t know why you think I’m deaf, and I’m definitely not a whore, and I’m not using sign language to flirt with
Warren. I don’t even know sign language. And from now on, please stop yelling when you speak
to me!”
Bridgette cocks her pretty little head, and her
mouth hangs open in shock. She silently stares at
me for several seconds. No one in the room
makes a move. She turns her attention to Warren,
and the anger in her eyes is replaced with hurt.
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She immediately looks away once the hurt takes
over, and she heads straight back to her room.
I glance over to see Ridge staring at me, more
than likely wondering what the hell just
happened. I lean my head back against the couch
and sigh.
I was hoping that would feel good, but it didn’t
feel good at all.
“Well,” Warren says, “there goes my chance to
act out all the role-playing scenes I’ve been ima-
gining. Thanks a lot, Sydney.”
“Screw you, Warren,” I say, understanding a
little bit where Bridgette’s attitude comes from.
I slide my book off my lap and stand up, then
walk to Bridgette’s door. I knock, but she doesn’t
open it. I knock again, turn the knob, and push
the door slightly open to peek inside.
“Bridgette?”
A pillow meets the back of the door with a
thud. “Get the hell out of my room!”
I ignore her and open the door a little further
until I can see her. She’s sitting on her bed, with
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her knees pulled up to her chest. When she sees
me coming into her room, she quickly wipes her
eyes, then turns the other way.
She’s crying, and now I really feel shitty. I
walk to her bed and sit on the edge of it, as far
out of her reach as possible. I may feel bad, but
I’m still scared to death of her.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
She rolls her eyes and falls back onto the bed
in a huff. “You are not,” she says. “I don’t blame
you. I deserved it.”
I tilt my head. Did she really just admit that
she deserved it? “I’m not gonna lie, Bridgette.
You are kind of a bitch.”
She laughs softly, then folds her arm over her
eyes. “God, I know. I just get so annoyed with
people, but I can’t help it. It’s not like it’s my
goal in life to be a bitch.”
I lie back on the bed with her. “So don’t be
one, then. It takes way more effort to be a bitch
than it does to not be one.”
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She shakes her head. “You can say that be-
cause you’re not a bitch.”
I sigh. She may not think I’m a bitch, but I
sure have been feeling like one lately. “For what
it’s worth, I’m more evil than you might think. I
may not express my feelings in quite the same
fashion as you, but I definitely have evil
thoughts. And lately, evil intentions. I’m begin-
ning to think I’m not as nice as I always thought I
was.”
Bridgette doesn’t respond to my admission for
a few quiet moments. She finally sighs heavily
and sits up on the bed. “Can I ask you
something? Now that I know you can actually an-
swer me?”
I sit up, too, and nod.
“Are you and Warren . . .” She pauses. “You
guys seem to get along really well, and I was
curious if . . .”
I smile, because I know where she’s going
with this, and I interrupt her string of thought.
“Warren and I are friends, and we could never be
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more than friends. He’s sort of oddly infatuated
with this bitchy Hooters waitress he knows.”
Bridgette smiles, but then she quickly stops
smiling and looks straight at me. “How long has
Warren known that I thought you were deaf?”
I think back on the past few weeks. “Since the
morning after I moved in?” I wince, knowing
Warren’s about to experience the side of Brid-
gette we all know too well. “But please go easy
on him, Bridgette. As strangely as you two show
it, he really does like you. He might even love
you, but he was drunk when he said that, so I
don’t know for sure.”
If it’s possible to hear a heart stop, I just heard
hers come to a screeching halt. “He said that?”
I nod. “A couple of weeks ago. We were leav-
ing the club, and he was wasted, but he said
something about how he’s pretty sure he might
love you. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this,
though.”
She drops her eyes to the floor and is quiet for
several seconds, then looks back up at me. “You
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know, most things people say when they’re drunk
are more accurate and honest than the things they
say when they’re sober.”
I nod, unsure if that’s a true fact or just a Brid-
gette fact. She stands up and walks swiftly to the
door, then swings it open.
Oh, no.
She’s about to kill Warren, and it’s partly my
fault. I stand up and rush to the door, prepared to
catch the blame for telling her what Warren said.
However, once I reach the living room, she’s
swinging her leg over his, sliding onto his lap.
Warren’s eyes are wide, and he’s looking at her
in fear, which tells me this isn’t one of her usual
moves.
Bridgette takes Warren’s face in her hands,
and he hesitantly brings his hands to her lower
back. She sighs, staring him hard in the eyes. “I
can’t believe I’m falling in love with such a stu-
pid, stupid a*shole,” she says to him.
He stares at her for several seconds while her
comment registers, and then his hands fly up to
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the back of her head and he crashes their lips to-
gether. He scoots forward and stands with Brid-
gette wrapped around him. Then, without break-
ing for air, he takes her directly to his bedroom,
where the door shuts behind them.
I’m smiling, because Bridgette is more than
likely the only girl in existence who could pull
off calling someone an a*shole and in the same
breath confess her love. And oddly enough, War-
ren is probably one of the few guys who would
find that appealing.
They’re perfect for each other.
Ridge: How in the hell did you pull that
one off? I was waiting for her to come out
here and strangle him. You spend two
minutes with her, and she’s all over him.
Me: She’s actually not as bad as she
seems.
Ridge: Really?
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Me: Well, maybe she is. But I guess I ad-
mire that about her. She’s true to herself.
Ridge smiles, sets his phone down, and drops
his eyes back to his laptop. There’s something
different about him now. I can’t pinpoint exactly
what it is, but I can see it in his eyes. He looks
distraught. Or sad. Or maybe just tired?
He actually looks like a little bit of all three,
and it makes me hurt for him. When I first met
him, he seemed to have everything together. Now
that I’ve gotten to know him better, I’m begin-
ning to think that’s not the case. The guy stand-
ing in front of me right now looks as if his life is
a mess, and I haven’t even begun to scratch the
surface.
Ridge: I’m still a little behind on work, but
I should be caught up by tonight. If you
feel like running through a new song, you
know where to find me.
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Me: Sounds good. I have an afternoon
study group, but I’ll be back by seven.
He smiles halfheartedly and heads to his room.
I know I’m beginning to understand most of his
expressions. The one he just shot me was defin-
itely a look of nervousness.
Ridge
I assumed she didn’t feel like writing tonight
when she didn’t show, and I told myself I was
okay with that.
However, it’s a few minutes past eight, and my
light just flickered. I can’t ignore the rush of ad-
renaline pumping through me. I tell myself my
body is having the reaction it’s having because
I’m passionate about writing music, but if that
were the case, why don’t I get this excited when I
write alone? Or with Brennan?
I close my eyes and gently lay my guitar next
to me while inhaling a steady breath. It’s been
weeks since we’ve done this. Since the night she
let me hear her sing and it completely changed
the dynamic of our working relationship.
That’s not her fault, though. I’m not even sure
if it’s my fault. It’s nature’s fault, because
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attraction is an ugly beast, and I’ll be damned if I
don’t conquer it.
I can do this.
I open the door to my bedroom and step aside
while she comes in with her notebook and her
laptop. She walks confidently toward the bed and
drops down onto it, then opens her laptop. I sit
back down and open mine.
Sydney: I couldn’t pay attention in class
today, because all I wanted to do was
write lyrics. I wouldn’t let myself write
any, though, because it comes so much
better when you play. I’ve missed this. I
didn’t think I would like it at first, and it
made me nervous, but I love writing lyr-
ics. Love, love, love it. Let’s go, I’m ready.
She’s smiling at me and giddily patting her
palms against the mattress.
I smile back as I lean against the headboard
and begin playing the opening to a new song I’ve
been working on. I haven’t finished it yet, but
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I’m hoping that with her help, we’ll make some
headway tonight.
I play the song several times, and she watches
me some of the time, then writes some of the
time. She uses her hands to tell me to pause or
back up or move on to the next chorus or to re-
start the song altogether. I keep a close eye on
her while I play, and we continue this dance for
more than an hour. She does a lot of scratching
out and makes a heck of a lot of faces that I’m
not sure convey that she’s having any fun.
She eventually sits up and tears the paper out
of the notebook, then wads it up and tosses it into
the trash can. She slaps her notebook shut and
shakes her head.
Sydney: I’m sorry, Ridge. Maybe I’m just
exhausted, but it’s not clicking right now.
Can we try this again tomorrow night?
I nod, doing my best to hide my disappoint-
ment. I don’t like seeing her frustrated. She takes
her laptop and notebook and starts to walk back
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toward her bedroom. She turns back around and
mouths, “Good night.”
As soon as she disappears, I’m off the bed and
digging through the trash can. I pull out her
wadded-up sheet of paper and take it back to my
bed and unfold it.
Watching him from here
So far away
Want him closer than my heart can take
I want him here I want
Maybe one of these days Someday
There are random sentences, some marked out,
some not. I read all of them, attempting to work
my way around them.
I’d run for him you, if I could stand
But I can’t make that demand
I can’t be his right now
Why can’t he take me away
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Reading her words feels like an invasion of her
privacy. But is it? Technically, we’re in this to-
gether, so I should be able to read what she’s
writing as she writes it.
But there’s something different about this
song. It’s different because this song doesn’t
sound like it’s about Hunter.
This song sounds a little like it could be about
me.
I shouldn’t be doing this. I should not be pick-
ing up my phone right now, and I should defin-
itely not be contemplating how to persuade her to
help me finish this song tonight.
Me: Don’t be mad, but I’m reading your
lyrics. I think I know where your frustra-
tion is coming from.
Sydney: Could it be coming from the fact
that I suck at writing lyrics and a few
songs is all I had in me?
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I pick up my guitar and head to her bedroom. I
knock and open her door, assuming she’s still de-
cent since she just left my room two minutes ago.
I walk to her bed and sit, then grab her notebook
and pen and place her lyrics on top of the note-
book. I write a note and hand it to her.
You have to remember the band you’re writing
lyrics for is all guys. I know it’s hard to write from a male point of view, since you’re obviously not male. If you stop writing this song from your own point of view and try to feel it from a different point of view, the lyrics might come. Maybe
it’s been hard because you know a guy will be
singing it, but the feelings are coming from you.
Just flip it around and see what happens.
She reads my note, then picks up the pen and
shifts back on her bed. She looks at me and nods
her head toward my guitar, indicating that she’ll
give it a try. I scoot off the bed and onto the
floor, then stand my guitar upright and pull it
against my chest. When I’m working out chords
to a new song, it helps to play this way
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sometimes so I can feel the vibrations more
clearly.
I close my eyes, lean my head against the gui-
tar, and begin playing.