Chapter Eighteen
Sydney
I close the door to Ridge’s car and follow Warren
up the stairs toward the apartment. Neither of us
said a word to each other on the drive home from
the hospital. The rigidness in his jaw said all he
needed to say, which was, more or less, Don’t
speak to me. I spent the drive with my focus out the window and my questions lodged in my
throat.
We walk into the apartment, and he tosses his
keys onto the bar as I shut the door behind me.
He doesn’t even turn around to look at me as he
stalks off toward his bedroom.
“Good night,” I say. I might have said it with a little bit of sarcastic bite, but at least I’m not
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screaming, “Screw you, Warren!” which is kind
of what I feel like saying.
He pauses, then turns around to face me. I
watch him nervously, because whatever he’s
about to say to me isn’t “good night.” His eyes
narrow as he tilts his head, shaking it slowly.
“Can I ask you a question?” he finally says, eye-
ing me with curiosity.
“As long as you promise never again to begin
a question by asking whether or not you can pro-
pose a question.”
I want to laugh at my use of Ridge’s comment,
but Warren doesn’t even crack a smile. It only
makes things much more awkward. I shift on my
feet. “What’s your question, Warren?” I say with
a sigh.
He folds his arms over his chest and walks to-
ward me. I swallow my nervousness as he leans
forward to speak to me, barely a foot away. “Do
you just need someone to f*ck you?”
Breathe in, breathe out.
Expand, contract.
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Beat beat, pause. Beat beat, pause.
“What?” I say, dumbfounded. I’m positive I
didn’t hear him right.
He lowers his head a few inches until he’s at
eye level with me. “Do you just need someone to
f*ck you?” he says, with more precise enunciation this time. “Because if that’s all it is, I’ll
bend you over the couch right now and f*ck you
so hard you’ll never think about Ridge again.”
He continues to stare at me, cold and heartless.
Think before you react, Sydney.
For several seconds, all I can do is shake my
head in disbelief. Why would he say that? Why
would he say something so disrespectful to me?
This isn’t Warren. I don’t know who this a*shole
is standing in front of me, but it definitely isn’t
Warren.
Before I allow myself time to think, I react. I
pull my arm back, then make four punches my
lifetime average as my fist meets his cheek.
Shit.
That hurt.
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I look up at him, and his hand is covering his
cheek. His eyes are wide, and he’s looking at me
with more surprise than pain. He takes a step
back, and I keep my eyes focused hard on his.
I grab my fist and pull it up to my chest, pissed
that I’m going to have another hurt hand. I wait
before going to the kitchen to get ice for it,
though. I might need to hit him again.
I’m confused by his obvious anger toward me
for the past twenty-four hours. My mind rushes
through anything I could have said or done to
him that would make him feel this much hatred
toward me.
He sighs and tilts his head back, pulling his
hands through his hair. He gives no explanation
for his hateful words, and I try to understand
them, but I can’t. I’ve done nothing to him to
warrant something that harsh.
Maybe that’s his problem, though. Perhaps the
fact that I’ve done nothing to him—or with
him—is what’s pissing him off like this.
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“Is this jealousy?” I ask. “Is that what’s mak-
ing you this evil, wretched excuse for a human
being? Because I never slept with you?”
He takes a step forward, and I immediately
back up until I fall down onto the couch. He
bends down, bringing himself to my eye level.
“I don’t want to screw you, Sydney. And I am definitely not jealous.” He pushes himself away
from the couch. Away from me.
He’s scaring the living shit out of me, and I
want to pack my suitcases and leave tonight and
never, ever see any of these people again.
I begin crying into my hands. I hear him sigh
heavily, and he drops down onto the couch be-
side me. I pull my feet up and turn my knees
away from him, curling into the far corner of the
couch. We sit like this for several minutes, and I
want to stand up and run to my room, but I don’t.
I feel as if I’d have to ask permission, because I
don’t even know if I have a room here anymore.
“I’m sorry,” he finally says, breaking the si-
lence with something other than my crying.
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“God, I’m sorry. I just . . . I’m trying to under-
stand what the hell you’re doing.”
I wipe my face with my shirt and glance at
him. His face is a jumbled mixture of sadness and
sorrow, and I don’t understand anything he’s
feeling.
“What is your problem with me, Warren? I’ve
never been anything but nice to you. I’ve even
been nice to your bitch of a girlfriend, and be-
lieve me, that takes effort.”
He nods in agreement. “I know,” he says, ex-
asperated. “I know, I know, I know. You are a nice person.” He laces his fingers together and
stretches his arms out, then brings them back
down with a heavy sigh. “And I know you have
good intentions. You have a good heart. And a pretty good right swing,” he says, grinning slyly.
“I guess that’s why I’m so mad, though. I know
you have a good heart, so why in the hell haven’t
you moved out yet?” His words hurt me more
now than the vulgar ones he spit at me five
minutes ago.
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“If you and Ridge wanted me gone this bad,
why did you both wait until this weekend to tell
me?”
My question seems to catch Warren off-guard,
because his eyes cut to mine briefly before he
looks away again. He doesn’t answer that ques-
tion, though. Instead, he begins to prepare one of
his own. “Has Ridge ever told you the story of
how he met Maggie?” he asks.
I shake my head, completely confused by the
direction this conversation has taken.
“I was seventeen, and Ridge had just turned
eighteen,” he says. He leans back against the
couch and stares down at his hands.
I recall Ridge saying he began dating Maggie
when he was nineteen, but I keep silent and let
him continue.
“We had been dating for about six weeks, and .
. .”
Scratch that thought. Can no longer keep si-
lent. “We?” I ask hesitantly. “As in you and
Ridge?”
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“No, dumbass. As in me and Maggie.”
I try to hide my shock, but he doesn’t look at
me long enough to even see my reaction.
“Maggie was my girlfriend first. I met her at a
fund-raising event for children who were deaf. I
was there with my parents, who were both on the
committee.” He pulls his hands behind his head
and leans against the couch.
“Ridge was with me the first time I saw her.
We both thought she was the most beautiful thing
we had ever laid eyes on, but, fortunately for me,
my eyes landed on her about five seconds before
his did, so I called dibs. Of course, neither one of
us expected to actually have a chance with her. I
mean, you’ve seen her. She’s incredible.” He
pauses for a moment, then props a leg on the
table in front of us.
“Anyway, I spent the whole day flirting with
her. Charming her with my good looks and my
killer body.”
I laugh, but only out of courtesy.
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“She agreed to go on a date with me, so I told
her I’d pick her up that Friday night. I took her
out, made her laugh, took her back home, and
kissed her. It was great, so I asked her out again,
and she agreed. I took her out for a second date,
then a third date. I liked her. We got along well;
she laughed at my jokes. She also got along with
Ridge, which scored major points in my book.
The girl and the best friend have to get along, or
one of the two will suffer. Luckily, we all got
along great. On our fourth date, I asked her if she
wanted to make it official, and she agreed. I was
stoked, because I knew she was by far the hottest
girl I’d ever dated or ever would date. I couldn’t let her slip away, especially before I was able to
go all the way with her.”
He laughs. “I remember saying that to Ridge
the same night. Told him if there was one girl on
this earth I needed to devirginize, it was Maggie.
Told him I’d go on a hundred dates with her if
that’s what it took. He turned his head to me and
signed, ‘What about a hundred and one?’ I
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laughed, because I didn’t understand what the
hell Ridge meant. I didn’t understand at the time
that he liked her the way he did, and I never
really understood all the little gems he would
spout. Still don’t. Looking back on the whole
situation and the way he would sit there and have
to listen to the punk-ass things I said about her,
I’m surprised he didn’t punch me sooner than he
did.”
“He punched you?” I ask. “Why? Because you
talked about screwing her?”
He shakes his head, and a look of guilt washes
over him. “No,” he says quietly. “Because I did
screw her.”
He sighs but continues. “We were staying the
night at Ridge and Brennan’s. Maggie spent a lot
of time over there with me, and we had been dat-
ing for about six weeks. I know that’s not long in
virgin weeks, but it’s a damn eternity in guy
weeks. We were lying in bed together, and she
told me she was ready to go all the way, but be-
fore she would have sex with me, there was
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something she needed to tell me. She said I had a
right to know, and she wouldn’t feel right con-
tinuing a relationship until I was fully informed. I
remember panicking, thinking she was about to
tell me she was a dude or some shit like that.”
He glances at me and raises an eyebrow. “Be-
cause let’s be honest, Syd. There are some really
hot transvestite-looking dudes out there.”
He laughs and looks straight ahead again.
“That’s when she told me about her illness. Told
me about the statistics . . . the fact that she didn’t want children . . . the reality of how much time
she had left. She said she wanted to lay the truth
out for me because it wouldn’t be fair to anyone
who saw something long-term with her. She said
the likelihood of her making it to the age of forty
or even thirty-five was small. She said she
needed to be with someone who understood that.
Someone who accepted that.”
“You didn’t want that responsibility?” I ask
him.
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He shakes his head slowly. “Sydney, I didn’t
care about the responsibility. I was a seventeen-
year-old guy, in bed with the most beautiful girl I
had ever seen, and all she was asking me to do
was agree to love her. When she mentioned the
words ‘future’ and ‘husband’ and not wanting
kids, it took all I had not to roll my eyes, because
in my head, those were a lifetime away. I would
be with a million girls before then. I didn’t know
how to think that far ahead, so I just did what I
thought any guy would do in that situation. I re-
assured her and told her that her illness didn’t
matter to me and that I loved her. Then I kissed
her, took off her clothes, and took her virginity.”
He hangs his head in what looks like shame.
“After she left the next morning, I was bragging
to Ridge about finally getting to bang a virgin.
Probably went into way too much detail. I also
mentioned the conversation we had beforehand
and told him all about her illness. I was brutally
honest with him to a fault sometimes. I told him
that her whole situation kind of freaked me out
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and that I was going to give it two weeks before I
broke up with her so I wouldn’t look like such a
douche. That’s when he beat the living shit out of
me.”
My eyes widen. “Good for Ridge,” I say.
Warren nods. “Yeah. Apparently, he liked her
a whole lot more than he let on, but he just kept
his mouth shut and allowed me to make an ass of
myself for the whole six weeks I dated her. I
should have caught on about how he felt, but
Ridge is a lot more selfless than I am. He would
have never done anything to betray what we had,
but after that night, he lost a whole lot of respect
for me. And that hurt, Sydney. He’s like my
brother. I felt like I had disappointed the one per-
son I looked up to the most.”
“So you broke up with Maggie, and Ridge
started dating her?”
“Yes and no. We had a long conversation
about it that afternoon, because Ridge is big on
sharing his thoughts and shit. We agreed we had
to honor the bro code, and it wouldn’t really be
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good for us if he picked up and started dating a
girl I had just screwed. But he liked her. He liked
her a lot, and even though I knew it was hard for
him, he waited until the term ended before he
asked her out.”
“The term?”
Warren nods. “Yeah. Don’t ask where we
came up with it, but we agreed twelve months
was a decent length of time before the bro code
became null. We figured enough time would
have passed, and if he wanted to ask her out after
a year, it wouldn’t be so weird. By that time, she
might have dated other people and wouldn’t be
going straight from my bed into Ridge’s. As
much as I could have tried to be cool about it, it
would have been too weird. Even for us.”
“Did Maggie know how he felt about her?
During the twelve months?”
Warren shakes his head. “No. Maggie never
even knew he liked her like he did. He liked her
so much he didn’t go on a single date for the en-
tire twelve months I made him wait. He had the
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date circled on a calendar. I saw it once in his
room. He never mentioned her, never asked
about her. But I’ll be damned if the day that year
was up, he wasn’t knocking on her front door.
And it took her a while to come around, espe-
cially knowing she would have to interact with
me. But things eventually worked themselves
out. She ended up with the right guy in the end,
thanks to Ridge’s persistence.”
I exhale. “Wow,” I say. “Talk about devotion.”
He turns his head toward mine, and our eyes
meet. “Exactly,” he says firmly, as if I just
summed up his whole point. “I have never in my
life met another human being with more devotion
than that man. He’s the best damn thing that’s
ever happened to me. The best thing that’s ever
happened to Maggie.”
He pulls his feet up onto the couch and faces
me full-on. “He’s gone through hell and back for
that girl, Sydney. All the hospital stays, driving
back and forth to take care of her, promising her
the world, and giving up so much of himself in
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return. And she deserves it. She’s one of the
purest, most selfless people I’ve ever met, and if
there are two people who deserve each other in
this world, it’s the two of them.
“So when I see how he looks at you, it pains
me. I saw the way the two of you watched each
other at the party the other night. I saw the jeal-
ousy in his eyes every time you spoke to Bren-
nan. I’ve never seen him struggle with his choice
or the sacrifices he’s made for Maggie until you
showed up. He’s falling in love with you,
Sydney, and I know you know that. However, I
also know his heart, and he’ll never leave Mag-
gie. He loves her. He would never do that to her.
So seeing him torn apart because of the way he
feels about you and knowing his life is with Mag-
gie, I just don’t understand why you’re still here.
I don’t understand why you’re putting him
through that much pain. Each day you’re still
here and I see him looking at you the same way
he used to look at Maggie, it makes me want to
shove you out the damn door and tell you to
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never come back. And I know that’s not your
fault. I know that. Hell, you didn’t even know the half of what he’s going through until tonight. But
now you do. And as much as I love you and think
you’re one of the coolest damn chicks I’ve ever
met, I also never want to see your face again.
Especially now that you know the truth about
Maggie. And forgive me if this is harsh, but I
don’t want you getting it into your head that the
love you have for Ridge will be enough to hold
you over until the day Maggie dies. Because
Maggie isn’t dying, Sydney. Maggie’s living.
She’ll be around a lot longer than Ridge’s heart
could ever survive you.”
My head rolls forward into my hands as the
sobs erupt from my chest. Warren’s arm folds
over my back, and he pulls me against him. I
don’t know who I’m crying for right now, but my
heart hurts so much I just want to rip it from my
f*cking chest and throw it over Ridge’s balcony,
because that’s where this whole mess began.
Ridge
Maggie has been asleep for a couple of hours
now, but I’ve yet to sleep. That’s usually how it
is when I’m with her in the hospital. After five
years of sporadic stays, I’ve learned it’s much
easier not to sleep at all than it is to get a half-ass couple of hours.
I open my laptop and pull up my messages to
Sydney, then send her a quick hello to see if
she’s online. We haven’t had a chance to discuss
the fact that I asked her to move out, and I hate
not knowing if she’s okay. I know it’s wrong to
be messaging her at this point, but it seems even
more wrong to leave things unsaid.
She returns my message almost immediately,
and the tone of it already relieves some of my
worry. I don’t know why I always expect she’ll
respond unreasonably, because she’s never once
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shown a lack of maturity or regard for my
situation.
Sydney: Yeah, I’m here. How’s Maggie?
Me: She’s good. She’ll be discharged this
afternoon.
Sydney: That’s good. I’ve been worried.
Me: Thank you, by the way. For your help
last night.
Sydney: I wasn’t much help. I felt like I
was in the way more than anything.
Me: You weren’t. There’s no telling what
could have happened if you hadn’t found
her.
I wait a moment for her to respond, but she
doesn’t. I guess we’ve reached the point in this
conversation where one of us needs to bring up
what we both know must be discussed. I feel
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responsible for this entire situation with her, so I
bite the bullet and lay it out there.
Me: Do you have a minute? I really have
some things I’d like to say to you.
Sydney: Yes, and likewise.
I glance up at Maggie again, and she’s still
asleep in the same position. Having this conver-
sation with Sydney in her presence, as innocent
as it is, makes me uneasy. I take my laptop and
walk out of the hospital room and into the empty
hallway. I sit on the floor beside the door to Mag-
gie’s room and reopen my laptop.
Me: The main thing I’ve appreciated about
our time together over the last couple of
months is the fact that we’ve been upfront
and consistent with each other. With that
being said, I don’t want you to leave with
the wrong idea about why I need you to
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move out. I don’t want you to think you
did anything wrong.
Sydney: I don’t need an explanation. I’ve
more than worn out my welcome, and you
have enough to stress about without
adding me into the mix. Warren found an
apartment for me this morning, but it isn’t
available for a few days. Is it okay if I
stay here until then?
Me: Of course. When I said I needed you
to move, I didn’t literally mean today. I
just meant soon. Before things become
too hard for me to continue to walk away.
Sydney: I’m sorry, Ridge. I didn’t mean
for any of this to happen.
I know she’s referring to the way we feel about
each other. I know exactly what she means, be-
cause I didn’t mean for it to happen, either. In
fact, I’ve done everything I could to stop it from
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happening, but somehow my heart never got the
message. If I know it wasn’t intentional on my
part, I know it wasn’t intentional on her part, so
she has nothing to apologize for.
Me: Why are you apologizing? Don’t apo-
logize. It’s not your fault, Sydney. Hell,
I’m not even sure it’s MY fault.
Sydney: Well, usually when something
goes wrong, someone is at fault.
Me: Things didn’t go wrong with us. That’s
our problem. Things are way too right
between us. We make sense. Everything
about you feels so right, but—
I pause for a few moments to gather my
thoughts, because I don’t want to say anything
I’ll regret. I inhale, then type out the best way to
describe how I feel about our entire situation.
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Me: There isn’t a doubt in my mind that
we could be perfect for each other’s life,
Sydney. It’s our lives that aren’t perfect
for us.
Several minutes pass without a response. I
don’t know if I crossed the line with my com-
ments, but however she’s reacting to them, I
needed to say what I had to say before I could let
her go. I’m beginning to close my laptop when
another message pops up from her.
Sydney: If there’s one thing I’ve learned
from this whole experience, it’s that my
ability to trust wasn’t completely broken
by Hunter and Tori like I initially thought.
You’ve always been upfront with me about
how you feel. We’ve never skirted around
the truth. If anything, we’ve worked to-
gether to find a way to change our course.
I want to thank you for that. Thank you so
much for showing me that guys like you
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actually exist, and not everyone is a
Hunter.
She somehow has a way of making me sound
so much more innocent than I actually am. I’m
not nearly as strong as she thinks I am.
Me:
Don’t
thank
me,
Sydney.
You
shouldn’t thank me, because I failed
miserably at trying not to fall in love with
you.
I swallow the lump forming in my throat and
hit send. Saying what I’ve just said to her fills me
with more guilt than the night I kissed her. Words
can sometimes have a far greater effect on a heart
than a kiss.
Sydney: I failed first.
I read her last message, and the finality of our
imminent good-bye hits me full-force. I feel it in
every single part of me, and I’m shocked at the
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reaction I’m having to it. I lean my head against
the wall behind me and try to imagine my world
before Sydney entered it. It was a good world. A
consistent world. But then she came along and
shook my world upside down as if it were a fra-
gile, breakable snow globe. Now that she’s leav-
ing, it feels as if the snow is about to settle, and
my whole world will be upright and still and con-
sistent again. As much as that should make me
feel at ease, it actually terrifies me. I’m scared to death that I’ll never again feel any of the things I
felt during the little time she’s been in my world.
Anyone who has made this much of an impact
deserves a proper good-bye.
I stand and walk back into Maggie’s hospital
room. She’s still asleep, so I walk over to her
bed, give her a light kiss on the forehead, and
leave her a note explaining that I’m heading to
the apartment to pack a few things before she’s
released.
Then I leave to go and give the other half of
my heart a proper good-bye.
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? ? ?
I’m outside Sydney’s bedroom door, preparing to
knock. We’ve said everything that needs to be
said and even a lot that probably shouldn’t have
been said, but I can’t not see her one last time be-
fore I go. She’ll be gone by the time I get back
from San Antonio. I have no plans to contact her
after today, so the fact that I know this is
definitely good-bye is pressing on the walls of
my chest, and it f*cking hurts like hell.
If I were to look at my situation from an out-
sider’s point of view, I would be telling myself to
forget about Sydney’s feelings, that my loyalty
should lie solely with Maggie. I would be telling
myself to leave and that Sydney doesn’t deserve
a good-bye, even after all we’ve been through.
Is life really that black-and-white, though? Can
a simple right or wrong define my situation? Do
Sydney’s feelings not count in this mix some-
where despite my loyalty to Maggie? It doesn’t
seem right just to let her go. But it’s unfair to
Maggie not to just let her go.
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I don’t know how I ever got myself into this
mess to begin with, but I know the only way to
end it is to break off all contact with Sydney. I
knew the moment I held her hand last night that
there wasn’t a flaw in the world that could have
stopped my heart from feeling what it was
feeling.
I’m not proud of the fact that Maggie doesn’t
make up all of my heart anymore. I fought it. I
fought it hard, because I didn’t want it to happen.
Now that the fight is finally coming to an end,
I’m not even sure if I’m winning or losing. I’m
not even sure which side I’m rooting for, much
less which side I was on.
I knock lightly on Sydney’s door, then place
my palms flat against the doorframe and look
down, half of me hoping she refuses to open it
and half of me restraining myself from breaking
down the damn door to get to her.
Within seconds, we’re face-to-face for what I
know is the last time. Her blue eyes are wide
with fear and surprise and maybe even a small
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amount of relief when she sees me standing in
front of her. She doesn’t know how to feel about
seeing me here, but her confusion is comforting.
It’s good to know I’m not alone in this, that
we’re both sharing the same mixture of emotions.
We’re in this together.
Sydney and me.
We’re just two completely confused souls,
scared of a much unwanted yet crucial good-bye.