The descent of the elevator feels like it takes forever as my tired eyes and heavy heart force my feet to stand, urge my lungs to breath. Try to figure a reason to move. I knew that getting over Colton would be hard—absolutely devastating—but I never in a million years imagined that the first step would be the hardest.
The doors ping and open. I know I need to hurry. Need to disappear because Colton will try and track me down and drag this out.
Then again, maybe he won’t. Maybe he got his quick f*ck and he’ll let me go. It’s not like he’s easy to figure out, and to be honest, I’m so tired of trying. Thinking one thing and him doing another. If I’ve learned one thing being with Colton, it’s that I know nothing.
I rub my face, trying to blot the tears from my cheeks but know that nothing is going to lessen my damaged appearance. And frankly, I don’t have enough left in me to care what people think.
I know I’ve been here for a couple of days, but my mind is in such a haze that it takes me a second to figure out which way I need to go to find the main entrance in order to catch a cab. I have to walk out through a garden and then into the main lobby. I see it and start shuffling toward it, all of my luggage overflowing and awkward. I’m in a state of numbness, telling myself that I’m doing the right thing—that I’ve made the right decision—but the look in Colton’s face as he buried himself in me—raw, open, unguarded—haunts me. We can’t give each other what we need, and when we do we only end up hurting each other. One foot in front of the other, Thomas. That’s what I keep telling myself. As long as I keep moving—keep my mind from wandering—I can keep the questioning panic that is just beneath the surface from bubbling up.
I make it about twenty feet into the garden, empty at this time of the night, and I’m struggling desperately to keep moving.
“I didn’t f*ck her.”
The deep timbre of his voice causes the words to slice through the still night air. My feet stop. My head says go, but my feet stop. His words shock me, and yet I’m so numb from everything—from needing to feel and then not wanting to feel then to emotional overload—that I don’t react. He didn’t sleep with Tawny? Then why did he say that he did? Why did he cause all of this heartache if nothing happened? In the back of my mind I hear Haddie telling me that I’m so stubborn I didn’t allow him to speak—didn’t allow him to explain—but I’m so busy trying to remind myself to breathe that I can’t focus on that. My heart thunders in my chest, and I find myself completely at a loss for what to do. I know his words should relieve me, but they still don’t fix us. Everything that seemed so clear—conflicted yet clear—no longer is. I need to walk away, but I need to stay.
I want and I hate and more than anything, I feel.
“I didn’t sleep with Tawny, Rylee. Not her or any of the others you accused me of,” he repeats. His words hit me harder this time. Hit me with a feeling of hope tinged with sadness. We did this to each other—tore each other apart verbally and played stupid games to hurt one another—and for no reason? A tear escapes and slides down my face. “When I heard the knock at the door, I grabbed an old pair of jeans. Haven’t worn them in months.”
“Turn around, Ry,” he says, and I can’t bring myself to do so. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, emotions running rampant and confusion in a constant state of metamorphosis. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he says, his implacable voice closer than before, “…but have no doubt, it will be my way. You are not running this time, Rylee. Turn around.”
My heart stops and my mind races as I slowly turn to face him. And when I do, I can’t help the breath that catches is my throat. We’re standing is this garden full of exotic plants with exploding colors but by far the most exquisite thing in my line of sight is the man standing before me.
Colton stands in a pair of blue jeans and nothing else. Bare feet, bare chest heaving with exertion, and hair dripping with water that runs in rivulets down his chest. He looks as if he literally stepped out of the shower, noticed I was gone, and chased me. He takes a step toward me, his throat working a nervous swallow, and his face a mask of conviction. He is utterly magnificent—breathtakingly so—but it’s his eyes that capture me and don’t let go. Those beautiful pools of green just hold mine—imploring, apologizing, pleading—and I’m frozen in the moment.
“I just need time to think, Colton,” I offer as a justification of my actions.
“What is there to think about?” He blows out a loud breath, a harsh curse following right after. “I thought we were…”
I stare at the paint on my toenails; flashbacks flit through my mind of them on his chest not too long ago. “I just need to think about us…this…everything,”
He steps closer to me. “Look at me,” he commands softly, and I owe him this much regardless of how much I fear seeing the look in his eyes. When I raise my eyes to meet his, searching mine in the full moonlight, I see worry, disbelief, fear, and so much more in the depths of his eyes and as much as I want to look away—to hide from the damage that I’m about to cause—I can’t. He deserves better than that from me. His voice is so soft when he speaks that I barely hear him. “Why?” It’s a single word, but there is so much emotion packed behind it that it takes a minute for me to find the words to respond.
And it’s the same question I need to ask him.
“If this is real, Colton…we’re supposed to complement each other—make each other better people—not tear each other apart. Look at what we did to each other tonight.” I try to explain. “People who care for each other don’t try to purposely hurt one another…that’s not a good sign.” I shake my head, hoping he understands what I’m saying.
His throat works as he thinks of what to say. “I know we’ve made a mess of this, Ry, but we can figure this out,” he pleads. “We can get us right.”
I close my eyes momentarily, tears spilling over as I remember where we are and what tomorrow signifies. “Colton…you need to focus right now…on the race…we can talk later…discuss this later…right now you need to get your head on the track where it belongs.”
He shakes his head emphatically at me. “You’re more important, Rylee.”
“No, I’m not,” I murmur as I avert my eyes again, silent tears endlessly sliding down my cheeks now.
I feel his finger on my chin, guiding my eyes to look back at his. “If you leave, it’s not just to think. You’re not coming back, are you?” He stares at me, waiting for a response and my lack of one is his answer. “Did us—you and me—earlier not mean anything to you? I thought that...” his voice drifts off as I can see it dawning on him “...you were getting closure. That’s why you were so upset,” he says, talking more to himself than me. “You were saying goodbye weren’t you?”
I don’t respond but rather just keep my eyes fixed on his so maybe through his pain he can see how hard this is on me too. It would be so much easier if he raged and threw something instead of these soft pleading words and eyes filled with disbelief and hurt.
“I just need some time to think, Colton,” I finally manage, repeating myself.
“Time to distance yourself to make it easier on you is what you really mean, right?”
I bite the inside of my cheek as I carefully chose my next words. “I—I just need some time away from you, Colton, and the disaster that we’ve made of the past couple of days. You’re so overpowering—so everywhere—that when I’m near you I become so lost in you that it’s like I can’t breathe or think or do anything on my own. I just need a little time to process this...” I look around before turning back to him. “Time to try and figure out why we’re so broken…”
“No, Ry, no,” he insists, the rasp in his voice breaking as he brings his hands up to frame the sides of my face at the same time he bends his knees to bring us inches apart, eye to eye, thumbs caressing over the line of my jaw. “We’re not broken, baby…we’re just bent. And bent’s okay. Bent means that we’re just figuring things out.”
I feel like my heart is going to explode in my chest as he recites my words—the lyrics of the song I once said to him—back to me. It hurts so much. The look in his eyes. The raw simplicity in his explanation. The pleading conviction in his voice. The subtle irony that the one person who doesn’t ever “do the relationship thing” is giving the advice here on how to fix one.
Ours.
I just shake my head at him, my mouth opening to speak but closing again to just taste the salt of my tears when I can’t find the words to answer him. He’s still bent down, eye level with me. “There’s so much that I need to explain to you. So much I need to say…so much I should have already said to you.” He breathes out in a desperate plea. Colton puts both hands up on to the back of his neck, elbows bent, and paces back and forth a few steps. My eyes follow him and on his fourth pass, he grabs me without preemption and crushes his mouth to mine, bruising my lips in a kiss teeming with desperation. And before I can regain my footing beneath me, he tears his lips from mine, hands on my shoulders, eyes boring into mine. “I’ll let you go, Rylee. I’ll let you walk away and out of my life if that’s what you want—even if it f*cking kills me—but I need you to hear me out first. Please, come back to the room so I can tell you things that you need to hear.”
I take a deep breath as I stare at his eyes, inches from mine and pleading with me for some scrap of hope. The rejection is on my tongue, but for the life of me I can’t get it past my lips. I drag my eyes from his and swallow, nodding my head in consent.