Oh God. I sob, wishing I could break away, but his gentle touch is my undoing. This time, it’s not desire that holds me back, making me fall against him, clinging tight, it’s need.
To believe in the sweet words he’s murmuring. A desperate yearning for some solid ground.
“Why are you doing this?” I whisper, shaking in his arms. I’m so confused, I don’t understand. He pushes me away and then comes after me. He acts like he never wants to see me again, but holds me like I’m the most precious thing in the world. “I know what you think of me,” I sob, “I saw it on your face when you learned the truth.”
“That wasn’t about you.” Ryland’s voice sounds anguished. I pull back enough to look up at him. His eyes are dark in the shadows, but I can see the conflict written clear on his face. A secret pain, something that’s haunted him, long before I ever walked into his life.
“You need to know, I’ve been here before.” Ryland clenches his jaw, fighting a battle inside. “I can’t promise you anything, Tegan, but I can listen. If you’ll talk, I’m here for you. I won’t judge you, I promise. I don’t have the right to do that.”
I feel an ache in my chest. Could it be so easy: to unburden myself of the past and let all my ugly confessions spill out? I don’t want to hide it from him anymore, but at the same time, I remember the look on his face when he heard about Pinecrest. I couldn’t bear it to see that expression again; worse, even, when he knows the truth.
I want to know his secrets, but I’m scared to open up myself. Some things, you can’t take back.
Some choices can’t be undone.
“It’s a long story.” I hesitate, torn.
Ryland gazes back, unwavering. “I’ve got all night.”
A group of people spill out of the bar, loud and drunk. Their laughter echoes across the parking lot. I look around, shivering in my thin sweatshirt. “Not here.”
He nods. “I know a place we can talk.”
I pause a moment, but then he holds out his hand to me. I feel hope rise in my chest, a faint flutter through the darkness. From the moment we first met, Ryland has made me feel new again. Like the pain of my past could be overcome, like his blazing kisses could heal the scars that mark my bruised and bleeding heart.
I need to believe I can make it past this. I need to believe a man like him could forgive my mistakes.
I take his hand and say a silent prayer. I follow him into the dark.
He drives us through the back roads out of town, to where the roads are lit only by moonlight and the ocean is just a distant glimmer beyond the shadowed black woods. We pull up outside a rundown old house, the headlights illuminating weeds and a crumbling porch, and stacks of building materials in neat rows on the lawn.
“This is where I grew up,” Ryland says quietly, and he cuts the engine. We sit there a moment in the dark. “My mom was a junkie, my dad didn’t stick around. It was just me and Brit and our brother, Emerson. Until I left.”
His words wash over me. Suddenly, everything falls into place.
His mom. My time in rehab.
No wonder he ran.
“Oh…” My heart twists. I reach across to find his hand, resting on the wheel. “Ryland…”
He stops me. His words sound forced, and a little harsh, as if this is the first time he’s ever said them aloud. “I want to understand, Tegan, I do. But I’ve seen it all already. Watching her relapse, over and over again…” His voice breaks with bitter emotion. “It fucking tore me apart. I can’t go through that again. It’s why I shut us down. I can’t take that risk with you. But I can be your friend, if you’ll let me.”
Emotion swells in my chest. “It’s not like that.”
Ryland shakes his head, staring straight ahead. “Every addict says that, but at the end of the day, it’s always the same.”
He reaches for the door handle and climbs out, as if he can’t bear to be in the same space as me for a single moment longer.
I watch him pace across the front lawn, then stop. He doesn’t take another step. I see his hands clench into fists at his sides, his whole body stiff with tension. Those broad shoulders clenched, his head bowed in the dark.
He’s not leaving me. Not yet.
I scramble out and slowly walk towards him. We’re alone in the darkness, no traffic or neighbors for miles around. Just the distant buzz of crickets, and the cool night breeze on my skin.
“Ryland.” I approach him, and lay one hand on his shoulder. He flinches to my touch. “Ray Jay, look at me. Please.”
He turns, and I see the anguish shining in his dark eyes, clouding their depths with pain. He feels guilty, I realize—not just for his mom, but me too.
He wants to be there for me. He wants to make a difference. But he’s been hurt too much to take that leap. Just like me, his past is clawing him back, a heavy weight wrapped in chains that feel impossible to break.
But neither of us can cast off those chains until we face the truth: rip open the old scars and bare the wounds to each other, no matter how messy and shameful they seem to be.
“I’m not an addict, Ryland,” I tell him softly. “When I went to rehab, it wasn’t about pills or alcohol. It was something else.”
Something worse.
Ryland frowns. “I don’t understand.”
I take a breath. There’s a risk that it won’t make any difference to him: the truth is just as ugly and bleak as addiction. But some unfamiliar urge makes me keep talking, words spilling out.