Page 4 of What You Own
I wish I hadn’t looked.
Ryan Sanders blinked back at me like one of those creepy, wide-eyed owl paintings, and I swore he was going to bolt for the exit. If I’d been less stupefied to see him there, in the lobby of my father’s business, I’d have probably beaten him to a hasty retreat. My heart slammed into my ribs hard enough to shatter them. A cold sweat broke across my shoulders. Only years of living with and trying to emulate my emotionless father kept my face blank.
He’s not supposed to be here.
But he was, and I couldn’t make him disappear.
He approached, and I tried very hard to not check him out. To not notice he was still as long and lean as he’d been in high school. His light-brown hair was cut short, like a military recruit, accenting his square jaw and sharp cheekbones. His clothes made him look older than twenty-one, and those big, coffee-brown eyes couldn’t hide the worry and wonder that seemed to twist around in his head.
He was still beautiful.
Don’t do this. Block him out. You have a plan.
I spent the entire ten-minute encounter trying to ignore the fact that he was still beautiful, or that he never lost that wounded-puppy expression. I’d put that look in his eyes—maybe not on purpose, but it was still my fault because I’d been too weak. Three and a half years, and we were meeting now, like this, and it was too soon. I kept it together, asked the right questions, gathering information for Joe, even though I knew I wanted to help.
Helping was idiotic and absolutely the wrong thing to do—you have a plan!—but if this was important to Ryan, I’d do what I could to make it happen. I owed him that much.
It was going so well, until Ellie mentioned singing and a Broadway revue.
An image of my mother, holding my hand while we walked the crowded streets of New York City, flooded my mind, reminding me of a sweeter, more innocent time. Broadway was our shared experience, musicals something we loved together. She hadn’t followed her dreams of performing, choosing to be a mother instead. I hadn’t followed my dreams of performing because of my father. I’d never been strong enough to stand up to him and say what I wanted. I did what was expected of me, instead, just like she had.
I became distracted by the wistful sadness of Ryan’s face, and he didn’t hear me the first time. “I asked if you were singing.”
He blinked those owl eyes. “Ellie and I were discussing doing something together.”
“You should. You always had a great voice.” Ryan had been born to play Roger. He’d been born to play Seymour Krelborn, Danny Zuko, and any number of roles he’d inhabited during four years of high school theater productions. But Roger had been special, because I’d had the courage to try out and land Mark—a role I’d wanted to play since I was ten years old and saw the show with my mother. I hadn’t understood all of the subtext or plot points at that age, but I’d fallen in love with the music. With the passion of the show.
Passion I’d felt every time I rehearsed with Ryan and the rest of the cast.
“So did you, Adam,” Ryan said with so much sincerity that my insides ached with it.
Focus.
I pulled that mask of apathy right back on, hoping to shield myself from the hope in his eyes. Hope I needed to squash immediately. I’d broken his heart once already, maybe twice, and at the worst possible time. I wouldn’t hurt him again.
We finished the meeting, and I walked them out, intently aware of Ryan’s proximity. I forced myself to walk away, to not linger and watch him for as long as possible. I needed to get away. I bypassed the elevators in favor of the stairs. Few people used them, so I sat down at the first landing, hung my head between my knees, and just breathed.
Ryan had been my world since our freshman year of high school, right up until December of our senior year—until that very moment I didn’t realize how much I genuinely missed him and his smile. A smile I hadn’t seen once today. A smile that had drawn me to him in the first place.
I’MCONVINCEDfreshman year will suck. School pretty much sucks all the time because people know my dad is loaded. The other rich kids are stupid snobs, I don’t fit in with the jocks, I’m not smart enough to be a nerd, and most of the regular kids can’t stand me just because I’m rich. I hate my dad’s money. His money and his business sometimes mean my classmates’ parents lose their jobs or their stores, and then they look at me like it’s my fault.
So I want to survive high school, and I think I can do that by being invisible. Only in homeroom, this tall, brown-haired, owl-eyed kid sits next to me and starts talking with a funny voice.
“Hey, hoss, Ryan Sanders,” he says with a thick, southern accent. “I’m new, fresh from Texas. We only just moved in last week.”
“Um, hey. Adam Langley.”
He nods like he doesn’t recognize my name. And maybe he doesn’t, since he moved from Texas. He seems okay enough, confident even, with the same squeaky not-hit-puberty-yet voice I have, but with a lot less zits.
“Good to meet you, Adam.” He holds his hand out to shake, for real, so I shake.
Despite myself, I’m curious. “Why’d you move from Texas to Pennsylvania?”
He gets kind of quiet, almost sad, then shrugs. “My parents wanted a fresh start. We’re, like, thirty miles from Amish country. You can’t get much fresher than that, right, hoss?”
“I guess so.”
And from that moment on, I’m friends with Ryan Sanders.
