Page 53 of What You Own
“Maybe.”
Please let this be fixable.
I had to do something. Living without Ryan Sanders was simply not an option.
Chapter 15
Ryan
GODBLESSEllie and her big box of wine. Drunk was how I spent most of the weekend. I called out all my shifts at Walgreens, which actually freaked out the manager a little because I never called out. I said I had the flu, and that made me a big fat liar.
But I wasn’t a coward, no sir.
I’d stuck to my guns, and it netted me absolutely nothing. I felt empty inside, hollowed out. The wine helped a little bit. It warmed me up and made everything hurt less for a while. Ellie tolerated it for two days, and on Monday she finally cut me off. I deserved the hangover I suffered through when I went back to work, and it kind of made the whole flu thing more real. I still felt like an asshole for lying about it, though.
Returning to work was an exercise in self-control. After breaking up with Adam, my anxiety had gone haywire. The wine-fest had been a bandage and not a real good one. After I sobered up, I dragged out the meds I hated using because I needed to calm the hell down. Every shadow was dangerous, every car door meant someone was coming. The noises were louder, the bad things more deadly. I even had a screaming nightmare that got Ellie threatening to call my parents.
Thank the Lord I was on an even keel by Thursday’s tech rehearsal, because I had to see Adam again tonight, and I fucking refused to let him see me spazzing out. Would not let him see that he’d scooped my heart out, torn it to pieces, and then thrown it back inside. A big old mess. Maybe I still was a mess, but I’d be damned if he’d know it.
Putting me in my tightest, ass-worshipping jeans and abs-hugging black T-shirt was Ellie’s idea. “Let the bastard see what he gave up,” she said with violence in her voice. I hugged her tight, because Ellie had been there for me since the bashing. We might get mad and fight sometimes, but we had each other’s backs. Always.
Some of the money from LQF had gone toward renting proper lights and a board. Susan and Cindy were figuring things out when Ellie and I arrived. We were middle of the pack, not first and not late. Lou was in the middle of everything, coordinating the sound cues with Larry and the light cues with Susan, and a whole lotta kids were bouncing around the auditorium thanks to the juice and cookies set up on a nearby table.
Right before we were about to start with the first act, Lou cornered me. “Adam called me a while ago,” he said. “Says he’s sick but swore to make it tomorrow night for the dress.”
Irritation prickled my scalp. Sick my ass. “Fine, we’ll scratch our duet,” I said.
“Good enough.”
After Lou turned away I yanked out my phone and sent the most passive-aggressive thing I’d ever texted right to Adam:Coward.
Adam
THESINGLEtexted word hurt, but it wasn’t completely wrong. Ditching the tech rehearsal tonight wasn’t really about me being scared to face Ryan. I didn’t want to see the hurt in his eyes—or worse, the complete and total apathy I so richly deserved from him. More than hiding from Ryan, I was spending tonight making sure the decision I was about to make was a decision I could live with.
I’d spent the week on the phone with different offices, getting information and assembling a plan. Living without Ryan these past six days had been the worst sort of agony. The emptiness inside of me was ten times worse than anything I’d felt in the hospital, thinking my best friend had gotten me hurt and then abandoned me. I did this to myself, and now I was fixing it.
I hoped.
Cowardstill glared at me from my phone’s screen. I debated deleting it. I considered calling Ryan and begging for his forgiveness, and to assure him I hadn’t given up. He probably wouldn’t take my call, though. Ryan was a stubborn mule, and if he’d made up his mind about us being over, a phone call wouldn’t change it.
“I love you. Do you hear me saying that?”
“I hear it.
“I hear it, but I don’t see it.”
Ryan wouldn’t believe it until he saw it, and I couldn’t fault him for that. He was open about himself and his sexuality. He’d invited me to his parents’ house for a barbecue. He didn’t hide me from Ellie like a dirty secret, and he didn’t deny that we were together. I knew he loved me before he said it, because I saw it in his actions—saw it in things far beyond great sex.
My bedroom was tidier than it had been in years, because I’d gone through and collected certain things. I had two suitcases and a box packed up in my closet. I would tote them downstairs and stow them in the trunk of my car after Dad left for work. Clothes, books, playbills from dozens of Broadway shows, yearbooks, and my laptop—things I couldn’t live without.
I had no idea how tomorrow night would end, and I didn’t want to run the risk of being homeless with nothing but my car and wallet and the clothes on my back. After tomorrow, I was finished with hiding.
More nervous than I expected to be, I picked up my phone and dialed. The other line picked up after two rings with a terse, “What?”
“I know you hate me, but I need a favor.”
Ryan
