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It’s been a week since Ryker walked away from me. No. Let’s, for once, be honest here. Since I let Ryker walk away from me. It doesn’t seem like that long. A week. Seven days. A hundred and sixty-eight hours. Ten thousand and eighty minutes. I know because I’ve counted every one of them while they ticked by, torturously slowly.
Ryker was right. There are no highs anymore. Plenty of lows, though.
“Shit!” I drop the utility knife and clutch my hand. Blood pools in the cut just below the knuckle of my index finger. I press my palm to the wound and look around for a tissue or a wad of toilet paper or something.
“Here.” Sawyer pulls my hand away before he presses a clean towel against the wound.
I hold it still for a few seconds before I lift the towel and inspect the damage.
“Stitches?” Sawyer asks.
I shake my head. “Do you have a bandage?”
“Rach went to look for one.”
Just as he says it, Rach walks in. She comes and stands next to me, takes my hand, and deftly applies the bandage.
“Thanks,” I mutter, but when I start to move back to the drywall I was cutting, she holds out her arm and blocks my way.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
I look at the mess on the floor and then at Rachel.
“Back to work?”
She sighs and shakes her head. “You need to sit down for a moment.”
“I’m fine,” I say.
“I don’t care if you’re fine. You’re taking a break.”
“I don’t need a break,” I grit out.
“Sit. Down,” she snaps, and points to the floor on the other side of the room. I glare at her, but eventually I stomp over there and sit down. I rest my elbows on my bent knees and tilt my head back to stare at the ceiling. She comes and stands in front of me, arms crossed over her chest.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“Noth—”
“And don’t you dare say nothing,” she says. “You’ve been off for days now. So I repeat. What’s wrong?”
I choose mutinous silence. She’ll give up eventually.
Only she doesn’t. Instead, she silently summons reinforcements, and Sawyer and Kelly come and stand on either side of her.
And now my hands are very much still, and my thoughts have free rein to go where I don’t want them to go.
“Where’s Ryker?” Rachel asks. “You never said why he couldn’t make it.”
In the end, I break pathetically quickly.
“Ryker’s not here because Ryker and I want different things.”
Rachel winces. “Oh, shit. You two broke up?”
“No,” I mutter. I mean, I don’t think so. He said I have to do it, and I haven’t yet, but I don’t really see how it’s not in the cards for us right now.
“You got into a fight?” she asks.
