Page 43 of Don’t Say Mafia

“I hope you do,” I finally told him.

He reached for my hand, intent on offering reassurance, but I pulled it away and curled both hands around the cup instead, using his peace offering as a barrier.

Ryan noticed, of course, but he nodded, taking it as fuel for his determination. “I won’t let you down again,” he said, sliding off the bed. He hesitated for a second like he wanted to say more, then left the room, the door clicking shut behind him.

I stared at the closed door long after his footsteps had faded, then finally pushed myself upright, forcing my body into motion for another day I wasn’t sure I had the energy to face.

When I walked into the living room thirty minutes later, Ryan was sitting on the edge of the couch with his own coffee cup cradled between his hands. The music was off. The ashtray was gone. Sunlight crept through the blinds and caught on his face in a way that made him look younger. Lost. Like he was waiting for instructions he didn’t trust himself to follow.

Ryan looked up when he saw me. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I echoed.

He gestured vaguely with the cup. “I’ve been thinking.”

That made my stomach tighten, but I stayed where I was.

“When I get a job,” he continued earnestly, “you should quit one of yours. At least one. Maybe both, if I can swing it. You could sign up for classes. Community college, night classes, whatever you want.”

I blinked. “Ryan⁠—”

“No,” he said quickly, standing. “Listen. That’s how it should’ve always been. You shouldn’t have been killing yourself like this. You were always smarter than me anyway.”

I didn’t know what to say, and he took a step closer, then another, gauging the distance, waiting to see if I’d pull back. “You should’ve been the one going somewhere,” he added. “I just . . . got lost.”

His words should have cracked something open in me.

They should have felt like relief.

I searched for it—for hope, for gratitude, for that old rush of maybe this is the turning point. I dug for anger, too, for resentment, for anything sharp enough to cut through my haze.

But nothing surfaced.

All I could feel was that flat, echoing quiet.

My nails bit into my palms, and I waited for my chest to react. For my throat to burn. For my eyes to sting.

There was nothing there.

A flicker of unease slid through me. What was wrong with me? This was everything I had asked for months ago. Effort. Accountability. A plan. Him finally admitting I had been carrying too much.

And all I felt was . . . numb.

Ryan reached for me tentatively and then pulled me into his arms like he was afraid I might disappear if he didn’t. His mouth found mine, and I kissed him back because it felt like the right thing to do. I tried to pour everything I wanted into that kiss. The years. The promises. The girl who’d once believed getting out was inevitable if you just loved someone hard enough.

For a moment, it almost worked.

He held me like he meant it . . . like he was trying to drag us back to a place we’d already wandered too far from. I kissed him back and let myself pretend that this could be the beginning instead of a last attempt. That maybe believing him wasn’t naïve. That maybe this time, he would follow through.

But that distant, unreachable part of me was also wondering . . . how many chances love was allowed before it stopped being love and turned into something else entirely.

He finally pulled away, and I studied his face, trying to remember what loving him had felt like, trying to drag even a spark of it back to the surface.

But it was like reaching into a room that had already been emptied.

Bare walls and . . .

Nothing.