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6
“Hey… hey,” he said soothingly. He stepped forward, his arms open wide.
I just melted into him and let him hug me.
And bawled my eyes out again for the thousandth time.
He just held me for what seemed like ten minutes as my entire body was wracked with sobs. His strong arms encircled me, and he just let me
be
– just let me get it all out.
Finally I stepped away, somewhat more composed and entirely embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I… I got your shirt all wet.” I pointed at his t-shirt, where I had left an impressionistic portrait of my face, painted with tears.
He looked down at his torso and shrugged. “Kind of looks like the shroud of Turin, doesn’t it?”
For the first time in almost 24 hours, I laughed. Just for a second – but it felt like a sweet mouthful of water in a bitter, heat-cracked desert.
I stood there, self-conscious… and super-thankful that I had worn my XXL pink t-shirt to bed, which came halfway down past my thighs. At least I wasn’t indecent.
“Um… you want to come in?” I asked hesitantly.
“Sure,” he smiled.
I led the way – and now I was
really
self-conscious. Ryan had always lived in a nice suburban home, and now he was touring the United States as a rock star and staying in luxury hotels. By contrast, my studio apartment was a piece of crap. The kitchen was basically a dorm refrigerator, a battered microwave, and a sink. It also had the smallest oven range and stove in the world – not much bigger than the Fisher Price playset I’d had as a preschooler.
I exaggerate a little… but not much.
My furnishings were all pretty much courtesy of Goodwill – although I’d gone to considerable ends to make sure all the furniture matched. There just wasn’t much of it. I ate and wrote at a small wooden table with two battered chairs. Five feet away was the sofa, and across from it the wooden dresser on which sat my TV and DVD player. Five feet away from
that
was the rickety metal frame for my bed. At least the mattress was new, as were the sheets and flowery comforter. The walls were ugly and the paint was chipping, but I’d tried to distract from that with a number of watercolor prints in frames.
“My humble abode,” I said, sweeping my arm facetiously.
Ryan looked around. “I like it.”
“You’re so sweet to lie.”
“Hey, it’s not the crack den where we lived in Athens for a year, but it’ll do.”
Oh my God, I’d forgotten about that. Okay, he
had
lived someplace way worse than this.
But as soon as I thought of the house, I thought of that night when I’d dropped Derek off after dinner at Ryan’s – and my eyes started to blur again.
Ryan noticed. “Aw man – I’m sorry.”
I shook my head as a couple tears ran down my cheeks. “No,
I’m
sorry. I’m just being stupid.”
“You’re not being stupid, Kaitlyn,” he said softly.
I choked back a sob, then forced a smile. “So… just in the neighborhood, huh?”
“You know. Connecting flight.”
I arched one eyebrow. “Uh-huh. So, New York’s a connecting flight for South Dakota.” I paused for effect. “From Vegas.”
He shrugged. “I’m really bad at booking plane trips.”
I burst out laughing and covered my mouth with my hand. God, that felt good.
But then reality returned, and I sighed heavily. “So. You know, huh.”
His face took on a serious expression. “If it’s any consolation, he’s pretty much going out of his mind right now.”
I wanted to say something acid like,
He fucking deserves it,
but I was pathetic instead.
“Did he… did he send you?” I asked with the tiniest bit of hope, in a sickeningly forlorn voice.
Ryan glanced down at the floor, and I had my answer.
I completely deflated, all hope gone.
“He doesn’t know I’m here,” Ryan explained as he looked back up at me.
I frowned the tiniest bit. “Not that I’m not grateful, but… why
are
you here?”
“To apologize.”
I stared at him in confusion. “For what?”
“I can’t help but feel that part of this is my fault. If I hadn’t told you all the things I did that first night, maybe you wouldn’t have… I don’t know. I feel like I told you to do something, and you did, and bad things happened because of it.”
“Ryan… I’m a big girl,” I said, though I realized how idiotic that sounded, considering how I’d been blubbering like a baby the last 24 hours. But I powered ahead anyway. “I went in with both eyes open. I knew what I was getting into.”
He raised
his
eyebrow this time.
I sighed. “Okay, no, I was a complete idiot, but that’s not your fault. In fact, I seem to remember you warning me. About being careful. About not giving too much of myself away.”
Only now did his words come back. If I’d only heeded them at the time, maybe I wouldn’t hurt as much right now.
As his words came back, though, some of the other things he’d said came back, too.
Derek wasn’t the only one who fell for you years ago.
Suddenly I knew the other reason he was here.
And it scared me.
He watched my face carefully, and seemed to know the jump in logic I’d made.
But he was very, very clever. He avoided it completely.
Instead, he started walking around my tiny apartment, looking at the watercolors on the walls. “So… what are you going to do?”
“About what?”
“Life, I guess. Have you written the
Rolling Stone
article yet?”
Oh God.
I had pretty much pushed that to the back of my mind. The trauma with Derek was powerful enough to overwhelm everything else. As soon as he said it, though, I began to have a panic attack. I had virtually nothing written – scraps on Killian and Riley, yes, and a few other pages of incidental stuff – but that’s not what my editor Glen wanted.
He wanted Derek Kane.
The entire
world
wanted Derek Kane.
And it was my job to deliver him.
Even though he had ripped out my heart.
In an instant, I saw the next two months as clearly as though I were watching a movie: me slumped over my laptop and little wooden table, crying and shaking, unable to write a word.
I clutched my arms over my chest like I was dying of cold, and began to hyperventilate and sob at the same time.
“Kaitlyn?!” Ryan asked, alarmed.
