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The mattress was perfect—unlike the old, lumpy beds at the cabin. They were small, hard, and always smelled faintly musty. And yet, I’d slept gloriously well most nights. Every night except for last night, really. Which I was sure had absolutely nothing to do with Ryan’s absence, I was sure.
Once my family had unexpectedly shown up, things had gotten both better and worse. Better because they were an excellent buffer, keeping me too occupied to stew about how Ryan and I had ended things. And more importantly I’d been unable to tell him that I had changed my mind and jump him, something I had considered at least once an hour.
But, at the same time, being around him, without beingwithhim, was unexpectedly awful. Not being able to talk to him freely, or touch him, or exchange a simple smile was agonizing. I could handle us going back to friends, or whatever we were, when he wasn’t around, but not while sitting two feet away.
As soon as it was acceptable, I’d excused myself to hide in my room. Ryan had already tried to corner me once, when we’d had a brief moment alone, and it had been a close call. I had nearly kissed him, out of habit. I’d ducked away the second I had a chance, and before I could hear what he wanted to say.
In the morning, I had been the first to leave, claiming that I had some work to catch up on. It was a total lie. I’d taken the entire week off, needing to use up my vacation time. But I couldn’t bear to say an actual goodbye to Ryan. I’d woken up early, packed for the second time, and found my parents in the kitchen having coffee. They were always the first ones awake. I’d hugged them both and made them promise to tell the boys that I’d said goodbye, before basically sneaking out.
On the way home, I’d cranked up my music, and sang at the top of my lungs, drowning out the voice telling me to go back.
Now that I was home again, it wasn’t much better. There were certainly no sexy memories of Ryan floating around, but I was completely alone, with nothing pressing to do, and my mind took it as a sign to relive the most my exciting moments in recent memory. And each of those moments were in the exact same vein.
“It will be better in a few days,” I said into my empty room.
I just needed to make it through a few days, a week tops, and those crazy hormones I’d stirred up would settle back down. Then I could go back to my usual carefree self, and the memories of my time with Ryan would be nothing more than fodder for when I needed to relieve some sexual tension on my own.
#
I was sobbing as the credits rolled. Two days ago, I’d broken down and started watching Heroes. I had nothing else to do, and I felt like I owed it to Ryan, after everything. Not that he’d ever know. It was surprisingly good though, and several times I’d been tempted to pick up my phone and text him about something that had happened. I sort of regretted that we hadn’t watched any of it together up at the cabin. It would have been fun to talk about it with him.
Other than watching the first two seasons of the show, I’d done very little in the last week. I’d summoned the energy to take on some much-needed cleaning and organizing at one point, and chatted with a few friends and co-workers by text, but that was about it. I had started to do my normal yoga routine the day that I’d gotten home, but all I could think about was how Ryan had interrupted me last time, so I’d quickly nixed that plan. I would probably have to use the little gym in my building for a while.
I debated starting the next season of Heroes right away, but decided to wait. To spread it out more. That meant I needed something else to do to entertain myself though. The quiet moments were bad, and I’d done some things that I wasn’t proud of in the last few days. Like stalking Ryan’s social media accounts. Which was pointless because he had almost nothing online. So, then I’d resorted to digging up some old pictures, from back when we were kids. Some were actual printed photos from my parents camera, but most were digital images, buried at the very bottom of my feed.
I hadn’t looked at most of them in so long, that they felt new. There were pictures from graduations, family vacations, baseball games and amusement parks. Horrible, awkwardly posed pictures of school dances, and each of us with our yearly birthday cakes. Camping up in the mountains, and even the early days of the cabin tradition. Ryan was in almost all of them, either front and center, or lurking somewhere in the background. It was like the easiest game of Where’s Waldo that I’d ever seen. He hadn’t changed much since he was a teenager, he’d always been annoyingly gorgeous.
I closed the app and stood up, irritated with myself. It had been my choice to leave everything with him up at the cabin. And it was the smart, logical choice. I was just frustrated by how long it was taking for me to get over it. I was more than ready for all those memories to fade into the background. Between the cabin and my apartment, I’d been cooped up for way too long. It was time to rejoin the world, and maybe even meet someone new.
Luckily, my best friend Erin called later that evening.
“Hey, so, I know that you hate New Year’s, but there’s this new guy I’m kind of seeing, and he invited me to come to his bar tomorrow night. And he’s the bartender, which means he’ll be busy most of the night, so I need some company,” she said, all in one breath.
I groaned. I did hate New Year’s Eve. Or at least, I hated all of the expectations that came with it. Everyone made it out to be the biggest night of the year, and you were supposed to go all out, make grand resolutions, and make out with someone important after a dramatic end of the world style countdown. It set the tone for the next year. Except none of that was realistic, and it was just another day, in my opinion. It was a massive letdown each year. I’d taken to hanging out with a small group of friends, or sometimes just staying in and watching movies.
Sensing my resistance, Erin kept trying to sell it. “It will be really fun, I promise. It’s an awesome bar actually. Not clubby or pretentious at all, but not a dump either. And they aren’t doing too much. There will be a champagne toast midnight, but that’s about it. It could be any other night out. Think if it as an excuse to get dressed up and get drunk with your bestie. Oh, and Ian will basically give us free drinks all night. Please come with!”
I laughed at her begging, but could feel myself softening. I really did want to spend time with her. We had both been so busy with family stuff around the holidays that I had barely seen her in the last month. It might also be an opportunity to talk about what had happened with Ryan. I’d been on the fence about it, not sure if I should tell anyone, but Erin would understand. We became friends back in ninth grade, and she had seen the whole ugly saga play out. She was also probably the only female I knew that had never fallen victim to Ryan Gardner’s wiles, which practically made her a unicorn.
“Alright, I’ll come. But I reserve the right to leave if it gets excessively cheesy,” I warned her.
“I can live with those terms! I’ll text you the name and address of the bar. Meet me there around nine, and make sure you look extra sexy. We can land you a hot midnight kiss too,” she said, giggling.
“Yeah, that’s unlikely. Let’s just focus on you,” I told her.
She protested, but agreed, and then chatted about some random nonsense for a while.
After I ended the call, I headed for my closet, looking for the most over the top, absurd dress and shoes that I could find. If I had to do this, I was going to go all out. If I dressed up, I could pretend to be someone else for the night, and that was tempting. It was kind of like the persona I’d adopted to seduce Ryan that first night. Not me at all, but fun, nonetheless. And that had turned out pretty damn well.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ryan
“Dude, what is your problem? I’ve killed you like six times in a row. And I’m terrible at this game,” Jeremy said, raising one eyebrow at me.
We were at my place, sprawled across my couch with controllers in our hands. He had showed up earlier that afternoon for our annual New Year’s tradition. Like most of my traditions, it had started the year after my parents had died. I’d gone to the cabin with his family for Christmas, but once we got back, I found that I was also dreading hanging out completely alone, for New Year’s Eve, so Jeremy had come over with some video games and a twelve-pack he’d gotten from his older neighbor. We’d hung out all day and night, playing games, watching bad horror movies, and drinking cheap beer.
It had been exactly what I’d needed.
