Before Ryan Was Mine (The Remembrance Trilogy - Prequel) (31 page)

I tumbled over on the couch and pulled my knees up, wrapping my arms around them, hoping that if I could keep the shaking sobs from becoming more pronounced, I could somehow manage to contain the misery I was feeling.

I shouldn’t have bothered. My heart was broken.
Again.

My eyes squeezed shut, forcing the tears to push out even faster. Why did it hurt so fucking bad? I knew when the sun came, up he’d call and probably come over. I’d see him and nothing would come of his date with this woman.
I knew it
. Yet every time, I was literally in hell. It was getting worse as time wore on. It was to the point I couldn’t breathe, and I was barely able to keep it to myself. I wanted to wail and shout at him.

I wanted him to be with
me
. I wanted him to kiss, touch, and make love with
me
. Jealousy burned with the desperation and despair that ate away at my insides. Finally, I just gave in to the torrent of tears and cried my heart out.

Ryan, please—don’t! Don’t make love to her. Please, it kills me. I’m the one who loves you. I’m the one...
Even if it were only fucking, I couldn’t stand it anymore.

The words replayed over and over inside my head as I silently begged the man I loved to see me for who I was. My heart knew that no one could ever love him as much as I did. It wasn’t possible.

Seconds, minutes, or hours passed. I wasn’t sure how long I lay there crying in the darkness. Finally, my sobs ebbed, and my tears slowed to a slow stream, dripping from the corners of my eyes and leaving wet trails down the sides of my face to pool into the poor pillow beneath my head.

My eyes felt so tired. At least the crying exhausted me so maybe I’d be able to sleep. Sleep was my one true place of solace. If I was lucky enough not to dream.

I pushed myself into a sitting position and sniffed. It was dark, and the clock read just after eleven.
Not even midnight yet
. I stood and walked to the kitchen to find some candles and get some water and a Kleenex. My sore eyes couldn’t take the full-blown light, but I felt the need to draw.

My secret saved me on nights like this. Over the years at school, I’d drawn his image over and over again. A world I created where he belonged only to me; my beautiful, perfect Ryan; gorgeous, yes, but brilliant and giving, funny and warm. I needed him like I needed air to breathe. No matter how many times my head tried to deny it, or I tried to push it down for the sake of our friendship, the truth rocked me to the core.

I moved around the room lighting the candles then to the drawing table Ryan had given me last year for Christmas. I pulled out a piece of the expensive linen paper I saved for his portraits and my charcoal pencils. I sat there for a moment, staring at the blank page, my fingers running lovingly along its starkness while the image I would put down formed in my mind.

When his features began to materialize on the page in front of me, calm finally settled over me. I inhaled so deeply I thought my lungs would burst; my right hand drew the outline of his face, the strong jaw, and the crooked smirk on those full lips that I loved.

Ryan was
mine
. He’d
always
be mine. My heart couldn’t accept anything else.

It was a nice spring night and I was sitting across from a beautiful woman at a casual Italian restaurant near campus. Maybe, the moon was out, and a soft breeze rustled the leaves of the trees that were situated around the patio where we were sitting. There could have been a conversation going on, and a waiter may have been by with an appetizer and fresh drinks.

Maybe
.

My eyes skittered over the smooth expanse of creamy skin visible above the low-cut neckline of the red blouse my dinner companion was wearing, but I wasn’t really seeing her. I tried to shake myself back into reality and concentrate on her words.

“Ryan? Are you with me?” My eyes met hers briefly and I forced the corners of my mouth to lift in a wry smile. I’d met her in chemistry when Professor Jannis assigned lab partners. I think it was sometime during the first semester of my sophomore year.

Since then I’d seen her at parties, had a couple more classes with her, and we might have even screwed once; I couldn’t remember. I grimaced slightly at the hole in my memory. She was a nice girl; intelligent, with a taut body and beautiful features.
Very
beautiful, but the problem was; none of that mattered in the slightest. She wasn’t the woman I wanted to be spending this evening with... or any evening for that matter.

I found myself yearning for long, flowing chestnut locks instead of shoulder length blonde hair; warm green eyes and not icy blue ones. Those deep green eyes saw right through me, let me be
me
and encouraged me whenever I doubted myself. I tried to swallow, but it felt like something stuck in my throat. Whatever it was, it physically hurt. My repeated attempts to push it down were pointless and I resisted the urge to claw at my neck with my hand. As the time at Stanford ticked down, I found myself more and more aware of the knife digging into my heart. I was more and more aware that soon life would take us in different directions. This was the last year. A semester and a half was all we had left. I’d done well on the MCAT, and the Harvard application had been sent. Julia had helped fill it out, and she refused to let me apply to other med schools… insisting that Harvard was my destiny. I wasn’t sure anymore what my fucking destiny was. The vision of it had become obscure.

What in the hell was I doing here?

My heart pounded in my chest, a slight sheen of perspiration broke out on my forehead, while my fingers itched to pull out my phone and check for a call. I must have done so at some point because I found myself staring down at the blank screen and blinking several times to try to change the image. My heart fell.

What the fuck? What did you expect, asshole?
I chastised myself. Julia knew I had a date tonight, and Ellie planned a girls’ night out at one of the campus hangouts. She was bright with an effervescent personality that drew people to her. She was fun, exciting, and she thought about shit like I did. She had opinions and they were solid. Wherever she was, she was surrounded with people clamoring for some of her time. She wasn’t just beautiful; she was incredible. She was
good
. People flocked to her. Men didn’t just want to fuck her. They wanted to
know
her, and that fact scared the shit out of me. I’d seen it sophomore year when that user, Dave Kessler, tried to land her. I was terrified some nameless guy would sweep in and try to replace me in her life.

Julia.
Her name reverberated in my brain and shivered through my soul.

Who was I fucking kidding with this shit?
I ran a hand through my hair and sat back in the chair, praying the evening would end so I could check on her.

Where was she, and what was she doing? Was she home? Would she be alone?
I couldn’t shut off my mind, and I was tormented by the lack of answers. The tightness in my chest got worse and I sucked in a deep breath in a desperate attempt to keep from suffocating.

My thoughts were consumed with her more and more lately, but still, I tried to tell myself she was only my best friend.
Only
my best friend? Those words shaped my entire life at this point. I tried to shake it again, but nothing I did could change my feelings.
Nothing
. My eyes roamed the restaurant and longingly passed over the front entrance; the portal for my escape.

I knew I needed to get my head on straight, but my heart wasn’t listening. My body wasn’t listening. I was consumed; day and night. Julia was all I thought about. When I was away from her, I couldn’t wait to get back to her and when I was with her, I was dying to touch her. And her mouth... Jesus, I wanted to taste that mouth. I was starving to finally kiss her. It was like I was in the deepest hell because I couldn’t act on it.

“Ryan!” This time the voice was irritated and it was another mouth speaking. I forced my blurry eyes to focus on her face. It didn’t matter that I wanted to bolt for the door or that it felt like my fucking skin was crawling off my body. I was here, and I owed it to Samantha to get through the evening.

“Uh, sorry, Sam. What were you saying?” I flushed guiltily and tried to carry on the most basic conversation, hoping she would want the evening to end as badly as I did. She prattled on and on about mind-numbing bullshit I couldn’t recall five minutes later.

Somehow, I made it through the next two hours but the last few minutes were the worst. I’d peeled the girl off me when I’d taken her home, telling her the food made me feel ill so I could make a hasty retreat. She was disappointed; she wanted more, but it was impossible. It couldn’t happen. I just couldn’t do it anymore. Something had happened to change me. No longer could I act on instinct and pure animal need.
Someone
had happened, and that someone was in my heart and in my head… under my fucking skin.

I was such a coward.
Tell the fucking truth, for God’s sake! Just admit it! You’re head-over-heels in love with your best friend. Be a man, finally. Make her see you for more than her friend.

I’d known it for almost three years, but somehow, admitting it put the relationship we had at risk, teetering on the precipice of uncertainty. I wasn’t willing to risk the fall. I wasn’t willing to risk the
loss.
I’d been forcing myself to continue with business as usual but I was precariously close to slipping up on so many occasions; so often, almost touching her face, pressing into her when we hugged goodbye, or spilling my guts on the floor at her feet. All of that was dangerous.

We knew each other inside and out. Julia and I didn’t have secrets... except for how crazy in love with her I was and how desire and jealousy were eating me alive. One thing I was sure of; I did not want to lose her. I needed her. She was everything, and I... well, I was seriously screwed. I tried not to hope she mirrored my feelings because then I’d be lost. There were moments, like today at lunch, when I sensed the way she withdrew from me, when hope nudged into my heart at the same time as it ached. If we were only friends, why did I feel so damn empty when I was with someone else? Why did I feel guilty? Why did she close off like she did?

I sighed deeply as my fingers tightened around the steering wheel of my car. I realized I was sitting in front of the building where Julia shared an apartment with Ellie, but without any memory of how in the hell I’d gotten there.

I glanced up at the second-story window of their living room, and there was a low flickering light.
Candles
. I closed my eyes as my heart constricted. I knew she had boyfriends; I’d had to mentally school myself to back off, but it never got any easier. In my mind and heart, she belonged to me, and the thought of anyone else touching her ate away at my insides like acid. I’d never touched her like that, but still, it was killing me that anyone else would. That she would allow it, or want it, was more than I could stand thinking about.

The clock on my dash said 11:32 PM. Before I knew it, I was bounding up the stairs two at a time until I was standing, heart pounding, on the outside of the oak door that led to Julia’s place. I couldn’t hear voices, but there was music filtering softly through the walls. My fists clenched at my sides in protest.

I’d seen that idiot, Jason Milner, ogling Julia in the cafeteria when she and Ellie were discussing their plans for the evening. He’d known where they were going even though he wasn’t part of the conversation.

My hand hovered over the door, and I dropped it.

“Fuck, Matthews. Make a decision,” I muttered under my breath then let my fist connect with the wood three times before I could change my mind.

“Julia, it’s me.” I waited and heard some rustling behind the door.
Please let her be alone.
“Julia?”

The chain rattled on the other side of the door as she struggled to open it, and finally, the door flung open. She was standing in front of me, her eyes wide and questioning, her hair messed up, without make-up.

“What are you doing here? I thought you had plans.” Confusion flitted across her beautiful features.

My eyes soaked in the site of her. Her hair was in a knot on the top of her head haphazardly, with tendrils escaping around her face. She was wearing pink and blue striped pajama pants and a white wife beater. I tried to ignore the expanse of bare skin and her hipbones that were showing above the waistband of the pajamas. Probably when she turned around, her butt dimples would show. Her top was skimpy and the obvious lack of bra was harder to avoid. My body reacted against my will, and I shoved my hands into the front pockets of my jeans.

I didn’t wait for an invitation and brushed by Julia to come inside, my eyes scanning the apartment for any evidence of a man’s presence. There was a glass of wine sitting on her art table, but no other. I smiled in relief then turned back toward her.

“Uh, crash and burn.” I readily dismissed the subject and noticed the candle burning on the end table by the couch. It was the only light in the room. The music was recognizable—a compilation she’d done of Sara Bareilles, Sia, and a few other softer artists. “It’s awfully cozy in here. Am I interrupting something?”