“All right. I’m giving you until the count of ten to put away all of your creepy things, because I’m coming in.”
I wish I were surprised that Ryan’s standing at my studio door threatening to barge her way in, but since I haven’t seen her in over a week now, I knew this day was coming.
“One!”
Crap. I really should take my spare key back.
“Two!”
I don’t scramble to clean anything up, because for the first time in a long time, I have no desire to work on anything.
My work—my passion—is bringing me zero joy right now.
Nothing is, actually. Not my tried-and-true horror movies or my coffee bar or even a soak in the tub. Nothing feels good anymore, and I can pinpoint the exact moment when it began.
“Three!”
I rise from my stool and pull the door open.
“Ten,” I say flatly.
“No, four. Did Count von Count teach you nothing?” she says, breezing into my studio.
I drop back onto my stool and pick up my paintbrush.
Not that I’m painting anything right now. I’ve been staring at this blank canvas since I got up this morning. And by got up, I mean since I peeled myself out of bed after a fitful three hours of slumber.
“Wow,” Ryan says, coming to stand behind me. “It’s beautiful. Really captures the emotion.”
I don’t know why, but something in her words triggers the floodgates, and tears begin to well up in my eyes.
“Oh, shit.” She gathers me in her arms, hugging me closely. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
She didn’t mean to, but she lets me do it anyway.
I don’t know how long we stand there with me sobbing into her shoulder, but it’s long enough that eventually, the tears aren’t coming anymore. All I’m doing is shaking.
Ryan directs me to the stool, then disappears for less than thirty seconds. When she comes back, she drapes a blanket over my shoulders and pulls it tight around me.
The minute I recognize it’s the blanket I bought from the gas station during my mini road trip with Collin, I’m crying all over again.
When I finally get the tears to stop for a second time, I swipe angrily at my face.
“I don’t even know why I’m crying. I’m the one who pushed him away. I’m the one who wanted this.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s not going to hurt. Especially since you’re in love with him.”
I glower at her. “I am not.”
She doesn’t even try to hide her exasperation with me. “Yes, you are.”
“I’m not, Ryan. I don’t do love.”
“You are, and I can prove it to you.”
She disappears again, and this time I follow her. I curl onto the couch as she rummages through her bag, pulling out her laptop.
She clicks a bunch of buttons, and then a still-frame shot of me fills the screen.
It’s from the art show.
“I just want you to know that the absolute only reason I listened to this is because you’re my best friend and I needed to know how much I should brush up on my karate so I could kick Collin’s ass for hurting you.” A perfectly shaped brow quirks up. “But it turns out, it’s your ass that needs kicked.”
She hits play, and for several long seconds nothing happens.
Then there’s a slight rustling, and I know it’s Collin moving around with the recorder in his hand. He clears his throat.
“So.”
It’s one word—one silly, simple word—and already tears are threatening to spill over again.
“I guess we’re supposed to send a message to the person on the other end of this thing, huh? Ryan said it could be silly or serious or something in between. I bet you’re hoping I say the word cunt, aren’t you?”
He chuckles, and the sound slides over me like a warm coat on a cold winter day.
“But I’m not going to. Well, shit. I guess I technically did, huh?”
Another low laugh.
“I have a confession to make. Last week when I got back from the game in Colorado, all I wanted to do was go home and sleep. So the second our plane landed, I was out and in my car with no time to spare. I got behind the wheel and I drove home. Only I didn’t drive to my apartment. I drove to yours.”
Just like it did the first time I heard it, his confession squeezes at my heart.
“At first I didn’t understand it, so I just sat there in my car in your parking lot for a long time. Like way-past-the-level-of-appropriate kind of long. I kept trying to figure out why. Why? Why, when I was dead on my feet, when all I wanted was to go home, did I drive to you?” He sighs. “And then it hit me. It’s because whenever I think of home now, I think of you. I think of you in bed, waiting for me to come crawling into the sheets after a game. I think of you lazing around in those ridiculous pajamas with the sexy Michael Myers on them. I mean, come on, what the hell even are those?”
“Rude,” I mutter.
“That’s not all I think about either, but I’m not going to say the rest on tape because I’m not so sure I trust Ryan won’t ever listen to this.”
“Smart man,” the woman in question says.
“I think…I think what I’m trying to say is that maybe Lowell and Rhodes were right. Maybe the dick does protest too much and maybe there was a disturbance in the Force. And maybe…maybe I’m in love with you.” He laughs dryly. “Oh, hell. Who am I kidding? There’s no maybe. I am. I know it’s not what we said we’re doing and I understand if you’re not here yet, but I couldn’t come into this box knowing your reaction was going to be caught on camera and not tell you.
“So, Ryan, if you’re listening…get ready to take the shot.” A brief pause. “I love you, Harper. And I’ll wait for you as long as you need.”
The volume cuts out and the screen fades to black.
“Did you see it?” Ryan asks.
“See what?”
“Your face—did you see it?”
I shake my head. I wasn’t paying attention.
Ryan hits rewind, then presses play.
“I love you, Harper,” Collin says again.
“Did you see? Watch your eyes. Watch what happens when he says it.”
She goes back again, hits play.
This time, I do what she says.
And this time, I see it.
“The way your eyes completely change…the light that blinks into them and slowly transforms your face…that’s what the project is about, capturing that raw emotion.” She points at the screen. “That proves to me that you’re in love with him too.”
I’d be an idiot to try to sit here and lie to her, to tell her I’m not in love with Collin. But…
“I don’t know if I can do it,” I tell her.
“Why not? Because of your dad?”
“Yes. You know that.”
“I do know that. Just like I know it’s a bullshit reason.”
“He cheated on my mother! He died—died—because he was cheating on her! She gave everything to him and he left her broken and he left me. He left me broken.”
“I know he hurt you. I understand that. But you can’t hide from everything just because you’re afraid of getting hurt again.”
“I can too.”
“Fine. You can. But you’re going to live a shitty life and you’re going to miss out on a lot. Don’t you find it ironic that you love horror movies but you’re too scared to fall in love?”
“Horror movies are predictable. Love isn’t.”
“That’s half the fun in it! Taking risks, putting yourself out there. That’s the whole point.”
“But if it fails?”
“Then it fails. And it hurts and it sucks. But you dust yourself off and you move on. Honestly, if someone told me falling in love was going to be a breeze and there would never be any kind of trouble or problems, I probably wouldn’t want to fall in love.”
“You wouldn’t?”
“No. I mean, come on. Even romantic comedies have some sort of drama to them. It’d be boring if they just fell in love and that was it. There would be no…pizzazz, you know?”
I guess I can see where she’s coming from, but…
“I’m scared.”
“I know you are. But he’s not like your dad.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
“Yes! But it doesn’t make me any less scared to love him. What if I lose him too?”
“Haven’t you already though? Wouldn’t you rather love him fiercely while you can than not at all?”
I don’t have to think about the answer to that question because it’s a resounding yes.
I’d rather have some time with him than none at all, and I thought that was what I was doing by keeping it casual. We were together, but there was no risk involved.
I was a fool to think there was no way I’d fall for him.
How could I not?
“What am I supposed to do now?”
“Oh.” She taps her fingers together excitedly. “I am so glad you asked. I have an idea…”
