Page 3 of Forever Mine
Sunlight streams in when the front door opens.
“What the hell happened?” With the mid-morning light bending around him, Ryder’s tall form looks like a partial eclipse.
Julien drops the roll of tape and rushes him. They grab one another in a fierce hug that speaks to the pain they’ve endured together this past year. I saw it and lived with it every day, but I neverlivedit like they did.
“Was it really her?” Julien asks, desperation tingeing his voice and making it tremble.
Ryder takes a deep breath and exhales it slowly. “Yeah. It was her.”
“How is she? How did she look? Is she okay?”
Ryder walks over to the sofa and wearily collapses like a rag doll that’s lost its stuffing. Massaging his temples does little to erase the emotional turmoil he’s obviously feeling.
“She looks the same but different. God, I can’t even describe it. When I was at the student center, I heard laughter, and I just knew. Iknewit was her. I had just been thinking about her. Like my brain magically materialized her right in front of my eyes. She was with this guy I know. Preston. When I called her name, she turned and looked right at me.” He rakes his hands down his face and blindly looks around the room. “Where’s Jay?”
Julien crouches at his feet. “We’ll get to him in a minute. Finish first. I need to hear it all.”
Unease prickles my skin when Ryder’s eyes spill over with tears.
“Jules, she didn’t recognize me. She had no fucking idea who I was. She ran away—from me. What happened to her? I… why… I don’t…”
Ryder breaks. A year’s worth of fucked-up, crazy emotions come rampaging out, ripped from him in a torrent of anguish. It breaks my fucking heart. Ryder had been the backbone of the three of them. The one who stayed strong and helped me clean up Julien and Jay’s messes.
Julien grabs Ryder’s hands, his body shaking uncontrollably as he cries with him. A lifetime of months desperately missing Elizabeth come tumbling out into the cramped living room.
Ryder’s words are barely articulate. “Fallon was there. She didn’t remember him either. What the fuck is going on?”
Fallon was there? I’ll need to check on him.
Ryder wipes the wetness from his cheeks with the heels of his palms. “Where’s Jay? I need to talk to him.”
“I think he left to find her.”
Ryder glares in disbelief, then whips out his phone. “Why did you let him leave?”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Julien angrily retorts.
This entire situation is getting out of control. When Jayson’s upset, he does some really stupid shit. He’s the exact opposite of “think before you act.”
“Don’t you guys have location sharing on your phones?” I remind them.
Chapter Two
JULIEN
Ryder one-handsme and pushes me back in my seat.
“I’ll pull over and kick you out of the car if you look at the speedometer again.”
My knee bounces a mile a minute. “Can’t you go any faster?”
“No.”
Elijah leans forward and reaches around my headrest. I grab on to his hand like a lifeline, so damn thankful he’s here.
Looking at my phone mounted to Ryder’s dashboard, I tell Ry, “Take the next right.”
He slows down and flicks his blinker. “I can see the screen just fine, Jules.”
