Bring Me Back(42)

When he gets to me, he says, “Blaire, you said you’d had a rough few days, tell us about it.” He crosses his foot over his knee and waits for me to speak.

With all the eyes suddenly pinned to me, I find myself closing up. These people, they’re nice, but I don’t really know them. I look around, from one face to the next. My heart begins to pump faster, like a runner about to cross the finish line, and sweat beads on my upper lip.

Suddenly, I find myself standing and running from the room. There’s a bathroom across from the gym and I burst inside. I grip the white porcelain sink in my hands and breathe in and out through my mouth. My head is lowered, staring into the depths of the sink because I’m too scared to look up and see my frazzled reflection in the mirror.

The door opens behind me, and I swing my head in that direction, expecting to find Ryder, but instead it’s Amy. The woman who got the extra chair for me last week. Her blond hair is pulled back in a ponytail and her eyes look tired, much like mine. She’s dressed in a black pencil skirt, pink blouse, and black heels like she came from work to here.

“Hey.” She approaches me slowly like I’m a wounded animal that might rear-back and pounce on her if she gets too close. “Ryder asked me to check on you.”

I turn away from the sink completely and face her. “I’m …” I don’t know what I am.

“Please come back, Blaire,” she pleads. “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. Sometimes listening to other people helps distract your mind. At least, it works for me.” She shrugs and her heels clack against the tile as she comes a bit closer.

I don’t realize it until she grabs both my hands and forces me to loosen them that I was digging my fingernails into the palms of my hands. She releases me and tilts her head, studying me.

“I was you, once. Still am, I suppose. Every little thing made me jumpy. I would overthink everything instead of allowing myself to be in the moment. This group … it’s really helped me—all of us. Trust me, you’ll feel better if you go back in there and stick it out.”

I nod. “I don’t even know why I freaked out,” I tell her, my lower lip trembling with the threat of tears.

“Overthinking,” she repeats, and taps her index finger against the side of her head. “We’ve all done it.”

“Even Ryder?” I find myself asking. He’s so calm, cool, and collected that I find it hard to see him ever losing it like me.

She raises a brow. “Especially Ryder. He might be the head of Group now, but he still has his moments where it gets to be too much.”

“Just give me another minute,” I tell her. “Please?” I add when she doesn’t move.

“I’ll be waiting outside the door,” she says. I hear her warning loud and clear—she’s not going to let me sneak out of the building. I wasn’t planning to anyway.

Once she leaves, I turn back to the sink and twist the knob for the cold water. I splash some on my face and pat the back of my neck. I turn the water off and grab a paper towel to dry my hands.

As promised, Amy is waiting outside the door. Together, we head back inside the room and take our seats. No one looks at us. They go on with what they’re saying, and I breathe a sigh of relief that I’m allowed to fade into the background.

But when I look up, my eyes connect with the dark-brown of Ryder’s, and I know he wants to speak to me. I quickly look away, hoping to avoid him calling me out.

When the hour is up and Ryder launches into his “goodbyes” and “see you next weeks”, I grab my purse and get out of there as quickly as I can without running away … again.

I’m almost to my car when I hear footsteps pounding behind me.

I know it’s him, but I don’t stop or turn around. He jogs in front of me and stops, forcing me to stop as well.

“What do you want?” I ask, my tone sharper than normal.

Ryder’s tall, like really tall, so he bends down a bit so he can look into my eyes better. I think he’s looking for something in them. “To make sure you’re okay,” he answers me.

“I’m fine.”

He shakes his head. “You’re not fine or you wouldn’t have run out. It’s okay to get scared and not want to talk. What I want to know is, would you have told me if it was just the two of us?”

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly, adjusting my purse strap on my shoulder.

“Try it now,” he says, tapping his chest. “Tell me why you’ve had a rough few days, Blaire.”

I look away. I don’t want to talk even though the words are right there, bubbling at the surface.

“Come on, Blaire,” he says again, getting right in my face. He’s not mean about it, just persistent. “Talk about it.”

The words burst forth from me like water breaking free from a dam. “My life sucks right now,” I shout into the empty parking lot—since everyone has either left or is still inside the building. “I’m having a baby and Ben’s dead. I miss him so damn much and I’m going to have to raise our child all by myself,” I cry. “How can I teach my baby to love someone they’ll never know?” I choke on the last part.

Ryder stands there, seeming to think carefully about what he’s going to say.