Maybe Someday (Maybe #1)(69)

Be still, heart. Please, be still.

I don’t want him to be standing here in front of me. I don’t want him to be looking at me, wearing the expression that mirrors my own feelings. I don’t want him to hurt like I’m hurting. I don’t want him to miss me like I’ll miss him. I don’t want him to be falling for me like I’ve been falling for him.

I want him to be with Maggie right now. I want him to want to be with Maggie right now, because it would make this so much easier knowing our feelings were less a reflection of each other’s and more like a one-way mirror. If this weren’t so hard for him, it would make it easier for me to forget him, easier to accept his choice. Instead, it makes my heart hurt twice as much knowing that our good-bye is hurting him just as much as it’s hurting me.

It’s killing me, because nothing and no one could ever fit my life the way I know he could. I feel as though I’m willingly forking over my one chance for an exceptional life, and in return, I’m accepting a mediocre version without Ridge in it. My father’s words ring in my head, and I’m beginning to wonder if he had a point after all. A life of mediocrity is a waste of a life.

Our eyes remain in their silent embrace for several moments, until we both break our gaze, allowing ourselves to take in every last thing about each other.

His eyes scroll carefully over my face as if he’s committing me to memory. His memory is the last place I want to be.

I would give anything to always be in his present.

I lean my head against my open bedroom door and stare at his hands still gripping the doorframe. The same hands I’ll never see play a guitar again. The same hands that will never hold mine again. The same hands that will never again touch me and hold me in order to listen to me sing.

The same hands that are suddenly reaching for me, wrapping themselves around me, gripping my back in an embrace so tight I don’t know if I could break away even if I tried. But I’m not trying to break away. I’m reciprocating. I’m hugging him with just as much desperation. I find solace against his chest while his cheek presses against the top of my head. With each heavy, uncontrolled breath that passes through his lungs, my own breaths try to keep pace. However, mine are coming in much shorter gasps, thanks to the tears that are working their way out of me.

My sadness is consuming me, and I don’t even try to hold it in as I cry huge tears of grief. I’m crying tears over the death of something that never even had the chance to live.

The death of us.

Ridge and I remain clasped together for several minutes. So many minutes that I’m trying not to count, for fear that we’ve been standing here way too long for it to be an appropriate embrace. Apparently, he notices this, too, because he slides his hands up my back and to my shoulders, then pulls away from me. I lift my face from his shirt and wipe at my eyes before looking back up at him.

Once we make eye contact again, he removes his hands from my shoulders and tentatively places them on either side of my face. His eyes study mine for several moments, and the way he’s looking at me makes me hate myself, because I love it so much.

I love the way he’s looking at me as if I’m the only thing that matters right now. I’m the only one he sees. He’s the only one I see. My thoughts once again lead back to some of the lyrics he wrote.

It’s making me feel like I want to be the only man that you ever see.

His gaze flickers between my mouth and my eyes, almost as if he can’t decide if he wants to kiss me, stare at me, or talk to me.

“Sydney,” he whispers.

I gasp and clutch a hand to my chest. My heart just disintegrated at the sound of his voice.

“I don’t . . . speak . . . well,” he says with a quiet and unsure voice.

Oh, my heart. Hearing him speak is almost too much to take in. Each word that meets my ears is enough to bring me to my knees, and it’s not even the sound of his voice or the quality of his speech. It’s the fact that he’s choosing this moment to speak for the first time in fifteen years.

He pauses before finishing what he needs to say and it gives my heart and my lungs a moment to catch up with the rest of me. He sounds exactly as I imagined he would sound after hearing his laughter so many times. His voice is slightly deeper than his laughter, but somewhat out of focus. His voice reminds me of a photograph in a way. I can understand his words, but they’re out of focus. It’s as if I’m looking at a picture and the subject is recognizable, but not in focus . . . similar to his words.

I just fell in love with his voice. With the out-of-focus picture he’s painting with his words.

With . . . him.

He inhales softly, then nervously exhales before continuing. “I need you . . . to hear this,” he says, cradling my head in his hands. “I . . . will never . . . regret you.”

Beat, beat, pause.

Contract, expand.

Inhale, exhale.

I just officially lost the war on my heart. I don’t even bother verbalizing a response to him. My reaction can be seen in my tears. He leans forward and presses his lips to my forehead; then he drops his hands and slowly backs away from me. With each move he makes to pull apart from me, I feel my heart crumbling. I can almost hear us being ripped apart. I can almost hear his heart tearing in two, crashing to the floor right next to mine.

As much as I know he should leave, I’m a breath away from begging him to stay. I want to fall to my knees, right next to our shattered hearts, and beg him to choose me. The pathetic part of me wants to beg him just to kiss me, even if he doesn’t choose me.