Maybe Someday(89)

present.

I lean my head against my open bedroom door

and stare at his hands still gripping the

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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 try-

ing to break away. I’m reciprocating. I’m hug-

ging 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, un-

controlled 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 nev-

er even had the chance to live.

The death of us.

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Ridge and I remain clasped together for sever-

al 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, be-

cause 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.

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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 mo-

ment 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 ex-

actly 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 fo-

cus. His voice reminds me of a photograph in a

way. I can understand his words, but they’re out

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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 be-

fore 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

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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.

But the part of me that ultimately wins is the

part that keeps her mouth shut, because I know

Maggie deserves him more than I do.

I keep my hands to my sides as he backs away

another step, preparing to turn through my bed-