Midnight Lily(60)

"Yes," I said, feeling as if I might be sick. "Yes, that's for the best." My body was cold and shaky. Ryan took a step backward. I opened my mouth to beg him not to go, but snapped it shut. This was for him. And really, this was for me, too. This was for the best. Wasn't it?

"Why'd you come to San Francisco?" he demanded.

"Why?"

"Yes. If what you felt for me wasn't real, then why are you here?"

"The hospital . . . it's one of the best and—"

"That's a lie. There are plenty of good hospitals all over the United States. Why here?"

I released a breath. "I just . . . I wanted to make sure you were doing okay. I wanted to be able to check on you, to see you. I was worried, I—"

"You did care."

"Yes, of course I cared. I know what it's like to be sick and alone. But that's all. I checked on you, but I never meant to see you again."

"You were following me. I saw you. God, Lily, I thought I was going crazy again." He put his hand on his forehead and leaned his head back, gazing at the ceiling for a moment before looking back down, directly into my eyes. No. No, he was never meant to notice me.

I blinked. "I didn't know you saw me. I'm sorry."

"You're sorry? Jesus." He ran his fingers through his hair, already tousled as if he'd been running his hand through it before he even got here. I remembered the feel of that hair, remembered the texture as if it were a memory branded into my skin. "You're sorry," he repeated as I chewed at my lip.

"You thought I was nothing more than a vision," I said, the hurt of that, the ridiculous, irrational hurt finding me again. But maybe it would make it easier for him to walk away now. And that was a good thing. It had to be.

"And yet I still longed for you. I should have known." He looked off behind me for a moment. "It's just that everything was . . . and I had a hard time trusting myself—"

"I know. I understand."

Something came into his expression. Something I couldn't read, something intense. "You don't think it's fate? That we met each other? And then that we were at the same damn party? How is that not fate? We found each other once, through that huge expanse of forest—two people reaching for each other in the dark. Take my hand, Lily. Grasp on to me now. Please." He reached his hand out toward me, begging me with his eyes. I sucked in a gasp of air, raising my hand. Just as I knew the soft texture of his hair—longed to run my fingers through it again—his strong, graceful hands had touched me intimately. They'd touched my body and my soul. I ached for his touch again. Just one touch, Lily. Feel his love one more time. Our fingertips brushed.

Behind Ryan, I saw the woman with the aquarium badge walk past, glance at us and hurry away. There was my answer. There was my fate. Not Ryan. Never him . . . "I have to go," I breathed. I dropped my hand. "No, Ryan, I have to go. We can never be together. Never. Don't contact me again. I have to go." Ryan stared at me for a second and then dropped his own hand, stepping aside.

"Go then."

I moved around him and hurried toward the entrance, resisting the urge to break into sobs.

**********

"Hey, girl," Nyala said, swinging the door open and turning away immediately. "Close it behind you. I'm writing." I shut the door and headed toward her office, the despair of my run-in with Ryan making me feel slow, sluggish, heartsick.

I had left the aquarium needing a friend, needing Nyala. I'd called her, but she hadn't answered. I knew that didn't mean she wasn't home and available, though—she rarely answered her phone—so I'd hoped for the best and taken the bus to her duplex in The Mission.

"Sorry, Nyala. I don't want to interrupt you." Ny had only been home for a couple months, and I'd only visited her here once in that time. She would check herself into the hospital when she felt as if she were unraveling. She'd been there a handful of times over the year I'd been treated, and we'd become fast friends despite not having a whole lot in common—on the surface at least. She was in her fifties, wore her hair in long dreadlocks that fell down her back, and usually dressed in bright African-print dresses. She was warm and wonderful, and I thought of her as a mother figure, albeit one who was unpredictable and given to flights of fancy. At least, that's how I put it. The doctors would describe it differently I was certain.

"No, no, I can put the writing aside for now. I can just as easily talk while I sculpt. Let me just close this file, and I'll get my hands busy doing that." Nyala was in one of her manic-creative moods. It was either create or die, or at least that's the way she described it. Sometimes she'd stay up three or four days straight, moving between writing, sculpting, and painting. Then she'd sleep for a week. She never minded me visiting when she was in one of these moods, though. In fact, the more things she was doing at once, the better, or so it seemed, even when she was in the hospital and art supplies were limited. She hit some keys on her computer and then stood up, gesturing for me to follow her. She opened the door to the room at the back of her apartment, the one that overlooked the garden and had windows on three walls letting in lots of natural light. She had several easels set up and a table where it looked like she was creating the bust of a woman. She sat down in front of the clay and started working it with her hands.