Maybe Someday (Maybe #1)(61)

I look over at the nightstand when the screen on my phone lights up. I tuck the covers more securely around Maggie and bend forward and kiss her cheek, then reach for my phone.

Sydney: Not that you haven’t done enough, but could you please tell Warren to turn the volume down on the porn?

I laugh and text Warren.

Me: Turn the porn down. It’s so loud even I can hear it.

I stand and walk into Sydney’s room to check on her. She’s flat on her back, staring up at the ceiling. I sit on the edge of her bed, reach to her face, and brush back a strand of hair from her forehead.

She tilts her face toward me and smiles, then picks up her phone. Her body is so weak she makes it look as if the phone weighs fifty pounds when she tries to text me.

I take the phone from her and shake my head, letting her know she just needs to rest. I set the phone on her nightstand and bring my attention back to her. Her head is relaxed against the pillow. Her hair is in waves, trailing down her shoulders. I run my fingers over a section of her sun-kissed hair, admiring how soft it is. She tilts her face toward my hand until her cheek is resting flush against it. I brush across her cheekbone with my thumb and watch as her eyes fall closed. The lyrics I wrote about her flash through my mind: Lines are drawn, but then they fade. For her I bend, for you I break.

What kind of man does that make me? If I can’t prevent myself from falling for another girl, do I even deserve Maggie? I refuse to answer that, because I know that if I don’t deserve Maggie, I also don’t deserve Sydney. The thought of losing either of them, much less both of them, is something I can’t bring myself to entertain. I lift my hand and trace the edge of Sydney’s face with my fingertips, running them across her hairline, down her jaw, and up her chin, until my fingers reach her lips. I slowly trace the shape of her mouth, feeling the warm waves of breath pass her lips each time I circle around them. She opens her eyes, and the familiar pool of pain floats behind them.

She lifts a hand to my fingers. She pulls them firmly to her mouth and kisses them, then pulls our hands away, bringing them to rest on her stomach.

I’m looking at our hands now. She opens a flat palm, and I do the same, and we press them together.

I don’t know a lot about the human body, but I would be willing to bet there’s a nerve that runs directly from the palm of the hand, straight to the heart.

Our fingers are outstretched until she laces them together, squeezing gently when our hands connect completely, weaving together.

It’s the first time I’ve ever held her hand.

We stare at our hands for what feels like an eternity. Every feeling and every nerve are centered in our palms, in our fingers, in our thumbs, occasionally brushing back and forth over one another.

Our hands mold together perfectly, just like the two of us.

Sydney and me.

I’m convinced that people come across others in life whose souls are completely compatible with their own. Some refer to them as soul mates. Some refer to it as true love. Some people believe their souls are compatible with more than one person, and I’m beginning to understand how true that might be. I’ve known since the moment I met Maggie years ago that our souls were compatible, and they are. That’s not even a question.

However, I also know that my soul is compatible with Sydney’s, but it’s also so much more than that. Our souls aren’t just compatible—they’re perfectly attuned. I feel everything she feels. I understand things she never even has to say. I know that what she needs is exactly what I could give her, and what she’s wishing she could give me is something I never even knew I needed.

She understands me. She respects me. She astounds me. She predicts me. She’s never once, since the second I met her, made me feel as if my inability to hear is even an inability at all.

I can also tell just by looking at her that she’s falling in love with me. It serves as further proof that I need to do what should have been done a long time ago.

I very reluctantly lean forward, reach over to her nightstand, and grab a pen. I pull my fingers from hers and open her palm to write on it: I need you to move out.

I close her fingers over her palm so she doesn’t read it while I’m watching her, and I walk away, leaving behind an entire half of my heart as I go.





Chapter Seventeen


Sydney

I watch as he closes the door behind him. I’m clutching my hand to my chest, terrified to read what he wrote.

I saw the look in his eyes.

I saw the heartache, the regret, the fear . . . the love.

I keep my hand clutched tightly to my chest without reading it. I refuse to accept that whatever words are written on my palm will obliterate what little hope I had for our maybe someday.

? ? ?

My body flinches, and my eyes flick open.

I don’t know what just woke me up, but I was in the middle of a dead sleep. It’s dark. I sit up on the bed and press my hand to my forehead, wincing from the pain. I don’t feel nauseated anymore, but I’ve never in my life been this thirsty. I need water.

I stand up and stretch my arms above my head, then glance down to the alarm clock: 2:45 A.M.

Thank God. I could still use about three more days of sleep to recover from this hangover.

I’m walking toward Ridge’s bathroom when an unfamiliar feeling washes over me. I pause before reaching the door. I’m not sure why I pause, but I suddenly feel out of place.