“We should probably figure out what to do for the night.” He sounded just as tired as I felt. He played with the cell phone in his hands and I could see the indecision flicker over his face. He had no idea what to say to his dad. He’d just told me he planned to stay with me, but now that the moment was here, he couldn’t follow through with it.
To be honest, I was relieved that he figured this out now, instead of when we were already on the road. And I was happy he’d come to this conclusion.
Okay… not happy exactly. But at least relieved.
He shouldn’t have to give up a family that loved and supported him. He shouldn’t have to give up his future and his friends and all of the good things he had going on in his life.
I was a dead end. The sooner he realized that, the better.
“What are you going to tell your dad?” I asked in a strangled whisper. I had known the ugly truth about who I was for my entire life. But knowing it for all of these years didn’t soften the blow when moments like this happened.
Not for the first time, my mind jumped to all of those beautiful places where Ryder and I could be together, where we never separated to begin with. I imagined my life if I was a normal girl, if I was a girl untouched by tragedy and trauma, if I was a girl that wasn’t meant to bring down a Greek Pantheon or be a slave to the sex-trafficking industry for the rest of her days. I imagined what it would have been like for Ryder and me to have met under normal teenage circumstances where we could have fallen in love without the pressure of my curse hanging over our heads and the twisting knife of fate stabbing our hearts.
I imagined what my life would have been like if I hadn’t left Ryder at the hospital, if I would have stayed with him and let him fight my destiny with me.
I imagined what it would be like for him to still love me.
“The truth,” Ryder answered. “I’m going to tell him the truth.”
“Wait-”
“He knows, Ivy. He knows everything.” Ryder slowly lifted his gaze to meet mine. “I told him the entire saga as soon as I knew you weren’t coming back. He had already known the majority of it. I didn’t see the point in holding anything back.”
My frantic thoughts tripped over each other as I tried to figure out where to start. “Did he… How did he… What did he think?”
“He was pretty disappointed that he couldn’t sue Nix for all he was worth.”
“And he hates me.”
“He’s worried about you. We didn’t know what happened to you, Ivy. We’ve been expecting the worst for months.”
A fresh pang of guilt hit me. “What will he think now?”
“He won’t have to think,” Ryder answered. “When I told him everything about you and your world, I also made it clear what would happen if you ever came back. He’s been ready for this for as long as you’ve been gone.”
“You made it clear that…?”
“That if you came back and it wasn’t safe yet, I would go with you this time.” He sounded so casually confident while he delivered a blow that left me breathless.
My mouth went dry and my heart stuttered. “Oh, right.”
He picked up his phone and waved it at me, “I’m going to…”
“Right.”
He dialed his dad and immediately started explaining. I sat stewing with my emotional turmoil while I listened to him give his dad all of the dirty details over the last twenty-four hours.
I expected his dad to yell at him or demand he come straight home, but it didn’t sound like any of that was happening. Ryder never raised his voice or got defensive. Instead, he had a very reasonable conversation with his dad that ended in I love yous and promises to call soon.
“He’s going home to look for my passport,” Ryder explained after he hung up the phone. “Once he finds it, we’ll figure out how to grab it from him and where to book our flight.”
“He’s really cool with all of this?” No matter what Ryder said, I could not believe his dad was just fine with letting his only son go.
“He’s not cool with any of it.” Ryder ran a hand through his riotous hair and shot me an impish grin. “But I’m eighteen now. There’s not a whole lot he can do.”
“Ryder-”
“Don’t, Ivy. I… It’s hard enough for me, okay? Why don’t you try to get some rest? I’ll wait for him to call me back, then we’ll figure out what to do next.”
