He was the one who was clearly hurt. I couldn’t see any marks on him, but the stiff way he held himself made me suspect that he was in a great deal of pain.
“What happened to you?” I whispered. For a moment, I didn’t think he was going to answer me. He just stared at me with that scary, dead look on his face, and I quivered with anxiety.
This was not my Cal. What happened to my happy-go-lucky psychopath?
“We’re done, Ryan.”
What?
Was this some kind of fucking joke?
I let out a shaky laugh that I think was actually a choked sob.
“Ha ha. That’s funny,” I chirped, stepping closer to him. He just eyed me warily, his face more serious than I had ever seen it. “Since when do you call me Ryan?”
“That’s your name.”
“Yeah, but… usually you call me ginger snap.”
Orbaby.
He just stared at me with that empty look on his face.
“Cal… I don’t know what happened, but why don’t you come inside so we can talk about it?” I tried again, but he shook his head.
“That’s not a good idea.”
“Why not? Cal, what’s going on?” My voice was cracking. My heart felt like it was breaking in my chest.
What the fuck was happening right now?
“Go inside, Ryan.”
“No. Not without you. Did you get any of my messages? I’ve been so worried about you, Cal. Please just tell me what happened?—”
“Are you fucking deaf?” he snapped, and I flinched. I literallyflinched.He had never spoken to me like that before, and his dark eyes were burning with pain and anger. “I said we’re fucking done. Don’t text me again. Lose my number. This was amistake.”
“A… a mistake?” I whispered, feeling like my whole world was falling apart.
“Yes. A mistake.Youwere a mistake. I should have known better than to get involved with you.”
“Cal…” My eyes were literally filled with tears now. I had no idea when my feelings for him had changed from irritation to something that I might have considered close tolove,but they had. Somehow, I couldn’t imagine my life going back to what it had been before him. I couldn’t lose him.
“Go inside, Ryan. I don’t want you anymore,” he said, and a strange roaring started up in my ears at his words.
For a moment, all I could feel was anguish and pure devastation. He might as well have fucking shot me in the chest. It would have hurt less.
I don’t want you…anymore.
It was the ‘anymore’that rang through my head like a warning bell, signaling that everything was not as it seemed.
I examined his face and forced down the overwhelming feelings of heartache and pain, doing my best to think critically about what was happening.
He didn’t want me‘anymore.’But he wanted me before. I know he did. He’d just been gone for a week, and Vox told me he had more or less been being tortured. I could tell that he’d been through something horrible just by looking at him. The way he was treating me was night and fucking day from the Cal I knew.
The only thing that had changed between the last time I saw him and now was the week he’d spent at the mercy of that horrible man.
One thing I knew about Cal was he always put the safety of the people he cared about before his own.
