He smelled her perfume. Vanilla and rain. It was the same scent that haunted his guest room.
"You look beautiful, Lena," he whispered.
She looked up. Her eyes were dark, unguarded for the first time in weeks.
"Don't," she said. "Don't do the charm."
"It's not charm," Ryder said. "It's the truth. I watched you from the corner. And I realized that watching some science teacher hold you hurt more than the femur break."
Elena’s breath hitched.
"He's nice," she said weakly. "He's safe."
"I know," Ryder said. "And I'm dangerous. I know the script."
He leaned his forehead against hers. He closed his eyes.
"But he doesn't know how you breathe when you're asleep," Ryder whispered. "And he doesn't know that you hate this song."
Elena went still.
"I do hate this song," she admitted softly.
"I know."
The world shrank. The noise of the hall faded. There was just the heat of her body, the scent of her hair, and the desperate, aching pull of the past.
Ryder shifted his weight. He leaned into her.
She didn't pull away. She leaned back. She was holding him up.
"Ryder," she whispered.
He tilted his head. His lips were inches from hers.
He could feel the tremble in her hands. He knew, with absolute certainty, that she wanted this as much as he did. The biology didn't lie.
He closed the gap.
IV. The Sway
Their lips were millimeters apart. Ryder could feel the warmth of her breath, taste the faint hint of the wine she had been drinking. He closed his eyes, surrendering to the gravity that had been pulling on him for six years.
He leaned forward those last few millimeters.
His mouth brushed hers.
It wasn't a kiss. It was a collision of ghosts. It was electricity jumping a gap that should have been unbridgeable.
For half a second, Elena softened against him. Her hands on his shoulders tightened, her fingers digging into the muscles of his neck. She made a small, desperate sound in her throat—a sound that belonged to the girl by the creek, not the doctor in the clinic.
Then, she froze.
Ryder felt the change instantly. The warmth turned to ice. The yielding body turned rigid.
Elena gasped. It was a sharp, panicked intake of air, like someone surfacing from deep water.
She ripped herself away.
