I cringed.
“Why didn’t you just tell her?” He glanced at his phone rather nonchalantly. “Given the timeline that was just texted to me, you haddaysto spit it out. A reasonable person would have sat her down the minute they found out. Are you a reasonable person, Ryan?”
The girls were texting him? That meant Willow was talking to them. And if the girls were trying to sort through everything, it meant I had a chance.
I needed to get out of these fucking handcuffs.
Miles appeared behind me, hunching over my left shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell her when you found out? Why did you keep it from her?” He tapped my other shoulder with the rubber chicken. “Was it just a game to you? A bet? A dare?”
“It wasn’t a fucking game,” I clipped. “I cared about her. I loved her. Fuck—I still love her.”
He straightened and circled the chair again, resting his shoulder against the wall. “If youreallyloved her, you would have told her the first chance you got,” he said, taunting me. “Love is hard, bro. Sometimes it means you gotta have the uncomfy conversations. So, did you love her or did you just?—”
“I love her!” I shouted. “I love her, but I did her wrong in an attempt to do right. I love her, and wanted everything to be so fucking perfect so there would be no way she could deny that we were made for each other. I tried to control everything. I tried to fix every situation so that every answer would be yes instead of risking her saying that she didn’t want me. I . . .”
I froze as realization dawned.
“I never gave her a chance to be in the relationshipwithme.” I shook my head in disbelief and stared at the painfully bright fluorescent light panels set into the ceiling. “It was all me. I wanted her and I never gave her a chance to participate. I put on a fucking show and made her sit in the audience rather than pulling her up to dance with me. I tried to show her what it was supposed to look like instead of letting us stumble through it together.”
Miles clapped his hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eye. “Told you. The chair builds character.” He strutted to the wall where the door was and touched a panel.
What had once been a stark white wall cleared, revealing a mirror. Three people stood on the other side of the room, watching.
“Did I pass?” he asked.
The fancy British man looked entirely unimpressed. He pressed a button, and I heard a speaker crack overhead. “That was a rather unconventional interrogation, but yes. Since you successfully got him to admit the information without violence, I suppose you passed, Mr. Zhou.”
“Hell yeah. Thanks for being my test subject. Had to do my annual interrogation audit so I’m on my A-game as one of Keller’s finest asses,” Miles said as he produced a key and unlocked the handcuffs. “Now, let’s go get your girl back.”
FROM SHEP
To my brave daughter,
Life isn’t always easy. In fact, it rarely is. What we think we want is usually not even close to what we need. I’m sorry that California wasn’t what you and I hoped it would be for you.
The world is often an unkind place. I wish that I could swoop in and fix it all. No matter how old you get, you’ll always be my baby girl. But having everything fixed for you would take the living out of life.
What’s important is that you find pockets of beauty in the world that reflect your heart, then cherish and nurture them to leave those pockets better than you found it for the next person.
It can be easy to think, just because someone is in your life for a time, that their direction in life is aligned with yours.
Pursue your dreams unapologetically. Pursue yourself unapologetically, then look left and right to see who’s traveling beside you—not who’s waving at you while they move in the opposite direction.
Life is full of intersections. Honor them while you pass through, but keep chasing the parallel lines.
I’m proud of you for choosing yourself instead of waiting for someone to choose you. I hope that you fall in love with the road as much as I have. Life becomes a beautiful thing when you step outside of the ordinary and challenge what is expected of you and what you expect of yourself.
And if my opinion counts for anything, I think you’re headed for a beautiful life.
Love,
Dad
35
AUTUMN
Me
