Page 92 of Resist

I stare at the items as tears burn my eyes and then win the battle, slipping down my cheeks, and then step past them without picking them up.

The house is cold and empty when I enter, and all I want is Lucy right now. To bury my nose in the sweet spot of her neck that smells like her strawberry shampoo and little girl and breathe her in as she snores softly in the bed beside me.

Feeling like a different person when nothing has really changed, I just stand and stare at the things in my place for a moment, really look at the memories that make up each one and partially feel like a farce. Like I don’t deserve them when Sam struggled through so much.

“You get one day for a pity party. Only one,” I murmur to myself, more than aware I’m still in last night’s clothes, clothes that smell slightly of Ryker’s cologne, and that I need a shower. But I plug my phone in, the battery long dead; open the freezer to pull out the gallon of ice cream in there; and start eating it.

Within moments, my phone begins to chirp and alert and notify me of texts and missed calls and voice mails, and the guilt returns again. Over how I left Ryker. And over what exactly I’m supposed to say to him to explain.

How about the truth?

But the truth is ugly and shameful and—

And almost as if on cue, my cell begins to ring. I close my eyes and wish the sound away but know it won’t stop. I know that it’s Ryker, and even more, I know that he won’t give up because he’s already proven how persistent he is.

The call goes to voice mail and then within seconds begins again.

Frustrated, high on emotions, and more than embarrassed that once again I ran out on him, I answer the phone with a vitriol he doesn’t deserve.

“Just stop!” I shout into the phone. “Stop calling me and sending me things and—”

“Fucking Christ, it’s about time you answered your phone!” His anger is valid, but I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear the worry in his voice and the relief that tinges all of its edges. “What the hell, Vaughn? You just up and disappear? I fucking freaked out when I saw . . . when I thought . . . you know what—never mind.”

“When you thought what?” I ask, teeth gritted, pulse racing, a fight just what I’m looking for to take this aimless emotion out on, even though he’s not at fault.

“Nothing.”

“What?” I shout at him.

“When I got up, the balcony door was open.” His voice is a quiet resignation that reverberates within me until it hits me what he thought had happened.

The fuse to my temper is lit.

The fight I was looking for front and center.

“You think that just because my sister committed suicide I would too?” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. Just hurt. Just misery.

“That’s not even funny.”

“You’re the asshole who thought it.”

“Christ. Fuck.” A frustrated sigh fills the line, and I hate that I can picture him in his house now. I hate that I can see him standing there at the wall of windows, shoulders set with tension, hand running through his hair as he tries to make sense of things I can’t even make sense of. “I was worried. Then pissed. Then worried again. Are you okay?”

The raw emotion in his voice guts me.

“I’m fine.”

“Did you—did I do something—never mind.”

Everything feels too raw. Too real. All of these emotions I feel have been muted for so long they feel like I’ve just had the earplugs taken out, and they are blaringly loud. Metallica has returned. But in a way that I want to shout out now but can’t.

I don’t want to care about him. I don’t want to feel all these feelings I feel for him when he tells me he was worried about me. I don’t deserve the chance to care about him.

You’re being crazy. Batshit, certifiable crazy. No wonder he worried that you jumped off the damn balcony.

“Vaughn?” Searching. Asking.

Rein it in. Deep breath.