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“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why’d he end it?”

I pick at a loose thread on the blanket. “We weren’t right for each other.”

“Bullshit.”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s the answer you give your mother.”

“You don’t know my mother.”

“Everybody knows your mother.”

Fair.

“He said we’d become predictable.”

Ryder turns his head. “What?”

“Predictable.”

“He actually said that?”

“Yes.”

“Idiot.”

I laugh softly. “You don’t have to say that.”

“I’m not being nice.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“He was going to marry you.”

“Apparently not.”

“His mistake.”

Something about the way he says it makes me look away.

“He wasn’t completely wrong.”

“About?”

“Me.”

Ryder’s expression changes.

“I’ve lived in Devil’s Peak my whole life. I work at the library. I bought a house six blocks from my parents. I order the same thing every Friday from the same restaurant.”

“Sounds efficient.”

“I’ve never done anything.”