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Ryan
“How is this okay?”Emily asks, looking around the room.
James laughs. “I know a guy,” he says.
She shakes her head, smiling at him. “I shouldn’t be so surprised.”
“No, you shouldn’t be.” He steps toward her. “I’m glad you came.”
She looks around at us and I can’t help but smile.
This last month, ever since we left Henry’s place, has been hell for me. I haven’t been able to get Emily off my mind for even a single second, and I didn’t know what the fuck to do with myself.
I’ve never, ever felt this way before. I’ve been hung up on girls before, but not in a long time, and never like this. Every day, I woke up thinking about Emily, wondering when I’d see her again, and each night I went to sleep imagining that she was nearby.
I lost myself in tennis. That’s the only way I knew how to get past a thing like this. I had to push my body to the limits, working out every single day, doing the same drills over and over and over until my hands were sore and my muscles ached. And then I’d go to sleep, and do it again the next day.
I played some of my best tennis, as it turned out. Won a little tournament over in Cleveland, although the competition wasn’t that great. Still, it was a good way to try and forget about her, at least for a little while.
At least until I went back to my hotel at night, got into bed, and dreamed about her lips against mine.
Now standing here in this room in the Writers House, I can’t help but feel all of that again, and more. The moment she left back there in the motel, that was one of the lowest moments of my life. I wanted to chase after her, but Daniel stopped me.
“Let her go,” he said back then. “She made her choice.”
I wish I hadn’t listened. Now, Daniel’s here with us, looking worse for wear. I wish he hadn’t listened to himself. I think he took her leaving the hardest, or at least he dealt with it in the worst way. He’s clearly barely hanging on, just sobering up after a month-long bender. Aiden said they found him drunk in the gutter, apparently after having been thrown out of a high-stakes poker match for cheating.
“What are we doing here?” she asks finally.
“I think you know,” Aiden says.
She shakes her head. “I’m honestly not sure.”
“James and Aiden got us all together,” I say softly. She turns her pretty eyes toward me and I feel something flutter in my chest. “We were all thinking about you. I don’t think any of us could stop.”
“I could stop,” Daniel grumbles. “At least when I was blacked out drunk.”
Her eyes go slightly wide. “You’re back here for me?”
“Of course we are,” Aiden says softly.
“We shouldn’t have let you leave,” James adds. “That was a mistake.”
“I chose to walk out,” she says, frowning. “That was my choice.”
“It was the wrong choice,” I say seriously.
Daniel doesn’t disagree with me this time.
“We want to see you,” Carter says, moving toward her. “We want to try and make this work.”
“Work?” She looks bewildered. “How?”
“I have some ideas,” Aiden says softly.
“But… why?” She seems genuinely confused. “I thought… that was just because of the house.”
“No,” I say sternly. “Not at all.”
