I step through the door and into the elevator. When I turn to push the first floor, I notice Colton standing in the doorway of the penthouse. His mouth twists as he watches me with aloof eyes and a hardened expression.

I continue to stare at him as the doors start to close, a single tear falling down my cheek—the only betrayal my body displays of my sadness and humiliation. I am finally alone. I sag against the wall, allowing the emotions to overcome me yet still fighting the tears swimming in my eyes for I still have to find a way home.

***

The cab ride is quick but painful. My quiet sobs in the backseat do nothing to alleviate the brutal reality of what just happened. When we pull up to the house a little after three in the morning, I’m glad to see that Haddie is home but asleep, for I can’t handle her questions right now.

I slip into my room and flip on my IPOD speakers to a barely audible volume, scroll for “Unwell” and push repeat. As Rob Thomas’ voice melts the familiar words into me, I shed my clothes and step into my shower. I smell of Colton and of sex, and I scrub obsessively to try and get his scent off of me. It doesn’t matter though, no matter what I do, I can still smell him. I can still taste him. I can still feel him. I allow the water to wash away my torrent of tears, hiding my hiccupping sobs in its rushing sound.

When I’m waterlogged and the tears have subsided, I pick myself up off the shower floor that I’d slid down onto, and make my way into my bedroom. I throw on a camisole and a pair of panties before collapsing into the comforting warmth of my bed and succumb to sleep.


CHAPTER 13


I can smell fuel and dirt and something pungently metallic. It fills my nostrils, seeping into my head before I feel the pain. In that quiet moment before my other senses are assaulted with the destruction around me, I feel at peace. I feel still and whole. For some reason my consciousness knows I’ll look back on this and wish I had this moment back. Wish I could remember what it was like before.

The pain comes first. Even before my head can clear the fog away enough so that I can open my eyes, the pain comes. There are no words to describe the agony of feeling like you have a million knives entering you and ripping you apart, just to withdraw and start all over again. And again. Endlessly.

In that second between unconscious and consciousness, I feel this jagged pain. My eyes fly open, frantic breaths gulp for air. Each breath hurting, burning, laboring. My eyes see the devastation around me, but my brain doesn’t register the shattered glass, smoking engine, and crushed metal. My mind doesn’t understand why my arm, bent at so many odd angles, won’t move to undo my seatbelt. Why it can’t release me.

I feel as if everything is in slow motion. I can see dust particles drift silently through the air. I can feel the trickle of blood run ever so slowly down my neck. I can feel the incremental inching of numbness taking over my legs. I can feel the hopelessness seep into my psyche, take hold of my soul, and dig its malicious fingers into my every fiber.

I can hear him. Can hear Max’s gurgled breathing, and even in my shock-induced haze I’m mad at myself for not looking for him more quickly. I turn my head to my left and there he sits. His beautiful wavy blonde hair is tinged red, the gaping gash in his head looks odd to me. I want to ask him what happened to him but my mouth isn’t working. It can’t form the words. Panic and fear fills his eyes, and pain creases his tanned, flawless face. A small trickle of blood is coming from his ear and I think this is a bad thing but I’m not sure why. He coughs. It sounds funny, and little specks of red appear on the shattered window in front of us. I see his hand travel across the car, fumbling over every item between him and me as if he needs touch to guide him. He fumbles aimlessly until he finds my hand. I can’t feel his fingers grip mine, but my eyes see the connection.

“Ry,” he gasps. “Ry, look at me.” I have to concentrate really hard to raise my head and eyes to meet Max’s. I feel the warmth of a tear fall on my cheek, the salt of it on my lips, but I don’t remember crying. “Ry, I’m not doing too good here.” I watch as he unsuccessfully attempts to take a deep breath but my attention is drawn elsewhere when I think I hear a baby crying. I swivel my head to look, but there is nothing but pine trees and the sudden movement makes me dizzy.

“Rylee! I need you to concentrate. To look at me,” he pants in short bursts of breaths. I swing my head back at him. It’s Colton. What’s he doing here? Why is he covered in blood? Why is he in Max’s seat? In Max’s clothes? In Max’s place?

“Rylee,” he begs, “Please help me. Please save me.” He sucks in a labored, ragged breath, his fingers relaxing in mine. His voice is barely a whisper. “Rylee, only you can save me. I’m dying. I need you to save me.” His head lolls to the side slowly, his mouth parting as the blood at the corner of it thickens, his beautiful emerald eyes expressionless.

I can hear the screaming. It is loud and piercing and heart wrenching. It continues over and over.

“Rylee! Rylee!” I fight off the hands grabbing me. Shaking me. Pulling me away from Colton when he needs me so desperately. “Damn it, Rylee, wake up!”

I hear Haddie’s voice. How did she get down this ravine? Has she come to save us?

“Rylee!” I’m jolted back and forth again violently. “Rylee, wake up!”

I bolt up in bed, Haddie’s arms wrapping around my shoulders. My throat is dry, pained from screaming, and my hair is plastered to my sweat drenched neck. I heave for breath, strangled gasps that mingle with Haddie’s quickened pants of exertion, the only sounds I hear. My hands are wrapped protectively around my torso, arms tired from straining so hard.

Haddie runs her hands down the sides of my cheeks, her face inches from mine. “You okay, Ry? Breathe deep, sweetie. Just breathe,” she soothes, her hands running continuously over me, reassuring me, letting me know I’m in the here and now.

I sigh shakily and put my head in my hands for a moment before scrubbing them over my face. Haddie sits down next to me and wraps her arm around me. “Was it the same one?” she asks, referring to my recurring nightmare that was a staple in my nightly slumber for well over a year after the accident.

“Yes and no,” I shake my head. She doesn’t ask, but rather gives me more time to shake the nightmare away. “It was all the same except for when I look back after I hear the baby crying, it’s Colton, not Max, who dies.”

She startles at my comment, her brow furrowing. “You haven’t had a nightmare in forever. Are you okay, Ry? You want to talk about it?” she says straining her neck to hear the muted music on the speakers I’d forgotten to turn off before falling asleep. Her eyes narrow as she recognizes the repeating song and it’s inference about my state of mind. “What did he do to you?” She demands, pulling back from me so that she can sit cross-legged in front of me. Anger burns in her eyes.

“I’m just a mess,” I confess, shaking my head. “It’s just that it’s been so long. I feel like I’ve forgotten what Max’s face looks like, and then I see him so clearly in my dream … and then the suffocating panic hits being trapped in the car. Maybe I’m just overwhelmed by the emotion of everything.” I pick at my comforter, avoiding her questioning gaze. “Maybe it’s been so long since I have really felt anything that tonight just pushed me over the edge … just overwhelmed me with …”

“With what Rylee?” she prompts when I remain silent.

“Guilt.” I say the word quietly and let it hang between us. Haddie reaches out and grabs my hand, squeezing it softly to reassure me. “I feel so guilty and hurt and used and so everything,” I gush.

“Used? What the hell happened, Rylee? Do I need to go kick the arrogant bastard’s ass right now?” she threatens, “because I’ll switch my tune. I mean, I was impressed when he called earlier to make sure that you’d gotten home all right and that—”

“He what?”

“He called at like 3:30 … somewhere around there. I answered the phone. Didn’t even know you were home. Anyway I came in here to check and told him you were home and asleep. He asked me to have you call him. That he needed to explain—that you took something the wrong way.”

“Hmmph,” is all I can say, mulling over her words. He actually called?

“What happened, Rylee?” she asks yet again, but this time I know she won’t be ignored easily.

I relay the entire evening to her from the point I left her until she woke me up screaming. I include my feelings about comparing “the after” to Max and how hurt and rejected I felt. “I guess I feel guilty because of the whole Max thing. I loved Max. I loved him with every fiber of my being. But sex with him—making love with him—came nowhere near what it felt like with Colton. I mean, I hardly even know Colton and he just turned on every switch and pushed every button from physical to emotional that …” I search for words, overwhelmed by everything. “I don’t know. I guess I feel like sex should have been like that with the guy I loved so much I was going to marry rather than someone that could care less about me.” I shrug, “Someone who just thinks of me as another notch on his bedpost.”

“Well, I can’t tell you that you’re wrong to feel, Rylee. If Colton made you feel alive after years of being dead, then I don’t see what’s wrong with it.” She squeezes my hand again, sincerity deepening the blue in her eyes. “Max is never coming back, Rylee. Do you think he’d want you be numb forever?”

“No.” I shake my head, wiping away a silent tear. “I know that. Really I do. But it doesn’t make the guilt go away that I’m here and he’s not.”