Beat, beat, pause.

Contract, expand.

Inhale, exhale.

I just officially lost the war on my heart. I don’t even bother verbalizing a response to him. My reaction can be seen in my tears. He leans forward and presses his lips to my forehead; then he drops his hands and slowly backs away from me. With each move he makes to pull apart from me, I feel my heart crumbling. I can almost hear us being ripped apart. I can almost hear his heart tearing in two, crashing to the floor right next to mine.

As much as I know he should leave, I’m a breath away from begging him to stay. I want to fall to my knees, right next to our shattered hearts, and beg him to choose me. The pathetic part of me wants to beg him just to kiss me, even if he doesn’t choose me.

But the part of me that ultimately wins is the part that keeps her mouth shut, because I know Maggie deserves him more than I do.

I keep my hands to my sides as he backs away another step, preparing to turn through my bedroom door. Our eyes are still locked, but when my phone sounds off in my pocket, I jump, quickly tearing my gaze from his. I hear his phone vibrate in his pocket. The sudden interruption of both of our phones is only obvious to me until he sees me opening my cell phone at the same time as he pulls his out of his pocket. Our eyes meet briefly, but the interruption of the outside world seems to have brought us both back to the reality of our situation. Back to the fact that his heart belongs with someone else, and this is still good-bye.

I watch as he reads his text first. I’m unable to take my eyes off of him in order to read mine. His expression quickly becomes tortured by whatever words he’s reading, and he slowly shakes his head.

He winces.

Until this very moment, I’d never seen a heart break right before my eyes. Whatever he just read has completely shattered him.

He doesn’t look at me again. In one swift movement, he grips his phone tightly in his hand as if it’s become an extension of him, and he heads straight for the front door and swings it open. I step out into the living room, watching him in fear as I walk toward the front door. He doesn’t even shut the door behind him as he takes the stairs two at a time, jumping over the edge of the railing to shave off another half a second in his frantic race to get to wherever it is he desperately needs to be.

I look down at my phone and unlock the screen. Maggie’s number shows as the last incoming text message. I open it and see that Ridge and I were the only recipients. I read it carefully, immediately recognizing the familiar string of words she’s typed out to both of us.

Maggie: “Maggie showed up last night an hour after I got back to my room. I was convinced you were going to barge in and tell her what a jerk I am for kissing you.”

I immediately walk to the couch and sit, no longer able to support my body weight. Her words knocked the breath out of me, sucked the strength from my limbs, and robbed me of any sense of dignity I thought I had left.

I try to recall the medium through which Ridge’s words were initially typed.

His laptop.

Oh, no. Our messages.

Maggie is reading our messages. No, no, no.

She won’t understand. She’ll only see the words that’ll hurt. She won’t be able to see how much Ridge has been fighting this for her.

Another text shows up from Maggie, and I don’t want to read it. I don’t want to see our conversation through Maggie’s eyes.

Maggie: “I never thought it was possible to have honest feelings for more than one person, but you’ve convinced me of how incredibly wrong I was.”

I turn my phone on silent and toss it onto the couch beside me, then start crying into my hands.

How could I do this to her?

How could I do to her what was done to me, knowing it’s the worst feeling in the world?

I’ve never in my life known this kind of shame.

Several minutes pass, full of regrets, before I realize the front door is still wide open. I leave my phone on the couch and walk to the door to shut it, but my eyes are drawn to the cab pulled up directly in front of our complex. Maggie is stepping out, looking up at me as she closes the door. I’m not at all prepared to see her, so I quickly step back out of her sight to regain my bearings. I don’t know if I should go hide in my room or stay out here and try to explain Ridge’s innocence in all of this.

But how would I do that? She obviously read the conversations herself. She knows we kissed. She knows he admitted having feelings for me. As much as I can try to convince her that he did everything he could not to feel that way, it doesn’t excuse the fact that the guy she’s in love with has openly admitted his feelings for someone else. Nothing can excuse that, and I feel like complete shit for being a part of it.

I’m still standing with the door open when she makes it to the top of the stairs. She’s looking at me with a stern expression. I know she’s more than likely here for anything other than me, so I take a step back and open the door wider. She looks down at her feet when she passes me, unable to continue the eye contact.

I don’t blame her. I wouldn’t be able to look at me, either. In fact, if I were her, I’d be punching me right now.

She heads to the kitchen counter, and she drops Ridge’s laptop onto it without delicacy. Then she heads straight to Ridge’s room. I hear her rummaging through stuff, and she eventually comes out with a bag in one hand and her car keys in the other. I’m still standing motionless with my hands on the door. She continues to keep her eyes focused on the floor as she passes me again, but this time, she makes a quick movement with her hand and wipes away a tear.

She walks out the door, down the stairs, and straight to her car, never speaking a word.

I wanted her to tell me she hated me. I wanted her to punch me and scream at me and call me a bitch. I wanted her to give me a reason to be angry, because right now, my heart is breaking for her, and I know there isn’t a damn thing I could say to make her better. I know this for a fact, because I’ve recently been in the same situation that Ridge and I have just put her in.

We just made her a Sydney.


Ridge

The third and final text comes through when I pull up to the hospital. I know it’s the final text, because it’s pulled from the conversation I had with Sydney less than two hours ago. It’s the very last thing I messaged her.

Maggie: “Don’t thank me, Sydney. You shouldn’t thank me, because I failed miserably at trying not to fall in love with you.”

I can’t take any more. I throw the phone into the passenger seat and exit the vehicle, then sprint into the hospital and straight up to her room. I push open the door and rush inside, preparing to do whatever I can to persuade her to hear me out.

When I’m inside her room, I’m instantly gutted.

She’s gone.

I press my palms against my forehead and pace the empty room, trying to figure out how I can take it all back. She read everything. Every single conversation I’ve ever had with Sydney on my laptop. Every single honest feeling I’ve shared, every joke we’ve made, every flaw we’ve listed.

Why was I so damn careless?

Twenty-four years I’ve lived without ever experiencing this type of hatred. It’s the type of hatred that completely overwhelms the conscience. It’s the type of hatred that excuses otherwise inexcusable actions. It’s the type of hatred that can be felt in every facet of the body and in every inch of the soul. I’ve never known it until this moment. I’ve never hated anything or anyone with as much intensity as I hate myself right now.

Chapter Twenty

Sydney

“Are you crying?” Bridgette asks without compassion as she comes through the front door. Warren follows closely behind her, but he pauses the second his eyes meet mine.

I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting motionless on the couch, but it still isn’t long enough for reality to have been absorbed just yet. I’m still hoping this is a dream. Or a nightmare. This isn’t how things were supposed to turn out.

“Sydney?” Warren says hesitantly. He knows something is wrong, because I’m sure my swollen, bloodshot eyes clearly give me away.

I attempt to form an answer, but I fail to come up with one. As much a part of this as I am, I still feel that Ridge and Maggie’s situation isn’t mine to be sharing.

Luckily, Warren doesn’t have to ask me what’s wrong, because I’m spared by Ridge’s presence. He’s barging through the front door, taking both Bridgette’s and Warren’s attention off of me.

He pushes between the two of them and heads straight for his room. He swings open the door, then comes out through the bathroom seconds later. He looks at Warren and signs something. Warren shrugs and signs back, but I can’t follow their conversation at all.

When Ridge responds again, Warren looks directly at me. “What does he mean?” Warren asks me.

I shrug. “I failed to learn sign language between now and the last time we spoke, Warren. How the hell should I know?”

I don’t know where my unwarranted sarcasm is coming from, but I feel Warren should have anticipated that one.

He shakes his head. “Where’s Maggie, Sydney?” Warren points at the counter toward Ridge’s computer. “He says she had his computer, so she had to come by here after she left the hospital.”

I look at Ridge to answer but can’t deny the fact that jealousy is coursing through me at watching his reaction when it comes to Maggie. “I don’t know where she went. All she did was walk in, set your computer down, and grab her things. She’s been gone for half an hour.”