Maybe Someday by Colleen Hoover
Prologue
Sydney
I just punched a girl in the face. Not just any girl.
My best friend. My roommate.
Well, as of five minutes ago, I guess I should
call her my ex-roommate.
Her nose began bleeding almost immediately,
and for a second, I felt bad for hitting her. But
then I remembered what a lying, betraying whore
she is, and it made me want to punch her again. I
would have if Hunter hadn’t prevented it by step-
ping between us.
So instead, I punched him. I didn’t do any
damage to him, unfortunately. Not like the dam-
age I’d done to my hand.
Punching someone hurts a lot worse than I
imagined it would. Not that I spend an excessive
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amount of time imagining how it would feel to
punch people. Although I am having that urge
again as I stare down at my phone at the incom-
ing text from Ridge. He’s another one I’d like to
get even with. I know he technically has nothing
to do with my current predicament, but he could
have given me a heads-up a little sooner. There-
fore, I’d like to punch him, too.
Ridge: Are you OK? Do u want to come up
until the rain stops?
Of course, I don’t want to come up. My fist
hurts enough as it is, and if I went up to Ridge’s
apartment, it would hurt a whole lot worse after I
finished with him.
I turn around and look up at his balcony. He’s
leaning against his sliding-glass door; phone in
hand, watching me. It’s almost dark, but the
lights from the courtyard illuminate his face. His
dark eyes lock with mine and the way his mouth
curls up into a soft, regretful smile makes it hard
to remember why I’m even upset with him in the
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first place. He runs a free hand through the hair
hanging loosely over his forehead, revealing even
more of the worry in his expression. Or maybe
that’s a look of regret. As it should be.
I decide not to reply and flip him off instead.
He shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders, as if
to say, I tried, and then he goes back inside his apartment and slides his door shut.
I put the phone back in my pocket before it
gets wet, and I look around at the courtyard of
the apartment complex where I’ve lived for two
whole months. When we first moved in, the hot
Texas summer was swallowing up the last traces
of spring, but this courtyard seemed to somehow
still cling to life. Vibrant blue and purple hy-
drangeas lined the walkways leading up to the
staircases and the fountain affixed in the center of
the courtyard.
Now that summer has reached its most unat-
tractive peak, the water in the fountain has long
since evaporated. The hydrangeas are a sad, wil-
ted reminder of the excitement I felt when Tori
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and I first moved in here. Looking at the court-
yard now, defeated by the season, is an eerie par-
allel to how I feel at the moment. Defeated and
sad.
I’m sitting on the edge of the now empty ce-
ment fountain, my elbows propped up on the two
suitcases that contain most of my belongings,
waiting for a cab to pick me up. I have no idea
where it’s going to take me, but I know I’d rather
be anywhere except where I am right now.
Which is, well, homeless.
I could call my parents, but that would give
them ammunition to start firing all the We told
you so’s at me.
We told you not to move so far away, Sydney.
We told you not to get serious with that guy.
We told you if you had chosen prelaw over mu-
sic, we would have paid for it.
We told you to punch with your thumb on the
outside of your fist.
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Okay, maybe they never taught me the proper
punching techniques, but if they’re so right all
the damn time, they should have.
I clench my fist, then spread out my fingers,
then clench it again. My hand is surprisingly
sore, and I’m pretty sure I should put ice on it. I
feel sorry for guys. Punching sucks.
Know what else sucks? Rain. It always finds
the most inappropriate time to fall, like right
now, while I’m homeless.
The cab finally pulls up, and I stand and grab
my suitcases. I roll them behind me as the cab
driver gets out and pops open the trunk. Before I
even hand him the first suitcase, my heart sinks
as I suddenly realize that I don’t even have my
purse on me.
Shit.
I look around, back to where I was sitting on
the suitcases, then feel around my body as if my
purse will magically appear across my shoulder.
But I know exactly where my purse is. I pulled it
off my shoulder and dropped it to the floor right
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before I punched Tori in her overpriced, Camer-
on Diaz nose.
I sigh. And I laugh. Of course, I left my purse.
My first day of being homeless would have been
way too easy if I’d had a purse with me.
“I’m sorry,” I say to the cab driver, who is now
loading my second piece of luggage. “I changed
my mind. I don’t need a cab right now.”
I know there’s a hotel about a half-mile from
here. If I can just work up the courage to go back
inside and get my purse, I’ll walk there and get a
room until I figure out what to do. It’s not as if I
can get any wetter.
The driver takes the suitcases back out of the
cab, sets them on the curb in front of me, and
walks back to the driver’s side without ever mak-
ing eye contact. He just gets into his car and
drives away, as if my canceling is a relief.
Do I look that pathetic?
I take my suitcases and walk back to where I
was seated before I realized I was purseless. I
glance up to my apartment and wonder what
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would happen if I went back there to get my wal-
let. I sort of left things in a mess when I walked
out the door. I guess I’d rather be homeless in the
rain than go back up there.
I take a seat on my luggage again and contem-
plate my situation. I could pay someone to go up-
stairs for me. But who? No one’s outside, and
who’s to say Hunter or Tori would even give the
person my purse?
This really sucks. I know I’m going to have to
end up calling one of my friends, but right now,
I’m too embarrassed to tell anyone how clueless
I’ve been for the last two years. I’ve been com-
pletely blindsided.
I already hate being twenty-two, and I still
have 364 more days to go.
It sucks so bad that I’m . . . crying?
Great. I’m crying now. I’m a purseless, crying,
violent, homeless girl. And as much as I don’t
want to admit it, I think I might also be
heartbroken.
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Yep. Sobbing now. Pretty sure this must be
what it feels like to have your heart broken.
“It’s raining. Hurry up.”
I glance up to see a girl hovering over me.
She’s holding an umbrella over her head and
looking down at me with agitation while she hops
from one foot to the other, waiting for me to do
something. “I’m getting soaked. Hurry. ”
Her voice is a little demanding, as if she’s do-
ing me some sort of favor and I’m being ungrate-
ful. I arch an eyebrow as I look up at her, shield-
ing the rain from my eyes with my hand. I don’t
know why she’s complaining about getting wet,
when there isn’t much clothing to get wet. She’s wearing next to nothing. I glance at her shirt,
which is missing its entire bottom half, and real-
ize she’s in a Hooters outfit.
Could this day get any weirder? I’m sitting on
almost everything I own in a torrential downpour,
being bossed around by a bitchy Hooters
waitress.
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I’m still staring at her shirt when she grabs my
hand and pulls me up in a huff. “Ridge said you
would do this. I’ve got to get to work. Follow
me, and I’ll show you where the apartment is.”
She grabs one of my suitcases, pops the handle
out, and shoves it at me. She takes the other and
walks swiftly out of the courtyard. I follow her,
for no other reason than the fact that she’s taken
one of my suitcases with her and I want it back.
She yells over her shoulder as she begins to as-
cend the stairwell. “I don’t know how long you
plan on staying, but I’ve only got one rule. Stay
the hell out of my room.”
She reaches an apartment and opens the door,
never even looking back to see if I’m following
her. Once I reach the top of the stairs, I pause
outside the apartment and look down at the fern
sitting unaffected by the heat in a planter outside
the door. Its leaves are lush and green as if
they’re giving summer the middle finger with
their refusal to succumb to the heat. I smile at the
plant, somewhat proud of it. Then I frown with
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the realization that I’m envious of the resilience
of a plant.
I shake my head, look away, then take a hesit-
ant step inside the unfamiliar apartment. The lay-
out is similar to my own apartment, only this one
is a double split bedroom with four total bed-
rooms. My and Tori’s apartment only had two
bedrooms, but the living rooms are the same size.
The only other noticeable difference is that I
don’t see any lying, backstabbing, bloody-nosed
whores standing in this one. Nor do I see any of
Tori’s dirty dishes or laundry lying around.
The girl sets my suitcase down beside the
door, then steps aside and waits for me to . . .
well, I don’t know what she’s waiting for me to
do.
She rolls her eyes and grabs my arm, pulling
me out of the doorway and further into the apart-
ment. “What the hell is wrong with you? Do you
even speak?” She begins to close the door behind
her but pauses and turns around, wide-eyed. She
holds her finger up in the air. “Wait,” she says.
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“You’re not . . .” She rolls her eyes and smacks
herself in the forehead. “Oh, my God, you’re
deaf.”
Huh? What the hell is wrong with this girl? I
shake my head and start to answer her, but she
interrupts me.
“God, Bridgette,” she mumbles to herself. She
rubs her hands down her face and groans, com-
pletely ignoring the fact that I’m shaking my
head. “You’re such an insensitive bitch
sometimes.”
Wow. This girl has some serious issues in the
people-skills department. She’s sort of a bitch,
even though she’s making an effort not to be one.
Now that she thinks I’m deaf. I don’t even know
how to respond. She shakes her head as if she’s
disappointed in herself, then looks straight at me.
“I . . . HAVE . . . TO . . . GO . . . TO . . .
WORK . . . NOW!” she yells very loudly and
painfully slowly. I grimace and step back, which
should be a huge clue that I can hear her practic-
ally yelling, but she doesn’t notice. She points to
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a door at the end of the hallway. “RIDGE . . . IS .
. . IN . . . HIS . . . ROOM!”
Before I have a chance to tell her she can stop
yelling, she leaves the apartment and closes the
door behind her.
I have no idea what to think. Or what to do
now. I’m standing, soaking wet, in the middle of
an unfamiliar apartment, and the only person be-
sides Hunter and Tori whom I feel like punching
is now just a few feet away in another room. And
speaking of Ridge, why the hell did he send his
psycho Hooters girlfriend to get me? I take out
my phone and have begun to text him when his
bedroom door opens.
He walks out into the hallway with an armful
of blankets and a pillow. As soon as he makes
eye contact with me, I gasp. I hope it’s not a no-
ticeable gasp. It’s just that I’ve never actually
seen him up close before, and he’s even better-
looking from just a few feet away than he is from
across an apartment courtyard.
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I don’t think I’ve ever seen eyes that can actu-
ally speak. I’m not sure what I mean by that. It
just seems as if he could shoot me the tiniest
glance with those dark eyes of his, and I’d know
exactly what they needed me to do. They’re pier-
cing and intense and—oh, my God, I’m staring.
The corner of his mouth tilts up in a knowing
smile as he passes me and heads straight for the
couch.
Despite his appealing and slightly innocent-
looking face, I want to yell at him for being so
deceitful. He shouldn’t have waited more than
two weeks to tell me. I would have had a chance
to plan all this out a little better. I don’t under-
stand how we could have had two weeks’ worth
of conversations without his feeling the need to
tell me that my boyfriend and my best friend
were screwing.
Ridge throws the blankets and the pillow onto
the couch.
“I’m not staying here, Ridge,” I say, attempt-
ing to stop him from wasting time with his
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hospitality. I know he feels bad for me, but I
hardly know him, and I’d feel a lot more com-
fortable in a hotel room than sleeping on a
strange couch.
Then again, hotel rooms require money.
Something I don’t have on me at the moment.
Something that’s inside my purse, across the
courtyard, in an apartment with the only two
people in the world I don’t want to see right now.
Maybe a couch isn’t such a bad idea after all.
He gets the couch made up and turns around,
dropping his eyes to my soaking-wet clothes. I
look down at the puddle of water I’m creating in
the middle of his floor.
“Oh, sorry,” I mutter. My hair is matted to my
face; my shirt is now a see-through pathetic ex-
cuse for a barrier between the outside world and
my very pink, very noticeable bra. “Where’s your
bathroom?”
He nods his head toward the bathroom door.
I turn around, unzip a suitcase, and begin to
rummage through it while Ridge walks back into
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his bedroom. I’m glad he doesn’t ask me ques-
tions about what happened after our conversation
earlier. I’m not in the mood to talk about it.
I select a pair of yoga pants and a tank top,
then grab my bag of toiletries and head to the
bathroom. It disturbs me that everything about
this apartment reminds me of my own, with just a
few subtle differences. This is the same bathroom
with the Jack-and-Jill doors on the left and right,
leading to the two bedrooms that adjoin it. One is
Ridge’s, obviously. I’m curious about who the
other bedroom belongs to but not curious enough
to open it. The Hooters girl’s one rule was to stay
the hell out of her room, and she doesn’t seem
like the type to kid around.
I shut the door that leads to the living room
and lock it, then check the locks on both doors to
the bedrooms to make sure no one can walk in. I
have no idea if anyone lives in this apartment
other than Ridge and the Hooters girl, but I don’t
want to chance it.
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I pull off my sopping clothes and throw them
into the sink to avoid soaking the floor. I turn on
the shower and wait until the water gets warm,
then step in. I stand under the stream of water
and close my eyes, thankful that I’m not still sit-
ting outside in the rain. At the same time, I’m not
really happy to be where I am, either.
I never expected my twenty-second birthday to
end with me showering in a strange apartment
and sleeping on a couch that belongs to a guy
I’ve barely known for two weeks, all at the hands
of the two people I cared about and trusted the
most.