Maybe Someday

Chapter Nineteen

Sydney

Be still, heart. Please, be still.

I don’t want him to be standing here in front of

me. I don’t want him to be looking at me, wear-

ing the expression that mirrors my own feelings.

I don’t want him to hurt like I’m hurting. I don’t

want him to miss me like I’ll miss him. I don’t

want him to be falling for me like I’ve been fall-

ing for him.

I want him to be with Maggie right now. I

want him to want to be with Maggie right now, because it would make this so much easier knowing our feelings were less a reflection of each

other’s and more like a one-way mirror. If this

weren’t so hard for him, it would make it easier

for me to forget him, easier to accept his choice.

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Instead, it makes my heart hurt twice as much

knowing that our good-bye is hurting him just as

much as it’s hurting me.

It’s killing me, because nothing and no one

could ever fit my life the way I know he could. I

feel as though I’m willingly forking over my one

chance for an exceptional life, and in return, I’m

accepting a mediocre version without Ridge in it.

My father’s words ring in my head, and I’m be-

ginning to wonder if he had a point after all. A

life of mediocrity is a waste of a life.

Our eyes remain in their silent embrace for

several moments, until we both break our gaze,

allowing ourselves to take in every last thing

about each other.

His eyes scroll carefully over my face as if

he’s committing me to memory. His memory is

the last place I want to be.

I would give anything to always be in his

present.

I lean my head against my open bedroom door

and stare at his hands still gripping the

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doorframe. The same hands I’ll never see play a

guitar again. The same hands that will never hold

mine again. The same hands that will never again

touch me and hold me in order to listen to me

sing.

The same hands that are suddenly reaching for

me, wrapping themselves around me, gripping

my back in an embrace so tight I don’t know if I

could break away even if I tried. But I’m not try-

ing to break away. I’m reciprocating. I’m hug-

ging him with just as much desperation. I find

solace against his chest while his cheek presses

against the top of my head. With each heavy, un-

controlled breath that passes through his lungs,

my own breaths try to keep pace. However, mine

are coming in much shorter gasps, thanks to the

tears that are working their way out of me.

My sadness is consuming me, and I don’t even

try to hold it in as I cry huge tears of grief. I’m

crying tears over the death of something that nev-

er even had the chance to live.

The death of us.

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Ridge and I remain clasped together for sever-

al minutes. So many minutes that I’m trying not

to count, for fear that we’ve been standing here

way too long for it to be an appropriate embrace.

Apparently, he notices this, too, because he slides

his hands up my back and to my shoulders, then

pulls away from me. I lift my face from his shirt

and wipe at my eyes before looking back up at

him.

Once we make eye contact again, he removes

his hands from my shoulders and tentatively

places them on either side of my face. His eyes

study mine for several moments, and the way

he’s looking at me makes me hate myself, be-

cause I love it so much.

I love the way he’s looking at me as if I’m the

only thing that matters right now. I’m the only

one he sees. He’s the only one I see. My thoughts once again lead back to some of the lyrics he

wrote.

It’s making me feel like I want to be the only

man that you ever see.

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His gaze flickers between my mouth and my

eyes, almost as if he can’t decide if he wants to

kiss me, stare at me, or talk to me.

“Sydney,” he whispers.

I gasp and clutch a hand to my chest. My heart

just disintegrated at the sound of his voice.

“I don’t . . . speak . . . well,” he says with a

quiet and unsure voice.

Oh, my heart. Hearing him speak is almost too much to take in. Each word that meets my ears is

enough to bring me to my knees, and it’s not

even the sound of his voice or the quality of his

speech. It’s the fact that he’s choosing this mo-

ment to speak for the first time in fifteen years.

He pauses before finishing what he needs to

say and it gives my heart and my lungs a moment

to catch up with the rest of me. He sounds ex-

actly as I imagined he would sound after hearing

his laughter so many times. His voice is slightly

deeper than his laughter, but somewhat out of fo-

cus. His voice reminds me of a photograph in a

way. I can understand his words, but they’re out

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of focus. It’s as if I’m looking at a picture and the subject is recognizable, but not in focus . . . similar to his words.

I just fell in love with his voice. With the out-

of-focus picture he’s painting with his words.

With . . . him.

He inhales softly, then nervously exhales be-

fore continuing. “I need you . . . to hear this,” he

says, cradling my head in his hands. “I . . . will

never . . . regret you.”

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

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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 bed-

room 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 interrup-

tion 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 out-

side world seems to have brought us both back to

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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

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his frantic race to get to wherever it is he desper-

ately needs to be.

I look down at my phone and unlock the

screen. Maggie’s number shows as the last in-

coming 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.

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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 con-

versation 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

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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

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looks down at her feet when she passes me, un-

able 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

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could say to make her better. I know this for a

fact, because I’ve recently been in the same situ-

ation 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, pre-

paring to do whatever I can to persuade her to

hear me out.

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

gutted.

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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 ex-

periencing this type of hatred. It’s the type of

hatred that completely overwhelms the con-

science. It’s the type of hatred that excuses other-

wise 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.

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