We didn’t get any work done. I left Leo’s not too long after that and sent August a text asking him to call me back or tell me when I could call him. I went to the apartment to grab a lone package under the tree and my next stop took me across the bridge to New Jersey, twenty minutes from where Jameson lived.
Sitting in my car on the suburban street, I stared up at the house that looked a lot like mine had growing up. I rubbed my fist at the center of my chest, trying to alleviate the ache that had been there since Sabrina walked out. Since I’d driven her out.
Now or never. I opened the door, grabbed the box from the back seat, and walked up the slush-covered walkway to the front door and knocked.
I gripped the edges of the box, crinkling the wrapping paper, and waited. The breath clouds gathered in front of my face before drifting off into the sharp post-Christmas air.
The lock jingled, and the door swung open.
Ryder stared back at me with shock-wide eyes.
“Hey, Ryder.”
“Hunter. What are you doing here?” He shook his head like he was trying to wake himself up, although after how I’d treated him, I must have felt more like a nightmare than a dream. “I mean, come in.” He pushed the door open wider and held his arm out, trying to usher me in.
My stomach clenched. The house where my dad had lived. The house where he’d lived with his whole other family. “Do you mind if we walk instead?”
“Sure. Give me two minutes.” He ducked back into the house and let the door partially close behind him.
Against my better judgment, I peered inside. Framed pictures of Ryder hung on the walls. A few family portraits with the three of them on the mantle in the living room. Then Ryder blocked my view, joining me outside.
“This is from Sabrina.” It had sat under the tree along with the other unopened presents. I couldn’t bring myself to shred the paper on the last gifts she might ever give me.
His eyes jumped from the box to me. There was a hint of disappointment in his gaze before he brightened and reached for it.
I held onto the box for a second before releasing it to him. It almost felt like I was giving away a piece of her. One more thing she’d touched that I wouldn’t get back.
Excitedly, he ripped into the paper and shoved his hands into the box, pulling out what she’d gotten for him. A plush knight came out first, stuffed into a mug. Dangling from his hand was a personalized key chain. The mug had the Fulton U seal on it. Ryder grabbed the note attached to the handle and read it aloud. “‘To start off your collection for next year. Sabrina.’”
I rubbed my knuckles at the center of my chest, banging them against the buttons of my coat.
“That was really nice of her.” He stared at the bundle and ducked back inside, dropping it off.
When he reemerged, I led the way, although I had no idea where I was going.
He fell in step beside me, peering over at me every few steps, mouth opening and closing like he wanted to start whatever conversation I finally wanted to have, but unsure how.
The ground was slick and slippery. Patches of snow and ice were dumped onto the lawns and patches of grass between the curb and sidewalk, but encroached onto the walkway.
I shoved my gloved hands deeper into my jacket pockets. “I owe you an apology.”
He sucked in a sharp breath but didn’t say anything.
“What happened between my mom, your mom, and our dad had nothing to do with you. It was never your fault, but it was hard for me to admit that.”
“Why?”
“Part of me felt like I’d be letting my mom down. Like I’d be forgiving some of the betrayal if I got close to you. How could you exist if he hadn’t cheated? And embracing anything that came from what he did felt wrong.”
He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. “And now?”
I stopped and turned to him. “And now I’m finished letting what our dad did dictate how I live my life.”
His breath came out in a rush, the cloud escaping from his mouth, and his whole body relaxed. “When I found out, it made me feel bad for a long time. I looked at them both in a whole new light. It was—rough.”
“I can imagine.” For the first time I truly could. How he’d made a mistake that had nothing to do with him, where none of it was his fault. The same way Sabrina probably treated herself when it came to her ex. I’d kept trying to assign the guilt I saw in her eyes to her being complicit, but now I saw what it was. A good person who’d taken on the burden of someone else’s mistake when it had nothing to do with them.
We walked around the neighborhood and talked, covering his college plans, what he wanted to major in, how excited he was to get out of the house.
“They’ll love you at Fulton U, if that’s where you’re still planning on going.”
He tugged on the zipper to his coat. “I am still trying to decide.”
“Don’t not go just because of me, and don’t go because of me. Go because that’s where you want to be, but I’ll tell you, I made some of the best friends I could’ve ever hoped for at that place.”
He snorted. His nose was bright red.
“It’s cold. We should head back.”
We approached his house, which no longer felt like a looming beacon of bad memories and betrayal, but just a house. “I’m sure Sabrina will want to hear all about our talk when you get back to the apartment.”
It felt like an icicle had been speared through my chest. “No, she won’t.”
“Why not? I figured you were here because she bugged you enough to get you to come talk to me.”
Staring off into the distance, I’d rather have my heart carved out than have her look at me like she had the day the door closed between us. “No, she didn’t.”
“Did you guys have a good Christmas? Hold on, one sec.” He ran back through the front door. The whole house seemed to shake with his thudding steps. A few seconds later he popped back outside. In his hands was a poorly wrapped box. “Can you give this to her? It hadn’t gotten here before our dinner, so I couldn’t give it to her then.” His chin dropped, and he shoved the box toward me.
And then it hit me with a blinding, brilliant light.
“Why don’t you give it to her?”
He tilted his head and looked at me.
“What are you doing for New Year’s Eve?”
39
Sabrina
More snow had fallen since I’d arrived at the hotel. It slowed everything in the city to a crawl. No one was especially motivated to do much during Christmas week, and many people took it as an extended break. Not that I’d been outside.
Hunter’s calls and texts still glowed in my notifications, but I couldn’t talk to him. I didn’t even know what I could say at this point. We’d both said everything we needed to. And he was not going to let me in. I wouldn’t put myself in a position to be hurt again. This time there was no blissful ignorance.
He’d shown me how hard it was for him to open up to others. He’d shown me how scared he was to let me close to him. And he’d shown me exactly what he thought of me.
It took two days to get myself out of bed. Zara had visited and brought me a phone charger the following day like she’d promised. She stopped by every day, even though she had her own life.