Saving Anna

Chapter One

**This has not been edited or proofread**

Anna

I blinked at the white, half-slip of paper taped to my door.

An eviction notice.

Was it sad that I didn't even care? Maybe a couple of months ago I would have freaked out, cried, something.

But now?

Ross was gone. My will to live was . . . gone. It left when he left.

Everything that mattered to me went right along with him.

Shaking my head, I pushed open my door, leaving the notice hanging there. I didn't even care. The neighbors could stare it all day, snicker about it behind their closed doors when they thought I couldn't hear them through the paper-thin walls.

And when I was booted out by the constable, they could go through all my things and decide what they wanted to keep.

Because I didn't care.

I shut the door behind me and dropped my jacket to the floor. Once upon a time, I might have cared to hang it up in the coat closet beside the front door, but not anymore. These days, everything ended up wherever the heck it landed.

A throat cleared from my living room. I jerked my head up, surprised to see Ryan sitting on my couch. He was dressed in a pair of jeans with a navy-colored long-sleeve shirt, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows to reveal his veiny, muscular forearms.

He was a math teacher at the high school and also the football coach. He'd once been on the track to play pro, but when a knee injury killed his career in his senior year of college, he took a different route.

And because he was a football coach for the local high school, I was surprised to see him sitting on my couch at only four in the afternoon on a Tuesday. I was pretty sure there was football practice currently happening, and it wasn't like him to bail on his players when they needed him.

"What are you doing here?" I mumbled.

He laced his fingers together, still just staring at me, not bothering to say a word. My frown deepened. "Ryan, why are you here?"

He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. The muscles in his forearms moved as he did. "No one has heard from you in a month, Anna. We're worried."

I shrugged and turned away from him, heading into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water. "Nothing to worry about," I mumbled.

He scoffed and stood to his feet, towering over me before I could move. I was only five-four, and Ryan easily stood at almost six and a half feet tall. Add to that how muscular he was? He was a giant. And I was nothing more than a tiny little bug compared to him. The man was huge.

"Nothing to worry about?" he demanded. I just stared up at him. "You've got an eviction notice on your door. You're welcome, by the way." I frowned at him. "I paid your back rent and the next month's." I scowled at him. I didn't need him to take care of me. "You've easily lost a good twenty pounds in the past month. Are you even eating?"

I brushed past him. "Not hungry, Ryan."

He wrapped his hand around my upper arm, spinning me around to face him. "You can fool everyone else, sweet girl," I swallowed thickly at the name, "but never me. Ross," I flinched at his name, "told me everything about you. I know all your quirks. I know about your anxiety. I know about your depression."

Tears burned in my eyes. He needed to go. I couldn't deal with this. I wasn't ready. Just the sound of Ross's name ripped that hole in my chest open wider.