Her Eighth Step

Chapter Seventeen: Ryder

In the morning, I slowly rise from my bed and make my way downstairs, carefully checking if Ryder is still asleep. I find the living room a little rearranged, but the bed sheets are folded up nicely at the foot of our beige couch. He’s probably gone.

            I enter the kitchen, reaching for the fridge. As I pour myself a cup of cold water, I hear someone clear their throat behind me. I turn and can barely swallow. We stare at each other for a long time, his eyes never leaving mine. He looks exhausted.

            “Did you get any sleep?” I finally ask, just because I want to steer away from talking about us.

            He blinks a couple of times tiredly and looks towards the back porch from our kitchen. “A little.” After a pause, he says, “I couldn’t stop thinking about what’s happening between us.”

            I shrug, looking at the floor. I hate feeling so weak and vulnerable. “Nothing is happening. It’s just lust. And now you’ve got another girl.” At the last word, my voice breaks and I can feel his heavy gaze on my face. “It’s nothing,” I say forcefully. I move towards the living room, but Ryder gets in front of me.

            “Dawn, don’t try to avoid talking about this,” he says. He takes me by the shoulders. “You know how I feel about you. Come on. You really think I don’t love you?”

            “Actions are better than words,” I whisper. I look up at him and give him the meanest glare, but in the end it fades. “If you love me, she wouldn’t even come between us. Whoever she is.” I don’t even know anything but her name and what she looks like. Where the hell did she come from?

            “Listen to me,” Ryder says. “She’s Gavin’s friend. She was visiting, I promised her that we’d get coffee, and then we just…we…”

            My eyes widen and I quickly race out of the kitchen. He takes me by the arm and swings me around to look at him. “What?” I shout. “You going to grab me all the time now? What am I, a doll?!”

            He lets go and steps back. “Rose and I didn’t do anything, Dawn. I promise. I just…I promised her we’d try out this relationship and I was so hurt after we had that fight and then you came back in my life and I just…” He pauses and rubs his eyes and then his neck. He runs his fingers through his dark hair and looks at me sincerely. “That morning that you were at my house, I went to see her. I wanted to tell her that I wanted to be with you, but then she seemed so into me and I felt so guilty that I used her to try to get over you and-”

            “What a mess,” I say, interrupting. He stops and looks at me.

            “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, it is.”

            “Well,” I say. “That’s that.”

            “Just give me time,” he says to me, “to break it to her.”

            I’ve heard this a lot. Macey’s cheating boyfriends used to tell her this all the time. And that’s when I realized the relationship was usually over. So I stand her now, and I hear these words, and all I want to do is hate him. But I can’t. Because believe it or not, I love him so much that I understand him.

            And I’m not sure if I’m making the right decision or not – if I’m being stupid or blind.

            But all I say is: “Okay.”

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I know this took forever for me to update, but schools here and all. Please support this story if you like it by commenting/voting. Thank you so much fo reading!