Page 42

Wait. What?
“You’re not here to tell me to stay away from your fiancé?” I say because I suddenly have no idea what’s happening here.
“What? No.” Now she laughs outright. “If I went around posturing every woman, or man for that matter, who looked twice at Conner, I’d never get any work done.” Taking another drink, she sets her glass next to mine before reaching for the bottle to top it off. “Besides, if I felt the need to plant my flag every five minutes that would be a pretty strong indicator that Conner was never mine to begin with.” She says it like a woman who knows, unequivocally, that the man she loves, loves her back. That he’s hers forever as much as she is his. For a split second, I’m so envious, I can barely breathe past the knot of jealousy tangled around my throat. It’s not about Conner. It’s not about her shoes or the fact that she wears the kind of clothes I’ve only ever seen in magazines. It’s about the fact that she has someone. Someone who loves her. Someone who looked past all the things wrong with her and found their other half. The piece they were missing that makes them whole.
Most of the time I can fool myself into believing that I don’t need that. That Molly is the only forever I need. The only piece that was missing from me.
Most of the time it works.
Right now, I feel so fucking lonely and unloved, I want to scream.
“So, no,” Henley says, snapping me back to attention. She leans back again, taking her glass with her. “This isn’t about Conner. This is about Ryan.”
“Ryan?” I repeat his name like I’m stupid. Like I don’t know what she means by it, even though I do. I had it wrong somehow. This isn’t about Conner. She isn’t here to tell me to stay away from her fiancé.
This is about her brother.
“Yes.” She nods. “I know you went to see him today at the center—I’d like to know what happened between the two of you.”
I can’t fuck you, no matter how much I want to.
Ryan’s words ring through my head and stain my cheeks. “Nothing,” I say, reaching for my glass of wine because it gives me something to do. Helps me stall for time. “He was nice to Molly at dinner on Sunday and she’s got it in her head that they’re friends.” I take a drink, hoping the chilled, slightly sweet liquid will lubricate my suddenly dry throat. “She got him this bag of cotton candy at the zoo a few days ago and has been bugging me to take her to give it to him and I just…” I let the rest of it trail off because that’s not what she’s asking me about. Not really. “He invited us to lunch. We ate at a little 50s-style diner at the center and then Molly and I left. That’s it. That’s all that happened.”
I can’t fuck you, no matter how much I want to.
She doesn’t say anything at first. She just looks at me, like she’s trying to decide if I’m lying or not. Finally she speaks.
“After you left, he got into a fight with some of the orderlies at the center.” She sounds totally blasé about it. Like it’s happened before, more than once. I remember the way he looked at the Jerkus Erectus who cornered me at Cari’s opening last weekend and can believe it. Ryan doesn’t strike me as someone whose first instinct is to use his words to settle conflict. “It’s not the first time it’s happened,” she tells me, confirming my suspicions. “But it’s the first time he’s put one of them in the hospital.”
“Hospital?” I say because apparently I’m not capable of speaking more than one word at a time.
“Yes.” Henley gives me a grim smile. “Ryan broke three of his ribs. His wrist. Bruised his windpipe. Fractured his jaw. Dislocated his shoulder and his elbow…” She sets her glass down again but this time it stays empty. “I’m just wondering if you saw or heard anything while you were there that would explain what triggered the escalation in his behavior.”
Me.
Whatever happened, whatever Ryan’s reasons were for hurting that man, I’m at the center of it.
I triggered it.
I don’t even have to think about it.
I just know it.
“Nothing happened while we were there,” I tell her, and even though it’s the truth, it still feels like a lie, but I say it anyway because anything else would feel like a betrayal and even though we’re practically strangers and he’s made it clear he doesn’t want anything to do with me, betraying Ryan is something I’m not willing to do.