I smile. Then I frown.
Did he just . . .? I yank my hand out of Maggie’s and turn back toward Ridge. “Did you just speak?”
He laughs. “Did you not just ask me a question?”
I glare at him hard, especially when Warren bursts out into a fit of laughter.
Oh.
My.
God.
He’s not deaf?
This whole time, he’s been lying to me? It’s been a prank?
I instantly want to strangle him. Both of them. Tears sting at my eyes, and the second I lunge forward, a strong hand grips my wrist and yanks my arm back. I turn and look up at . . . Ridge?
I turn back to the couch and look at . . . Ridge?
Warren is doubled over Bridgette’s lap now, he’s laughing so hard. Ridge Number 1 is laughing now, too. His whole face doesn’t laugh when he laughs, like Ridge Number 2’s face does.
And his hair is shorter than Ridge Number 2’s hair. And darker.
Ridge Number 2 has his arm wrapped around my waist, and he’s picking me up.
Now I’m upside down.
Not good for my stomach.
My face is toward his back, and my stomach is slumped over his shoulder as he carries me back toward my bedroom. I look at Warren and the guy I now realize is Brennan, and then I squeeze my eyes shut, because I think I’m about to throw up all over Ridge Number 2.
I’m being seated on something cold. A floor.
As soon as my mind comprehends where he’s put me, my hands reach forward until I grasp the toilet, and then it suddenly feels as if I’ve eaten Italian food all over again. He holds my hair back while the toilet fills with Pine-Sol.
I wish it really were Pine-Sol. I wouldn’t have to clean it.
“Don’t you love her bra?” Maggie says from behind me, giggling. “I know it’s a back clasp, but look at how cute the straps are!”
I feel a hand on one of my bra straps. I can feel Ridge pull her hand away. His arm moves, and I know he’s signing something.
Maggie huffs. “I don’t want to go to bed yet.”
He signs something else, and then she sighs and walks into his bedroom.
When I’m finished, Ridge wipes my face with a rag. I allow my back to fall against the wall of the tub, and I look up at him.
He doesn’t look very happy. In fact, he looks a little angry.
“It’s a party, Ridge,” I mumble, and close my eyes again.
His hands are under my arms, and I’m being carried again. He makes his way into . . . his room? He lowers me onto his bed, and I roll over and open my eyes. Maggie is grinning at me from the pillow next to me.
“Yay. A sleepover,” she says with a groggy smile. She grabs my hand and holds it.
“Yay,” I say, smiling.
Covers are pulled over both of us, and I close my eyes.
Ridge
“How did you get yourself into this mess?”
Warren and I are both standing at the edge of my bed, staring down at Maggie and Sydney. They’re asleep. Sydney is spooning Maggie on the left side of the bed, because the right side of the bed is now covered in Maggie’s puke.
I sigh. “This has been the longest twelve hours of my life.”
Warren nods, then pats me heavily on the back. “Well,” he signs, “I wish I could stay and help you nurse them back to health, but I’d rather pretend I have something better to do and leave.” He turns and walks out of my room as Brennan makes his way in.
“I’m headed out,” he signs. “Got my stuff out of Sydney’s room.”
I nod and watch as his eyes fall on Sydney and Maggie.
“I wish I could say it was fun getting to know Sydney, but I have a feeling I didn’t even meet the real Sydney.”
I laugh. “Believe me, you didn’t. Maybe next time.”
He waves and walks out of my bedroom.
I turn and look at them, at both halves of my heart, cuddled tightly together in a bed of irony.
• • •
I spent the entire morning assisting them as they alternated between the trash can and the bathroom. By lunch, Sydney’s vomiting had subsided, and she made her way back to her own room. It’s late afternoon now, and I’m spoon-feeding Maggie liquids and forcing her to down medicine.
“I just need sleep,” she signs. “I’ll be fine.” She rolls over and pulls the covers up to her chin.
I tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, then run my hand down to her shoulder, where I trace circles with my thumb. Her eyes are now closed, and she’s curled up in a fetal position. She looks so fragile right now, and I wish I could wrap myself around her like a cocoon and shield her from every single thing this world has left to throw at her.
I look over at the nightstand when the screen on my phone lights up. I tuck the covers more securely around Maggie and bend forward and kiss her cheek, then reach for my phone.
Sydney: Not that you haven’t done enough, but could you please tell Warren to turn the volume down on the porn?
I laugh and text Warren.
Me: Turn the porn down. It’s so loud even I can hear it.
I stand and walk into Sydney’s room to check on her. She’s flat on her back, staring up at the ceiling. I sit on the edge of her bed, reach to her face, and brush back a strand of hair from her forehead.
She tilts her face toward me and smiles, then picks up her phone. Her body is so weak she makes it look as if the phone weighs fifty pounds when she tries to text me.
I take the phone from her and shake my head, letting her know she just needs to rest. I set the phone on her nightstand and bring my attention back to her. Her head is relaxed against the pillow. Her hair is in waves, trailing down her shoulders. I run my fingers over a section of her sun-kissed hair, admiring how soft it is. She tilts her face toward my hand until her cheek is resting flush against it. I brush across her cheekbone with my thumb and watch as her eyes fall closed. The lyrics I wrote about her flash through my mind: Lines are drawn, but then they fade. For her I bend, for you I break.
What kind of man does that make me? If I can’t prevent myself from falling for another girl, do I even deserve Maggie? I refuse to answer that, because I know that if I don’t deserve Maggie, I also don’t deserve Sydney. The thought of losing either of them, much less both of them, is something I can’t bring myself to entertain. I lift my hand and trace the edge of Sydney’s face with my fingertips, running them across her hairline, down her jaw, and up her chin, until my fingers reach her lips. I slowly trace the shape of her mouth, feeling the warm waves of breath pass her lips each time I circle around them. She opens her eyes, and the familiar pool of pain floats behind them.
She lifts a hand to my fingers. She pulls them firmly to her mouth and kisses them, then pulls our hands away, bringing them to rest on her stomach.
I’m looking at our hands now. She opens a flat palm, and I do the same, and we press them together.
I don’t know a lot about the human body, but I would be willing to bet there’s a nerve that runs directly from the palm of the hand, straight to the heart.
Our fingers are outstretched until she laces them together, squeezing gently when our hands connect completely, weaving together.
It’s the first time I’ve ever held her hand.
We stare at our hands for what feels like an eternity. Every feeling and every nerve are centered in our palms, in our fingers, in our thumbs, occasionally brushing back and forth over one another.
Our hands mold together perfectly, just like the two of us.
Sydney and me.
I’m convinced that people come across others in life whose souls are completely compatible with their own. Some refer to them as soul mates. Some refer to it as true love. Some people believe their souls are compatible with more than one person, and I’m beginning to understand how true that might be. I’ve known since the moment I met Maggie years ago that our souls were compatible, and they are. That’s not even a question.
; However, I also know that my soul is compatible with Sydney’s, but it’s also so much more than that. Our souls aren’t just compatible—they’re perfectly attuned. I feel everything she feels. I understand things she never even has to say. I know that what she needs is exactly what I could give her, and what she’s wishing she could give me is something I never even knew I needed.
She understands me. She respects me. She astounds me. She predicts me. She’s never once, since the second I met her, made me feel as if my inability to hear is even an inability at all.
I can also tell just by looking at her that she’s falling in love with me. It serves as further proof that I need to do what should have been done a long time ago.
I very reluctantly lean forward, reach over to her nightstand, and grab a pen. I pull my fingers from hers and open her palm to write on it: I need you to move out.
I close her fingers over her palm so she doesn’t read it while I’m watching her, and I walk away, leaving behind an entire half of my heart as I go.
Chapter Seventeen
Sydney
I watch as he closes the door behind him. I’m clutching my hand to my chest, terrified to read what he wrote.
I saw the look in his eyes.
I saw the heartache, the regret, the fear . . . the love.
I keep my hand clutched tightly to my chest without reading it. I refuse to accept that whatever words are written on my palm will obliterate what little hope I had for our maybe someday.
• • •
My body flinches, and my eyes flick open.
I don’t know what just woke me up, but I was in the middle of a dead sleep. It’s dark. I sit up on the bed and press my hand to my forehead, wincing from the pain. I don’t feel nauseated anymore, but I’ve never in my life been this thirsty. I need water.
I stand up and stretch my arms above my head, then glance down to the alarm clock: 2:45 A.M.
Thank God. I could still use about three more days of sleep to recover from this hangover.
I’m walking toward Ridge’s bathroom when an unfamiliar feeling washes over me. I pause before reaching the door. I’m not sure why I pause, but I suddenly feel out of place.
It feels strange, walking toward this bathroom right now. It doesn’t feel as if I’m walking toward my bathroom. It doesn’t feel as if it belongs to me at all, unlike how my bathroom felt in my last apartment. That bathroom felt like my bathroom. As if it belonged partly to me. That apartment felt like my apartment. All the furniture in it felt like my furniture.
Nothing about this place feels like me. Other than the belongings that were contained in the two suitcases I brought with me that first night, nothing else here feels even remotely like mine.
The dresser? Borrowed.
The bed? Borrowed.
Thursday-night TV? Borrowed.
The kitchen, the living room, my entire bedroom. They all belong to other people. I feel as if I’m just borrowing this life until I find a better one of my own. I’ve felt as if I’ve been borrowing everything since the day I moved in here.
Hell, I’m even borrowing boyfriends. Ridge isn’t mine. He’ll never be mine. As much as that hurts to accept, I’m so sick of this constant, ongoing battle with my heart. I can’t take this anymore. I don’t deserve this kind of self-torture.
In fact, I think I need to move out.
I do.
Moving out is the only thing that can start the healing, because I can’t be around Ridge anymore. Not with what his presence does to me.
You hear that, heart? We’re even now.
I smile at the realization that I’m finally about to experience life on my own. I’m consumed with a sense of accomplishment. I open the bathroom door and flip on the light . . . then immediately fall to my knees.
Oh, God.
Oh, no.
No, no, no, no, no!
I grab her by the shoulders and turn her over, but her whole body is limp. Her eyes are rolled back in her head, and her face is pale.
Oh, my God! “Ridge!” I crawl over her and reach for the door to his bedroom. I’m screaming his name so loudly my throat feels as if it’s ripping apart. I attempt to turn the door-knob several times, but my hand keeps slipping.
She begins to convulse, so I lunge over her and lift her head, then drop my ear to her mouth to make sure she’s breathing. I’m sobbing, screaming his name over and over. I know he can’t hear me, but I’m scared to let go of her head.
“Maggie!” I cry.
What am I doing? I don’t know what to do.
Do something, Sydney.
I lower her head carefully back to the floor and spin around. I grip the doorknob more firmly and pull myself to my feet. I swing his bedroom door open and rush toward the bed, then jump on it and climb over to where he’s lying.
“Ridge!” I scream, shaking his shoulder. He lifts an elbow in defense as he rolls over, then lowers it when he sees me hovering over him.
“Maggie!” I yell hysterically, pointing to the bathroom. His eyes flash to the empty spot on his bed, and his focus shoots up to the open bathroom door. He’s off the bed and on the bathroom floor on his knees in seconds. Before I even make it back to the bathroom, he’s got her head cradled in his arms, and he’s pulling her onto his lap.
He turns his head to look at me and signs something. I shake my head as the tears continue to flow down my cheeks. I have no idea what he’s trying to say to me. He signs again and points toward his bed. I look at the bed, then look back at him helplessly. His expression is growing more frustrated by the second.
“Ridge, I don’t know what you’re asking me!”
He slams his fist against the bathroom cabinet out of frustration, then holds his hand up to his ear as if he’s holding a phone.
He needs his phone.
I rush to the bed and search for it, my hands flying frantically over the bed, the covers, the nightstand. I finally find it under his pillow and run it back to him. He enters his password to unlock it, then hands it back to me. I dial 911, put the phone to my ear, and wait for it to ring while I drop to my knees next to them.
His eyes are full of fear as he continues to hold her head against his chest. He’s watching me, nervously waiting for the call to connect. He intermittently presses his lips into her hair as he continues to try to get her to open her eyes.
As soon as the operator answers, I’m bombarded with a list of questions that I don’t know the answers to. I give her the address, because it’s the only thing I know, and she begins firing more questions I don’t know how to communicate to him.
“Is she allergic to anything?” I say to Ridge, repeating what the operator is asking.
He shrugs and shakes his head, not understanding me.
“Does she have any preexisting conditions?”
He shakes his head again to tell me he has no idea what I’m asking him.
“Is she diabetic?”
I ask Ridge the questions over and over, but he can’t understand me. The operator is firing questions at me, and I’m firing them at Ridge, and we’re both too frantic for him even to read my lips. I’m crying. We’re both terrified. We’re both frustrated with the fact that we can’t communicate.
“Is she wearing a medical bracelet?” the operator asks.
I lift both of her wrists. “No, she doesn’t have anything on her.”
I look up to the ceiling and close my eyes, knowing that I’m not helping a damn bit.
“Warren!” I yell.
I’m off my feet and out of the bathroom, making my way to Warren’s bedroom. I swing open his door. “Warren!” I run to his bed and shake him while I hold the phone in my hand. “Warren! We need your help! It’s Maggie!”
His eyes open wide, and he throws off his covers, springing into action. I push the phone toward him. “It’s 911, and I can’t understand anything Ridge is trying to tell me!”