Page 27 of Dearest Ronan

If he can’t accept us, how can anyone else?

He side-eyes me but keeps his gaze on Carolyn. “You should go.” He’s talking to me, and I hate it. Normally I adore when the rumble of his voice directs me, but right now I get the coldness of his tone.

The room chills me to my core, and from Ronan’s distance, both physically and emotionally, it only gets worse. “We did nothing wrong!” I whine. I don’t mean to sound so child-like, but I’m so freaking frustrated, and embarrassed, and trying to calm my bleeding heart from breaking into pieces in front of them.

“Anika,” he says through his teeth, “now’s not the time.”

I fist the sheets to avoid throwing my arms around his neck. He’s got it all wrong; they both do. I’m not a child, nor is he my guardian.

It’s terrible lonely being right when the world views you as wrong.

Figuring I’ll only make things worse if I stay, I gather the sheets to hide my private bits and venture out of the room. Just after closing the door, though, I hesitate. I can’t do this anymore. The push and pull with Ronan is exhausting.

If he can’t admit what we have, we can’t work. I don’t want to admit this to myself, but if Ronan can’t embrace what we have, it’s because he doesn’t want to. Carolyn caught us red-handed—mid-thrust, so to speak.

If he continues to deny our relationship, there’s nothing more I can do for us. It’ll be over.

Panicked, I’m having a hard time breathing. My bones want to liquify and the breath in my lungs wants to stay as stale inside of me.

Please, Ronan. Defend us.

Tugging the sheet closer to my skin, I press the cold wood of the door against my ear and listen. Carolyn’s voice, in its manic and shrill intensity, resounds clearly even from where I stand.

“I’m going to ask you one last time, Ronan. How long?”

His voice is steady but tense. “Couple weeks.”

“Did you cheat on me with her?” My lip curls at her question.

Ronan seems to match my thoughts. “No,” he quickly snaps. “Listen to me.” The floor creaks under what I assume is his weight as footsteps near where Carolyn is standing. “Anika moved in afteryoufiled for divorce. Before that, I’d seen her just as much as you had.”

A moment of silence elapses. My heart beats against my chest, and I swear I feel it sinking deep into my ribs like the trapped, isolated thing it is. My bones will spear it if Ronan doesn’t defend us. I’ll bleed out from heartbreak.

Carolyn’s next words are vile. “I’ve never seen you sink so low, Ronan.” She implies that sleeping with me is sick. That his body against mine is the work of evil.

I gasp—literally gasp—as I hold Ronan’s bedsheet to my naked form with my ear pressed against the door. He doesn’t defend me. Instead, he lets her berate me.

My bleeding hearts demand that I flee in a sort of self-preservation, while the more demanding part urges me to listen.

He doesn’t want you.The voice nags louder and louder. It’ll win out if I let it. It’ll consume me like a poison with no known cure.

I want to continue to listen, but my high-pitched bell alarm from my phone goes off in the other room. Today’s the deadline to complete Ms. Archenhood's project, and I cannot be late. I’m behind schedule as it is. Besides, Ronan’s cold dismissal hurt. I thought we were building something together. Obviously, I was wrong.

So, I do exactly what I did at eighteen when I caught Ronan and Carolyn in the throes of passion. I leave.

Sighing, I pad down the hallway to my room, dress, and leave Carolyn and Ronan to argue amongst themselves. Moreover, that’s what’s going on between them now, right? Passion, I mean. Arguing, sex, it’s all forms of passion.

It’s not like I have a choice. I thought Ronan and I were building something beautiful. After all, he’s opened up to me about his divorce and opened up to me in ways he never had before; but as our delicate relationship thickened, all it took was one person discovering us to ruin it all.

Now, he’s shut me out.

It’s like I’m eighteen all over again.

Anika

An entire week passes with no sight of Ronan. It doesn’t help how my project for Ms. Archenhood ended up being four days behind schedule, so I spent ten hours a day at her house to finish. Even worse, I quoted the wrong cost for materials.

Thanks to my stupid oversight, instead of making thirty-five hundred dollars, I made a grand. A grand for fourteen days of work! I’m not a math genius, but that comes out to a measly seven ninety-four an hour, well below minimum wage.

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