Page 132 of When Wrecked Meets Ruined
Still holding my hand, he strode up the street, his long legs eating up the distance, and I had to jog to keep up with him.
“Could you just slow down?” He didn’t.
I yanked my hand out of his and crossed my arms over my chest. “What the hell are you doing?”
He turned to face me. We were standing on a corner on Melrose Avenue under a tangerine and violet sky. A gorgeous LA sunset that I couldn’t even appreciate.
Ever since I’d gotten to California, I felt like I was on a movie set.
Now it felt like Ridge and I were playing our roles. The jilted lover and the girl who broke his heart.
Ridge was angry and bitter. I was sad and repentant.
At the time, I thought I was doing the right thing. But with every passing year that had gone by without him, the regrets had piled up.
And now… now I didn’t know what to say or do to make it better.
He pushed his hand through his hair and stared at a billboard advertising a new Marvel movie. “That place was bullshit.”
I arched my brows, unable to resist. “You didn’t see anything you liked?”
Ridge looked me up and down before his eyes met mine. “It didn’t live up to my expectations. Guess I’ll have to keep searching until I find something that does.”
His words hit the target as intended. Bull’s-eye. Straight to the heart. And god, it hurt so much I couldn’t even breathe.
Ridge never used to be so cruel. Had I done this to him?
We stared at each other as the traffic zipped past and the sun sank lower into the sky.
I searched for the boy he used to be, and maybe he was looking for the girl I once was, but those people were gone. We were different now. Life changed us. And all I wanted was to go back to the way it used to be. When Ridge loved me. When I was someone special to him.
But it wasn’t possible to turn back time, and this was who we were now. Two strangers who once upon a time had loved each other.
I exhale. You inhale.
I breathe, you breathe.
Only now, I couldn’t breathe at all.
I was the first to look away. I looked down the street, trying to figure out what to do next. If I ran away, if I called an Uber and took off, it would only validate his point.
He let out a weary sigh. I guess this date wasn’t going as planned. How had he imagined it would go?
Everything felt so wrong and hopeless and broken.
“Fuck,” Ridge said, scrubbing his hand over his face. “I’m sorry.”
What was he apologizing for? The restaurant he’d chosen or the words he’d said or something entirely different? Since he seemed to have all the answers and engineered this evening, I put the ball back in his court. “What now, Ridge?”
“Let’s start over.”
It reminded me of the time he said that at Quinn’s party. Starting over wasn’t possible, and he knew that as much as I did. But even though this evening wasn’t shaping up to be so great, I wasn’t ready to call it quits yet, so I agreed. “Yeah, okay. Let’s do that.”
Whipping out his phone, he pulled up a map, and we searched for a restaurant that felt more like us.
“Pizza sound good?” he offered after reading a few Yelp reviews.
“Yeah. Pizza sounds good. And it’s close, so we can walk.”
