Page 112 of Not Another Yesterday
“Yeah,” I breathe. “So… what do we do now? Now that we know how fucked up we still are?”
He draws in a deep breath, voice rough. “That’s up to you. I told you yesterday, my job was to tell you the truth. The rest… that’s yours,” he says. “I’m not here to beg you to take me back. Do I wish you would? Abso-fucking-lutely. But it has to be your decision. It has to be what youwant, Cat. Because here’s the thing, I still don’t want kids. And I don’t know that I ever will, that I’ll ever trust myself enough. And IknowI messed up. I don’t expect you to forgive me. I don’t expect you to adjust your life around me. I don’t expect you to trust me again. Not after… not after keeping so much from you. Not after sleeping with Randi. If I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s that my actions have consequences. All I can do now is try to make it up to you.”
I start to speak, but he lifts a hand, his index finger brushing gently against my lips.
“Before you answer,” he says, eyes filled with quiet resolve, “I need you to know one more thing.”
I still.
“I’ve been yours, Cat. This whole time. Even over the last few months. Even on Friday. Even when I was with Randi.” He says it with weight, with meaning. “I’ve been yours. And if you’ll let me, I’ll be yours until my last damn breath. All yours. All in. All the time.”
A breath. A heartbeat.
That’s all it takes for me to fling myself into Ronan’s arms and cling to him like it could somehow make up for the sixty-three days I had to live without him.
“And I’m yours, Ran,” I manage to choke out. “I love you.”
Yes, we have work to do. Both of us. And I’m sure we’ll fall short sometimes. After all, it took a lifetime to build the walls, to harden into these habits, these patterns of silence and fear and self-protection.
But for once, we’re not standing on opposite sides of those walls. This time, we’re choosing to tear them down. Together.
Ronan takes a minuscule step back from me, his face serious, eyes searching mine like he doesn’t quite trust the peace. “Wait… so… you’ll… you’ll take me back?”
I nod, a slow smile curving my lips. “Yeah. Unless you don’t want me to,” I tease gently.
He scoffs. “Fuck, Cat, there’s nothing I wantmorethan this. I guess… I mean, I don’t want to jinx myself, but I honestly didn’t think you’d let me off the hook this quickly.”
“What, like you expected punishment?” I say, grinning. Then I freeze, my hand flying to my mouth. That joke was in bad taste considering Ronan’s past.
But he nods. “Yeah, actually, I kind of did.” He seems completely nonplussed by my dumb comment. “But then again, I should’ve known better—you don’t have a mean bone in your perfect body, baby.”
“That’s what you think.”
Before I can stop myself, before I even thinkbetter of it, I lunge forward and shove him. I put every ounce of strength into moving his solidly muscled body. He topples off the dock, disappearing into the lake with a satisfying splash.
The second my hands leave his chest, I regret it. It’s early April; the temperature’s barely cracking the mid-fifties. That water has to be freezing. And deep, judging by how long it takes for Ronan’s head to reemerge.
The water makes his hair and skin glisten. “Holy fuck, that’s cold,” he sputters, teeth chattering as he swims to the edge of the dock. “I take back what I said about you not having a mean streak.Fuck.”
He reaches for the ledge and tries to hoist himself out, but his hands slip off the planks. His muscles must be seizing from the cold, and his waterlogged clothes probably add thirty pounds of drag.
“Oh god, Ran, I’m so sorry.” I drop to all fours, reaching out to him. “I don’t know what came over me. That was so messed up.”
He grabs my hand—shivering more violently still, his skin already icy—and I try to pull him up.
But there’s resistance. My eyes dart to his, and that’s when I see it. That gleam in his eyes. The ghost of a smirk on his lips. Before I can react, he yanks me forward. I let out a yelp and plunge straight into the lake beside him.
I surface with a gasp, hair plastered to my face, my mouth full of lake water.
“O-ohh m-my g-god.” I’m shivering so hard, my teeth sound like a jackhammer. “T-this is e-even w-worse than I th-thought.”
“Yeah,” he chuffs, grabbing onto the dock again. I grimace at how easily he pulls himself up and out. He totally faked it before. I should’ve known. I’ve seen him do countless pull-ups in the damn gym with a forty-five-pound plate strapped to his waist with a chain.
He drops to his knees and hoists me out of the water like I weigh nothing, like I’m made of air and feathers. We stand there, armswrapped around ourselves in a sad attempt to retain whatever body heat we have left.
“W-what d-did you d-do th-that f-f-for?” I stammer, teeth chattering.
He grins, though his lips are already suspiciously blue. “You deserved to be punished, too,” he says, his entire body shaking. “I wasn’t the only one who strayed.”
