Devin was in the middle of telling Kari about something concerning the band when I heard the sound of a honking horn off to my left, drawing my attention from the clouds. My eyes instantly found something that made my heart skip a beat. It couldn't be …
The same eyes from the tabloid were a mere twenty feet from me. Without a single doubt in my mind I was staring directly at the man I had been desperate to forget. Standing with a foot on the street and the other half of his body still in the car, his eyes were undoubtedly locked on me. Shock settled into his features, leaving his lips open enough for a tense breath to escape while his fingers curled around the top of the door. His hair was styled up in the front with the sides cut a little shorter, and I wanted nothing but to wrap my fingers through his thick locks.
It didn't make sense why he was here right now or why he was standing half way out of a car staring at me, but I didn't care. In this moment I wanted nothing more than to run to him. Throw my arms around him, smack him, hug him, feel his hair and his chest.
"Grey … walk!" someone yelled behind me. My legs began walking across the street, but my eyes were locked on Stefan. I was unable to blink as if my life depended on it.
"Grey!" I heard again.
The sound of another horn approaching made my body jump and my eyes lock onto an oncoming car. I looked just in time to jump backwards to avoid the vehicle. In my jump I landed half on the curb, causing my ankle to twist in pain and my body to fall backwards. The last thing I remember was Stefan fading from view and my head hitting the ground before everything went black.
My eyes opened and instantly I felt the throbbing in my head. When I saw Richard's eyes locked on mine, I tried desperately to remember where I was. As a slight recollection of the room came to me, my stomach plummeted. This wasn't necessarily the same room I had woken up in seven years ago, but it was almost identical. I was at Richard's hospital, and the same place I was when I was given the worst news I would ever receive. Before I could even figure out what was happening, he sealed his lips over mine. The warmth from his lips and the taste of coffee teased my tongue. I didn't understand his intense kiss, but I had no intention to fight it. The unsettling feeling in my heart needed to be filled and I couldn't remember why.
Our kiss stopped and he looked down at me with a pained look buried deep in his eyes.
"Christ, Grey, you scared me, and let me just say I don't normally let many things get to me while I'm here. But the second I saw you come in, I honest to God thought I was having a heart attack."
"What happened?" I finally had to ask. As much as I wanted to respond in some sweet and loving way-I needed to know what was going on first.
His eyes slowly blinked shut as he ran a hand through his mussed up silver hair. "Kari said you were out with her and her boyfriend, you stepped into the road and a car nearly hit you. Apparently you backed up in time, but you fell pretty hard and twisted your ankle, bruised your hip bone and hit your head against the pavement. You wouldn't wake up so they called an ambulance and asked them to bring you here because Kari remembered you saying something about me working here."
Flashes from exactly what he was talking about hit me, and not only did I remember the situation, but the reason for my foolish mistake of walking into a busy street. It was him. A man I haven't seen in years; the one that used to be my everything had been standing just feet from me. What made my heart twist was remembering the way I was drawn to him. I couldn't see any cars because Stefan was all I had seen.
Even though I was lost in my head, I knew by the look in Richard's eyes that he was waiting for something. Maybe an explanation of what happened, but I couldn't tell him. Because, quite honestly, I had no idea what happened.
For years I had wondered what would happen if Stefan and I ran into each other. In one version, he mouthed the words 'I'm sorry' and maybe I'd nod and give a smile, but then we would go our separate ways. In another, when I wasn't exactly in the best mental state, I wanted to run in to him. That way I could march right up to him and scream into those blue eyes I used to get lost in. I'd tell him how terrible I thought he was, how I would never forgive him and how he would one day die with that on his conscience.
Never once in all my thoughts and dreams did I guess I would react the way I did today. If someone might have asked me if I expected to see him and be lost in him and drawn to him, I would have told them absolutely not. But I couldn't deny it, no matter how badly I desired to.
I cursed my foolish heart for ever once thinking of that man. He left me mentally and emotionally long before I left him physically. That's the kind of person you never give another minute of your thoughts to. You don't feel every inch of yourself craving him, yearning for him. You forget about him and until recently … I thought I had.