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.
17.
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.