Save Riley(36)

“Nope.”

“It is. I’ve been counting the days. I thought by now it would be easier, especially since we’re ... together, but I just miss home so much sometimes that I can’t stand it,” she said softly.

“What can I do, Riley? To make it better?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she whispered.

I rolled onto my back and ran my hands through my hair. I knew that the only thing that would truly make Riley happy would be to let her go, but I couldn’t risk it. It wasn’t so much that I feared that she would turn me in, it was that I feared that my want – no my need for her would kill me if she weren’t here with me.

Still ... It can’t hurt to ask.

“Do you want to leave? Me? New South Wales? Do you want to go home and work in your book store and visit your family?” I asked.

Riley cleared her throat but didn’t say anything. Not at first; instead she sat up and crossed her legs underneath her. I watched her push her hair behind her ears before taking a deep breath and letting it out.

“No.”

What?

“No one there cares about me. No matter how much I miss them or how much I miss running around that book store, none of them care. If they did there would’ve been a manhunt looking for me by now. Sometimes when you leave, I watch the news just to see if maybe, just maybe, there’s something about a missing American girl or pleas from a family for her safe return. And do you know what I see Jax? Do you? Everything but. It kills me to know that they don’t love me anymore and have probably forgotten about me and yet I still love and miss them all so much. But, even though this is never a situation I thought I would be in, and even though I know you don’t love me and that you probably never will. I know that you only keep me around to ‘play with’, but goddammit Jax, I at least feel wanted when I’m with you,” she explained quietly.

I stared at the ceiling. I couldn’t think of a single fucking thing to say to her. How could you tell someone who had just poured their heart out to you that they were only half right? That what they were feeling wasn’t how they should be feeling at all? That you were the worst possible thing for them but couldn’t bear to watch them walk away?

She sighed unhappily and climbed off the bed. I kept my eyes trained on the ceiling while she walked over to the balcony doors and began to fidget with the loops.

“Up and to the left,” I said softly. Since I couldn’t respond to what she had just said, I figured I could at least tell her how to undo the locks that held the doors together.

Riley undid the loops and tossed them aside. The blast of cool air struck me like a knife to the side when she pulled the doors wide open and I shivered. I turned my back to the doors and pulled the quilt up from the end of the bed and wrapped myself securely in it. She wouldn’t jump so I had no reason to worry about her being on the balcony alone.

As I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, one thought kept floating through my mind. Does Riley care enough about me now to cut me? I chuckled after the thought crossed my mind for the fifth time.

“Jax?” Riley called from the balcony.

“Yeah?”

“Nothing,” she said after a few seconds of silence. She punctuated it with a heavy sigh and I opened my eyes.

Obviously nothing means something, I thought pushing my quilt off. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat there waiting for her to continue, but she kept her back to me as I had to her and didn’t speak.

“What would you do if I jumped?” she asked suddenly.

“I’m faster than you think, Riley. You’d never have the chance,” I replied.

She glanced over her shoulder at me before grabbing onto the railing and hoisting herself up. I was off after her like a bullet. She had managed to get one leg over by the time I grabbed hold of her and pulled her back, falling onto the balcony floor.

I was shaking, not because of what Riley had just done, but because I let her test me. That’s not how this was supposed to go. She wasn’t supposed to be the one in charge and I just ... I shoved her off of me and stood up. She looked up at me with her perfect blue eyes, a smile dancing in their hollowness. The hollowness that I had carved out of her from almost a year of captivity and I wondered if I had broken her mentally more than any of the others. But the others never would have lasted this long, I reminded myself.

“What’s wrong?” she inquired in a small voice.

“Everything,” I shouted. “This isn’t supposed to work like ... like ... this! You’re not supposed to want to be here Riley. You’re supposed to be fighting me every step of the way and I shouldn’t be tested. How dare you test me?” I began to pace quickly back and forth across the carpet in the bedroom.