Delicate Us

Chapter 27

Syler

Syler screamed behind the wheel at the third yellow light that turned red as she approached. Anxiety riddled up her spine as she stopped the car and drummed her fingers nervously on the steering wheel.

It was another 10 dreadfully long minutes before she made it to Trace's home. She parallel parked in front of his two-story house, eyeing the opened front door. Perhaps he was waiting for her to show up, and this was his sign that she was welcomed. No hard feelings. She hoped.

Syler got out of the car and sprinted to the door, feeling the cold cement below the soles of her bare feet.

The noise of her three-word confession taking up space in her head had her charging through the door frantically.

Warmth hit her first, then his smell of calming herbs and spices, then the memory of their beautiful night they had together upstairs in his bed. That song she had let go of, pushed along the cusp of her attention, like it suddenly wanted back in. A second chance to grasp it and love it. But then her eyes landed on his bulky mass on the couch, muscles tensing... with another woman. They were only inches apart. Too close. Enough to feel like someone had wrapped a cord around her throat to keep those words buried in her chest. Syler's eyes swiped over the brunette and clung to the image of Trace's green eyes lost in this woman's eyes. Their lips about to graze each other's.

She couldn't watch this. Seeing him kiss someone else would decimate her.

Like her presence was a magnetic field, Trace's gaze darted to her. "Syler?" he whispered out in a gasp, leaving the woman hanging.

"Oh my god!" Syler shouted as she pivoted on a bare heel and spun out the door. Not just spun, sprinted. Humiliation encasing her skin. Grief engulfed her heart in a blaze. The surprise on his face said it all. The door had not been left open for her. It had been open to let this beautiful woman in.

Syler trained her eyes on her car, wishing for it to get her away from this house, from Trace, from her feelings. She deserved this. She had lied to him. Some part of her thought she could come here and convince him that it had been a good thing that she had. What an extraordinary idiot to think so deliriously.

She screeched to a halt halfway to her car. Those three words abruptly exploded in her, forcing her to pay attention. This feeling was something she thought she had felt before, but it wasn't letting her go. It wasn't the same as the others. His green eyes flashed in her mind. The sight of him carrying her off stage. The feeling of him tackling her to the ground in her garden. That stupid mug with his face on it that he gifted her to keep the stalkers away that she glanced at every day. The way he defended the woman in the bar. All the memories whirled in her mind, asking her if she wanted to destroy them. But she clung onto them like it was her only hope to survival. All of them. This wasn't over.

Syler felt her body stiffen. "Nu uh," she said, puffing her chest and feeling the truth pushing against the back of her teeth again. She spun back to Trace's house and stomped back into the house. Trace was standing now, eyes glued to Syler. The woman had pulled back, getting up from her seat. When she turned to me, Syler recognized her. This was the woman in the video who had said that she had dated Trace before, said he was an abuser. The same woman Trace had told Syler not to worry about. And whether he trusted Syler or not did not affect the way she still, and always, would trust him.

"Syler," Trace whispered again, but this time her name held a note of apology.

She turned to the woman and said, "Leave. Please."

When the woman reached out for a folder that was on the table, Trace slapped his hand down over it faster than a blink of an eye. The slap startled her. "Leave," Trace echoed.