Back To You

A different path (20)

The echo of Tayler's silent nod reverberated in my skull long after his figure disappeared around the corner. The bright, cheerful morning curdled, the sunlight feeling suddenly harsh and exposing.

"Well," Bryce said, his voice deliberately light, cutting through the thick silence that had swallowed us. "That was... subtle."

I couldn't muster a reply. My throat was too tight. I just stared at the empty space where Tayler had been, as if I could rewind the last sixty seconds and choose a different sidewalk, a different café, a different reality.

Bryce's hand touched my elbow, gentle but firm. "Hey. Look at me."

I forced my gaze to his. His expression was calm, but his eyes were searching, carefully analytical. He wasn't angry or threatened. He was assessing the damage.

"You okay?" he asked.

"I don't know," I whispered, the honesty torn out of me.

He nodded as if that was the only acceptable answer. "Come on. Let's walk."

He didn't take my hand, but he stayed close, a solid presence at my side as we moved away from the café window, away from the ghost of that moment. We walked without destination, the rhythm of our steps on the pavement a feeble attempt to outpace the turmoil in my head.

"He's not going to make this easy, is he?" Bryce said after a few blocks. It wasn't an accusation. It was a tactical observation.

"He's not trying to make it hard," I heard myself defend, the habit of two years of intimate understanding dying hard. "He's just... he sees things."

"He sees what he wants to see," Bryce corrected, but his tone was neutral. "And right now, he sees me with you, and he's connecting dots. Can't blame him for that."

His fairness disarmed me. I'd braced for jealousy, for posturing. This quiet empathy was more disorienting. "You're being very understanding about the guy who's basically glaring daggers at you from across the street."

Bryce shrugged, a small smile playing on his lips. "I've known Tayler a long time. He's all bluster and heart. Always has been. When he cares about something, he owns it. Completely. It's his greatest strength and his biggest flaw." He glanced at me. "You would know that better than anyone."

The words landed with a soft thud in my chest. He was right. Tayler's love had never been a halfway thing. It was a total occupation. When it was good, it was everything. When it broke, it left scorched earth.

"So, what does that mean for this?" I asked, gesturing vaguely between us.

"It means," Bryce said, stopping to face me on the quiet sidewalk, "that we have to be sure. Not just playing at something because it's comfortable or because it pisses him off. That's not fair to any of us." His gaze was steady, serious in a way I rarely saw from him. "I like you, Madison. A lot. I have for a while. But I'm not interested in being a rebound or a pawn. So if this is just you trying to get over him, or trying to force his hand... tell me now. No hard feelings."

The directness was a bucket of cold water. It stripped away the hazy confusion, forcing clarity into the open. I looked at Bryce—his open face, his patient eyes, the way he stood giving me an out without judgment. He was offering something real, something straightforward. A clean slate. A path without landmines from the past.

I thought of Tayler's closed-off expression all week, the way he'd shut down on the porch. I thought of the exhausting, exhilarating rollercoaster of us—the highest highs followed by the most devastating lows. I thought of the simplicity of this morning before Tayler appeared: the easy talk, the shared laughter, the absence of that constant, low-grade tension.