The Road Ahead (A Hunter Hayes Fanfiction, Book 4 of The Hardships Saga)

Chapter Fifty-Three

❝memory (pronounced ˈmɛm(ə)ri or mem-uh-ree), noun
a recollection of the past.❞

Ryan's room was messy and full of Hunter, and she needed to change that as soon as possible.

The mere realisation that this was the room she had slept in since that night with Markus- not including London- was enough to drive her insane. Fights had been had in this room. Love had been made in this room. Their deepest heart-to-heart conversations and their lighthearted conversations about the next day were had in this room. Everything that had meant something to their relationship, very nearly everything, had happened in this room. And she couldn't deal with that reality.

She packed his clothes so that they were neat in the bottom of his drawer, then neatened her own. She put all of the things on his bedside table into the drawer so that she didn't have to look at them. She doused the entire room in her perfume, to get rid of the scent of his cologne and his aftershave.

"Are you and Papa getting a divorce?"

She spun around, and Robin was at the door, looking curious.

"Why would you think that?" she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

"Because you don't talk to him anymore," she said. "And it's like you don't love him."

"I do," she said. She wasn't lying, after all. She was pathetic. "I do still love him."

"So why are you hiding all his things?"

"Because he asked me to," she lied, looking away. "Have you finished your homework?"

She sighed. "I have a headache."

Ryan paused. She knew better than anyone how bad dyslexic headaches could get. "Go drink some water and take a break, then. I'll come and help you when I'm done cleaning this room."

"Okay. Thank you, Mama."

"No worries."

She kept cleaning, before her voice rung out again. "Mama?"

"Yes, darling?"

"What's wrong with the word petal?"

She stiffened. "I'm sorry?"

"I- I saw that you had texted Papa- and he was saying sorry for calling you petal. Is it a swear word?"

"No. No, it's not a swear word. It's just a nickname."

"Why did you get angry?"

"Because it's not my nickname. It's someone else's nickname. Imagine I called you Spence instead of Robbie. It's like that."

"Oh." She paused. "Who's petal, then?"

"No one."

"But you just said-"

"I'm sorry, darling, but this isn't the time. Don't go looking through my messages again, okay?"

She sighed. "Okay."

Robin left, and Ryan looked at her own bedside table, which had only a scented candle and a photo frame with a picture of herself, Winnie, Will, Mira and Carter, from a couple of years ago when they had come to visit her in London. She looked at it, and smiled slightly.

But the cloud still hung over her head, dark and foreboding. She had told Hunter in that fit of anger that she wanted him gone, but she didn't want that. She had never wanted that, no matter how much it hurt her in the end. She loved him, damn her for it, but she did.

She glanced at Hunter's bedside table again, and against her better instincts, she opened the drawer.

The top was filled with the things that had been on his bedside table, and she found herself putting them back in their original positions, where they looked like they belonged. After all, this was originally his house, and she couldn't chase him out that easily. She should be the one leaving him.