Gone

Chapter 38: Clearing My Head

I walked toward the house questioning every step I took. I knew it was an extremely bad idea to come here but I had to. It was the only way that things could be ok, or maybe I was just clearing my guilty conscious. Either way I was becoming a better person for it.

I knocked on the door in front of me and waited for an answer. The door swung open and Ryder was standing behind it. She had on sweatpants and a t-shirt. Her hair was in a messy bun and her face was puffed up. She looked like she’d been crying.

I was taken aback by her appearance. “What are you doing here?” she asked with attitude.

“I came to say I’m sorry. I never wanted to come between you and Niall,” I say. She rolls her eyes and walks out her door. She sits down on the bench that stood outside next to her door. I sat next to her.

“I keep trying to tell myself it’s not your fault, but I don’t know who else’s it could be. I blame myself too of course. I wasn’t you. I could never be you. Not in his eyes at least.”

“Ryder it’s not your fault, trust me. He really did love and I’m so sorry for everything that happened. Not just for me but for him too. He’s and idiot for not wanting a girl like you.”

She let out a breath. “You don’t know what it was like to look at him sometimes Charlie. When he’d talk about you his eyes, they get so blue and he gets happy and all I can think is wow she’s amazing. You don’t know the feeling when you question if when he’s laying at bed at night with you, if he really wants to be with someone else. You don’t ever have to wonder if the man you love is imaging you as a different girl while you two have sex at night. I even tried to be the bigger person. I said you could move in with us, you needed a place to go. What happened then? I watched how he looked at you, I watched how he touched you. I saw him want you. He’s never touched me the way he’s touched you. He’s never looked at me that way.” She began to sob. I didn’t know what to do.

“I want to hate you Charlie. I want to hate you for taking what I thought could be the love of my life away from me, but I don’t. I don’t hate you at all. I envy you.” She leaned against my shoulder and began to cry.

“The first time I left Harry was because he cheated on me. So maybe I don’t know what it’s like to have the man I love fall in love with someone else but I know how it feels to be betrayed. I know how hard it is to accept you’re not the only one. Even though Niall got his emotions confused he would never be unfaithful to you. He loved you Ryder and Niall isn’t an unfaithful guy. I know because no matter how long he’s known he never stepped over that line with me and even tried to compromise my relationship with Harry and I would never ask him to hurt you. You’re a beautiful girl, way to pretty to be locked in your house. Now you probably don’t want advice from me but you’re going to get it. We’re both going through a heartbreak, so it’s our job as women to get up and be strong enough to live another day and not compromise our… your integrity.”

“You know you’re a really good person Charlie,” she says.

“I know. Now I got to go. Call me or whatever,” I say and stand up. I walk down the street and back to my car. I begin to drive and make it to a bakery off a small road.

I go in and order a muffin when I turn around I see Harry walking in. “Are you stalking me or something?” I ask and smile. He walks over to me.

“No but I always said there was something pulling me towards you. What are you doing here?” he asked and walked to the front counter. I followed suit. He ordered a coffee and Danish.

“Well I could ask you the same thing. I was going for a drive,” I say.

“Me too. Just to clear up my head a little bit. I guess.”

“Sounds fun.” The lady called my name and I walked over to get my muffin.

“Do you want to come with me?” He looked down at me. I looked back into his eyes.

“What?” I asked. He smiled a crooked smile and looked down at me intensely.

“Come with me on the drive,” he said a lot more confident now. I smiled and looked down away from his eyes and down to his lips.

“Ok,” I say and nod my head. He smiles completely this time.

“Ok.” He says and grabs his coffee and Danish off of the counter. We walked out of the coffee shop and I followed him to his car I hopped in and watched him get into the driver side.

“So do you know where we’re going?” I ask once he’s settled.

“Not at all but let’s just drive for a while.” Harry began to drive down the road. I rolled my window down and felt the window whip across my face. “So how has it been?” he spoke. I looked at him but he was looking at the road.

“How has what been?” I asked confused. He looked at me then back at the road.

“You know living with Niall and Ryder. I always imagined them to be the type you could just walk in on them having sex anywhere. Like weird places like the laundry room or kitchen. Just you walk into home and them being right there against the wall next to you just going at it.”

“We’ve had sex on the kitchen table, and laundry room, and on the front door. But anyway not really. Well at least not when she was there.”

“What do you mean when she was there?”

“Niall didn’t tell you? They broke up. Like a couple of nights before you guys went to America.”

“No he didn’t tell me.” His grip on the steering wheel got tighter. I could see his knuckles turning white.

“Are you ok?”

“No honestly not. I don’t like the idea of you living with a man who’s in love with you.” I let out a breath. Was he about to get jealous? If he was I wasn’t going to be happy about it. He had no right to be jealous. Niall was the only one who was there for me after he hurt me. “Listen Charlie I don’t want to sound like an arse but I just don’t really like it. I’m not going to lie to you.”

“It’s fine. I always kind of liked you when you’re jealous.” He smiled and looked at me.

“Yea, why?”

“Because it meant you cared.”