Mending Ryan Falls ✓

8 | in which she's alone again

Constantly,
Consistently,
Continuously,
You.

.\.|./.

Crystal Monroe

|in which she's alone again|

Too many things run through my mind, racing to see which one will win.

One, he's sitting up in bed and despite the scrubs and the bandages, he still looks like a freaking god. Now upright, the shoulders that look like they belong on a stallion, the face that belongs on a Greek statue, and the eyes that belong to Medusa no less, are evidently not human.

Humans do not look this hot.

Humans do not smile at girls who run them over with their cars and break all the bones on one side of their bodies.

Humans do not make my heart stop.

"I made soup," I blurt out, like making soup for strangers who hate me is something I do on a regular basis.

I'm sure the blue in the sister's eyes turns colder still, and I can almost hear her thinking of filing a restraining order against me. Even if she doesn't sue me for homicide, she's going to be suing me for stalking.

The other thing the blue swirls remind me of is the blue swirls that belong to Jeremy.

Somehow the microscopic gap between me being confident and wondering why the hell I'm here is covered, and every fiber in my being calls me out for being so stupid.

What was I even thinking?

"Morning and thank you. That's very kind of you."

The voice shatters through the bubble of self-doubt that has begun to form around me.

I blink a couple of times, wondering if I have started to hallucinate or if angels are popping out of the walls and singing choruses my way. Because the voice I just heard wasn't human. Turns out nothing about this man is.

His eyes that give me the feeling of being X-rayed.

Do I like the feeling?

Hell no.

It makes me feel transparent, like he can see right through me. It makes me feel like he can see through the walls I've built and right at the little girl hiding behind her hands and peeking through the fingers to see if the coast is clear enough to let her out. Both his smile and his eyes make me feel like my façade isn't good enough, the masks not opaque enough, the cold stare not distant enough.

And his smile ... God, that smile.

It makes me weak in the knees, not only because of how beautiful it is but also because this smile could sure as hell kill me. Not in the romantic way, but in the semi-neurotic way. If Jeremy saw that smile right now, he would round on me and ask me why the hell a stranger would smile at me like that.

Like what?

Like he's known me for years.

"Ry, you shouldn't have anything solid, you heard the doctors," the sister perks up, shooting me a sideways glare.

Either the girl is still mad at me for being the careless driver who put her brother in the pained condition he's trapped in, or she just hates my guts.

I think it has something to do with both.

Ry's smile widens, redirecting towards his fuming sister.

"I thought I was the one who hit my head," he asks softly, a slight amusement evident under the lightness. "Then how come you're the one forgetting that soups aren't really solid at all?"