Changing You ✦ 𝑍.𝐷.𝐻.

Chapter 55 {Z & R}

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✦ ZACH ✦

Today, this Tuesday, we would have been exactly one month together if I hadn't broken up with her. If I hadn't ruined everything.

I was also perfectly aware of the fact that she had got taken exactly one week ago.

This day has to be hard for her, maybe she can't handle coming here, I thought to myself, crossing my arms over my chest and biting my inner cheek. Maybe she didn't see the note?

That could be possible, right? Maybe she didn't even go to her locker and she doesn't know I wanted to meet her at the beach.

Or maybe she just doesn't want to see you, a harsh voice echoed through my mind, reminding me of what I feared the most. Why would she, after everything you put her through? I anxiously knocked down the pile of sand before my feet.

Biting my bottom lip, I put all my hope into the possibility that she hadn't seen the note I had slipped into her locker, and she had no idea I was waiting for her.

I kept my eyes fixated on the sand below me until I heard a car approach. The red Mercedes stopped a little down the beach, on the parking spots below the dunes.

From the sand hill I was standing on, I could see Riley's mom — who I recognised from the hospital — sitting behind the steering wheel.

The door of the passenger's side opened, and I watched Riley step out of the car. My shoulders slunk down in relief.

She came.

The gentle spring breeze carried their conversation my way:

"Promise me you'll be careful." Her mom sounded worried.

"I'll be fine, I promise," I heard Riley say.

"Call me when you need anything." I saw her nervously tap her fingers on the steering wheel.

"I will. Love you, Mom." Riley waited with closing the door until her mom had said it back.

In case she doesn't come back, I knew. I always told Reese and Ryan that too before I went out on a hunt, because there was always the risk that I wouldn't see them again.

Shooting Riley a smile as she climbed up the dune, I quickly wiped a hand over my face, hoping to erase the tension that rested on my features.

"Sorry I'm so late," she apologised immediately. "My um, my mom didn't really want me to go, so I had to convince her-" she yelped as the sand suddenly drifted underneath her feet and she threatened to slide down the hill.

I grabbed her hand out of instinct and pulled her back up. A little too harshly, I realised, as she stumbled into my chest.

She looked up at me, her face only inches separated from mine and my breath hitched inside my throat.

We both jumped as her mom honked at us and she quickly stepped back.

"Um, thanks." I couldn't help but smile at the blush that coated her cheeks fiercely red (even though I was pretty sure mine weren't any better). "Told you I'm clumsy."

"It's okay," I chuckled. "Do you wanna go down the beach?"

"Please," she chuckled as well. "Because I'm pretty sure my mom's gonna stand guard over there."

"I don't blame her," I told her with a faint smile.

She walked down the hill before me, and it still amazed me how she hadn't been able to stand on her own a few days ago, her leg almost killing her, and now she'd be able to run a marathon.