Maybe Now (Maybe #2) Read online

  This all feels so surreal—him actually being here with me after so many months of wishing it could be this way. And he’s right. It felt so stifling being apart from him, yet feels liberating now that he’s here. And I know he isn’t saying all of what he just said because he felt like his life with Maggie was in any way something he didn’t want. He loved her. Loves her. What he’s feeling is the result of spending an entire life making decisions that were in the best interest of others and not himself. And I don’t think he regrets any of it. It’s just who he is. And even though I was a selfish decision he finally made for himself, I know he’s still the same selfless person he’s always been, so there’s going to be some residual guilt there. But people need to put themselves first sometimes. If you aren’t living your best life for yourself, you can’t be your best self for those in your life.

  “What are you thinking?” he asks, brushing my hair back.

  I shake my head. “Nothing. Just…” I don’t know how to sign what I want to say, so I grab my phone again.

  Sydney: This all feels surreal. I’m still trying to soak it all in. Last night was completely unexpected. I was starting to convince myself that you were getting to a point where you didn’t think we could be together.

  Ridge’s eyes shoot to mine and he laughs a little, like my text was completely absurd. Then he leans forward and gives me the softest, sweetest kiss before replying.

  Ridge: I haven’t been able to sleep for three months. Warren forced me to eat because I was anxious all the time. I’ve thought about you every minute of every day, but I kept my distance because you said we needed time apart. And even though it killed me, I knew you were right. Since I couldn’t be with you, I forced myself to write music about you.

  Sydney: Are there any songs I haven’t heard yet?

  Ridge: I played all my new songs for you last night. But I’ve been working on one. I’ve been stuck because the lyrics didn’t feel quite right. But last night after you fell asleep, the lyrics started flowing like water. I wrote them down and sent them to Brennan as soon as I got them down on paper.

  He wrote an entire song after I fell asleep last night? I narrow my eyes at him and then reply.

  Sydney: Have you even slept yet?

  He shrugs. “I’ll nap later,” he says, brushing his thumb over my bottom lip. “Keep an eye on your email today,” he says as he leans in for another kiss.

  I love it when Brennan makes rough cuts of the songs Ridge writes. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of dating a musician.

  Ridge rolls off the couch and then pulls me up with him. “I’ll leave so you can get ready for work.”

  I nod and kiss him goodbye, but when I try to walk to my bedroom, he doesn’t release his grip on my hand. I turn around and he’s looking at me expectantly.

  “What?”

  He points to the shirt I have on. His shirt. “I need that.”

  I look at his T-shirt and laugh. Then I pull the shirt off—slowly—and hand it to him. He’s eyeing me up and down as he takes his shirt and pulls it over his head. “What time did you say you’re coming over tonight?” He’s still staring at my chest when he asks this question, completely unable to look me in the eyes.

  I laugh and push him toward the door. He opens it and slips out of my apartment, but not before stealing another quick kiss. I close the door behind him and realize for the first time since the day I moved out of my old apartment, I finally feel like I’m no longer resentful for the turmoil Hunter and Tori caused.

  I am absolutely, without a doubt, so grateful for Hunter and Tori. I would live through the Tori/Hunter heartache a million times over if Ridge was always my final result.

  •••

  A few hours later, I get an email from Brennan. I duck into a bathroom stall at work with my headphones and click on the email with the subject line, “Set Me Free.” I lean against the wall, press play on my phone, and close my eyes.

  “Set Me Free”

  I’ve been running ‘round

  I’ve been laying down

  I’ve been underground with the devil

  You’ve been saving me like a ship at sea

  Saying follow me to the light now

  So here we go

  A little more

  Something I’ve been waiting for

  Here we go

  A little more

  You set me free

  Shook the dust right off me

  Locked up tight you found the key

  And now I see

  Ain’t no place I’d rather be

  I got you and you got me

  You set me free

  Hard to know the cost of it

  But when you’ve lost something

  Then you know there’s a price tag

  Think you might have been born to

  Be my come through when

  I can’t keep it all together

  So here we go

  A little more

  Something I’ve been waiting for

  Here we go

  A little more

  You set me free

  Shook the dust right off me

  Locked up tight you found the key

  And now I see

  Ain’t no place I’d rather be

  I got you and you got me

  You set me free

  I was sitting low

  I didn’t know where I could go

  Thought the bottom was the ceiling

  No remedy to heal it

  A Hail Mary to a sin

  A new start to an end

  You set me free

  Shook the dust right off me

  Locked up tight you found the key

  And now I see

  Ain’t no place I’d rather be

  I got you and you got me

  You set me free

  I stand completely silent after the song ends. There are tears running down my cheeks, and it isn’t even a sad song. But the meaning behind the lyrics Ridge wrote after falling asleep next to me last night mean more to me than any other lyrics he’s ever written. And even though I understood what he was saying this morning when he said he feels free for the first time, I didn’t realize just how much I identified with what he was feeling.

  You set me free, too, Ridge.

  I pull the headphones out of my ears, even though I want to put the song on repeat and listen to it for the rest of the day. On my way out of the bathroom, I catch myself singing the song out loud in the empty hallway with a ridiculous smile on my face.

  “Ain’t no place I’d rather be. I got you and you got me…”

  I think about death every minute of every hour of every day of my life. I’m almost positive I think about death more than the average person. It’s hard not to when you know you’ve been given a fraction of the time almost everyone else on earth has been given.

  I was twelve when I started to research my diagnosis. No one had ever really sat me down and explained to me that Cystic Fibrosis came with an expiration date. Not an expiration date on the illness, but an expiration date on my life.

  Since that day, at only twelve-years-old, I look at life completely differently than I looked at it before. For example, when I’m in the cosmetics section of a store, I look at the age cream and know that I’ll never need it. I’ll be lucky if my skin even starts to wrinkle before I die.

  I can be in the grocery section and I’ll look at the expiration dates on food and wonder which one of us will last longer. Me or the mustard?

  Sometimes I receive invitations in the mail for a wedding that’s still a year out, and I’ll circle the date on the calendar and wonder if my life will last longer than the couple’s engagement.

  I even look at newborn babies and think of death. Knowing that I’ll never live to see a child of my own grow into adulthood has erased any desire to ever have a child.

  I’m not a depressed person. I’m not even sad about my fate. I accepted it a long time ago.

  Most people liv
e their lives as if they’ll live until they’re one hundred years old. They plan their careers and their families and their vacations and their futures as if they’ll be around for all of it. But my thoughts work differently than most people’s, knowing that I don’t have the option to pretend I’ll live until I’m 100 years old. Because I won’t. Based on the current state of my health, I’ll be lucky to live another ten years. And that’s precisely why I think about death every minute of every hour of every day of my life.

  Until today.

  Until the moment I jumped out of the plane and I looked down on an Earth that seemed so insignificant that I couldn’t help but laugh. And I couldn’t stop laughing. The entire time we were falling, I laughed hysterically until I started crying because the experience was beautiful and exhilarating and far exceeded my expectations. The entire time I was plummeting toward the earth at over one hundred miles per hour, I didn’t once think about death. I could only think of how lucky I was to be able to feel that alive.

  Jake’s words kept repeating in my head as I was pushing against the wind. “This is living!”

  He’s right. This is the most I’ve ever lived, and I want to do it again. We’ve only been on the ground for all of a minute. Jake’s landing was impeccable, but I’m still harnessed to him and we’re sitting on the ground, my feet out in front of me as I try to catch my breath. I appreciate that he’s given me a quiet moment to soak it all in.

  He begins to unlatch us and stands up. I’m still sitting when he walks around in front of me and blocks the sun with his height. I look at him and am slightly embarrassed that I’m still crying, but not enough to try to hide it.

  “Well?” he says, holding out his hand. “How was it?”

  I take his hand, and he pulls me up as I use my other hand to wipe the tears away from my cheeks. I sniff and then laugh. “I want to do it again.”

  He laughs. “Right now?”

  I nod vigorously. “Yeah. That was incredible. Can we do it again?”

  He shakes his head. “The plane is booked for the rest of the afternoon. But I can put you on the schedule for my next day off.”

  I smile. “I would love that.”

  Jake helps me remove my harness, and I hand him my helmet and goggles. We go inside and I change out of my gear. When I make it back to the front counter, Jake has printed out pictures and downloaded a video of the skydive for me.

  “I sent it to the email address you have on file,” he says, handing me a folder with the pictures inside it. “Is the address on your form your correct home address?”

  I nod. “Yeah. Should I be expecting something in the mail?”

  He glances up from the computer and smiles at me. “No, but you can expect me at your front door tonight at seven.”

  Oh. He was serious about celebrating tonight. Okay, then. I just got super nervous all of a sudden. I don’t react, though. I smile at him and say, “Will this be a casual or formal celebration?”

  He laughs. “I could make a reservation somewhere, but honestly, I’m more of a pizza and beer kind of guy. Or burgers or tacos or anything that doesn’t require me to wear a tie.”

  I smile, relieved. “Perfect,” I say, backing away from the counter. “See you at seven. Try not to be late.”

  I turn and walk toward the door, but before I exit, he says, “I won’t be late. In fact, I want to show up early.”

  •••

  Ridge and I dated for so long, that I don’t even remember the last time I’ve stressed over what to wear on a date. Aside from his infatuation with front-clasping bras, I don’t even think Ridge paid attention to what underwear I wore. But here I am, digging through my dresser, trying to search for anything that matches or doesn’t have holes or isn’t tailored to fit a grandmother.

  I can’t believe I don’t have any cute panties.

  I open my bottom drawer full of stuff that, for whatever reason, I’d convinced myself I’d never wear. I sift through unmatched socks and gag-gift crotchless panties until I come across something that makes me forget about my search altogether.

  It’s a folded sheet of paper. I don’t have to open it to know what it is, but I walk to my bed and open it anyway. I sit and stare at the list I started writing over ten years ago, back when I was only fourteen.

  It’s a bucket list of sorts, although back then I didn’t know what the term “bucket list” meant. Which is why I titled it, “Things I want to do before I turn eighteen.” The before I turn eighteen part of the title is marked out because I spent my eighteenth birthday in the hospital. When I got home, I was bitter at the whole world, and that I hadn’t marked anything off my list. So I scribbled out the end of the title and changed it to, “Things I want to do. Maybe one of these days…”

  There are only nine things on the list.

  1) Drive a racecar.

  2) Skydive.

  3) See the Northern Lights.

  4) Eat spaghetti in Italy.

  5) Lose $5,000 in Vegas.

  6) Visit the caves in Carlsbad Cavern.

  7) Bungee jump.

  8) Have a one-night stand.

  9) Visit the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

  I look over the list and realize that out of the nine things I hoped for as a teenager, I have only done one. I went skydiving. And I didn’t even do that until today, yet it ended up being the best moment of my life.

  I reach to my nightstand and grab a pen. I mark out the second item on my list.

  Eight more things remain on my bucket list. And honestly, they’re all doable. Maybe. If I can somehow prevent myself from catching an illness while I travel, every single thing on this list is doable. Number eight might even be doable tonight.

  I don’t know how Jake would feel about being checked off as an item on my bucket list, but I don’t think he’d complain too much about being the other half of my one-night stand. It’s not like I’m going to let anything come of this date tonight, anyway. The last thing I want is another situation where I’ll feel like I’m a burden to someone. The thought of being someone’s irresistible one-night stand has me way more excited than the prospect of being someone’s terminally ill girlfriend.

  I fold the list and put it in the drawer of my nightstand. I walk over to my dresser and grab a random pair of panties. I don’t even care what they look like. If all goes as planned, I won’t even be wearing them long enough for Jake to care what they look like. I’m pulling on my jeans when I receive a text.

  Ridge: Mission successful.

  I smile when I read the text. It’s been several months since we ended things, but Ridge and I still text occasionally. As hard as it was to see our relationship come to such an unexpected end, it would be even harder to lose his friendship. He and Warren are the only two friends I’ve had for the past six years of my life. I’m grateful that even though our relationship didn’t work out that it doesn’t mean our friendship can’t. And yes, it’s weird discussing Sydney with him, but Warren has been keeping me up to date on all things Ridge, even in the areas I don’t care to be up to date on. In all honesty, I want Ridge to be happy. And as angry as I was when I found out he kissed Sydney, I still like the girl. It’s not like she showed up with evil intentions and tried to steal him from me. She and I actually got along, and I know they both tried to do the right thing. I’m not sure we’ll ever get to a point where we’ll all hang out as friends. That would be too weird. But I can be happy that Ridge is happy. And since Warren filled me in on their plan to trick Sydney into going to a bar last night so Ridge could convince her to be with him, I’ve been curious how it would all turn out. I told Ridge to text me if their plan was successful last night, but I don’t think I want the details. I can accept that she’s a part of his life now, and I really am happy for him. I just don’t think I’ll ever be in the position to want the details.

  Me: That’s great, Ridge!

  Ridge: Yeah, that’s all we’ll say about that because it’s still too weird discussing it with you. Any word
on the thesis yet?

  I’m glad we’re on the same page. And I can’t believe I forgot to tell him the good news.

  Me: Yes! Found out yesterday. Got a 5!

  Before he responds, there’s a knock at my front door. I look at the time on my phone and it’s only six thirty. I toss the phone on my bed, walk to the living room, and look through the peephole. Jake wasn’t kidding when he said he might show up early. I haven’t even finished getting ready.

  I back up to the mirror in my hallway and yell, “Just a sec,” while I check my reflection. Then I rush back and look through the peephole again. Jake is standing with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, looking out over my front yard as he waits for me to open the door. It’s honestly a bit surreal, knowing I’m about to go on a date with this guy. He’s a freaking heart surgeon! Why is he even single? He’s really cute. And so tall. And successful. And…is that a…

  I swing open the door and step outside. “Holy shit, Jake. Is that a Tesla?” I don’t mean to be rude, but I brush right past him and walk straight to his car. I hear him laugh behind me as he follows me to the driveway.

  I’m not a car fanatic by any means, but one of my neighbors dates a guy who drives a Tesla, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a tad bit obsessed with these cars. But I don’t know my neighbor well enough to go ask her if I can go for a ride in her boyfriend’s car.

  I run my hand over the sleek black hood. “Is it true they don’t have engines?” I spin around, and Jake is watching me with amusement as I ogle his car instead of him.

  He nods. “Want to see under the hood?”

  “Yes.”

  He pops the hood with his key fob and then steps next to me to open it. There’s nothing but an empty trunk inside, lined with carpet. No engine. No transmission. There’s just…nothing.