Heart by Rachel Higginson Page B

him,” I
suggested.
    Ryder chewed on his bottom lip and stared at
his phone. “It might be better to let him think I’m dead. I skipped
my shift at the store. He’s going to kill me.”
    I tried not to laugh. And failed.
    “This is funny to you?” He raised an
expectant eyebrow.
    “Well? Yeah, kind of. You did almost die
today.”
    “I can see why you’re laughing.”
    “I’m just saying…” Shoot, what was I saying?
“You’re right, it’s not funny. I’m just… exhausted. It’s been a
long day. And yesterday was a long day. I think I’m a little
delirious.”
    “We should probably figure out what to do for
the night.” He sounded just as tired as I felt. He played with the
cell phone in his hands and I could see the indecision flicker over
his face. He had no idea what to say to his dad. He’d just told me
he planned to stay with me, but now that the moment was here, he
couldn’t follow through with it.
    To be honest, I was relieved that he figured
this out now, instead of when we were already on the road. And I
was happy he’d come to this conclusion.
    Okay… not happy exactly. But at least
relieved.
    He shouldn’t have to give up a family that
loved and supported him. He shouldn’t have to give up his future
and his friends and all of the good things he had going on in his
life.
    I was a dead end. The sooner he realized
that, the better.
    “What are you going to tell your dad?” I
asked in a strangled whisper. I had known the ugly truth about who
I was for my entire life. But knowing it for all of these years
didn’t soften the blow when moments like this happened.
    Not for the first time, my mind jumped to all
of those beautiful places where Ryder and I could be together,
where we never separated to begin with. I imagined my life if I was
a normal girl, if I was a girl untouched by tragedy and trauma, if
I was a girl that wasn’t meant to bring down a Greek Pantheon or be
a slave to the sex-trafficking industry for the rest of her days. I
imagined what it would have been like for Ryder and me to have met
under normal teenage circumstances where we could have fallen in
love without the pressure of my curse hanging over our heads and
the twisting knife of fate stabbing our hearts.
    I imagined what my life would have been like
if I hadn’t left Ryder at the hospital, if I would have stayed with
him and let him fight my destiny with me.
    I imagined what it would be like for him to
still love me.
    “The truth,” Ryder answered. “I’m going to
tell him the truth.”
    “Wait-”
    “He knows, Ivy. He knows everything.” Ryder
slowly lifted his gaze to meet mine. “I told him the entire saga as
soon as I knew you weren’t coming back. He had already known the
majority of it. I didn’t see the point in holding anything
back.”
    My frantic thoughts tripped over each other
as I tried to figure out where to start. “Did he… How did he… What
did he think?”
    “He was pretty disappointed that he couldn’t
sue Nix for all he was worth.”
    “And he hates me.”
    “He’s worried about you. We didn’t know what
happened to you, Ivy. We’ve been expecting the worst for
months.”
    A fresh pang of guilt hit me. “What will he
think now?”
    “He won’t have to think,” Ryder answered.
“When I told him everything about you and your world, I also made
it clear what would happen if you ever came back. He’s been ready
for this for as long as you’ve been gone.”
    “You made it clear that…?”
    “That if you came back and it wasn’t safe
yet, I would go with you this time.” He sounded so casually
confident while he delivered a blow that left me breathless.
    My mouth went dry and my heart stuttered.
“Oh, right.”
    He picked up his phone and waved it at me,
“I’m going to…”
    “Right.”
    He dialed his dad and immediately started
explaining. I sat stewing with my emotional turmoil while I
listened to him give his dad all of the dirty details over the