Ryder Cross's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The band on her finger caught the gray light. Ryder felt it against his cheek, and every question locked in his throat. He did not know who gave it to her. He did not know if she loved the man. One wrong word now could end what he had just opened. So he said nothing. He took her hand and led her out of the dead house. They drove until the fields gave way to a strip of chrome and glass. A diner glowed against the dark. Ryder pulled in, because he needed light and coffee and a table between them where the truth could sit. Inside, a bored waiter set down two mugs. Ryder wrapped his hands around his and looked at the ring. He made himself ask. "Who gave it to you?" She turned the band with her thumb. "He asked me a year ago. Before you. I never said yes. I never said no. I just kept wearing it because taking it off felt like a decision I wasn't ready to make." "Do you love him?" "No." She met his eyes. "I stopped a long time ago. I was a coward about ending it." Ryder breathed for the first time since the porch. But he pushed further, because he had shown her everything and needed the same. "Then take it off," he said. "Not for me. For you." She went still. Her hand closed over the mug. For a moment he thought he had pushed too hard, that she would stand and walk out into the dark. Then she slid the band off her finger. She set it on the table between them, small and cold under the chrome light. The carved heart he gave her still hung at her chest. "There," she said. Her voice shook. "It's done. I should have done it months ago." Ryder wanted to reach for her, but he had come with a thing to give and he gave it now. He drew a small box from his jacket. Inside sat a ring, worn smooth, set with tiny colored stones around a heart. Inside the band ran three words in fine script. "This was my mother's," he said. "My father never found it. I carried it fourteen years. I'm not asking you to marry me. I'm asking you to keep the one soft thing my father couldn't burn." She read the words inside the band and covered her mouth. She slid his mother's ring onto the finger where the other had been. It fit. Ryder felt the weight lift. She had chosen him over the man who came first. But she looked at the empty ring on the table, then at him, and her face changed. "He's going to come for an answer," she said. "And he doesn't know about you yet."