Chapter 163 She came to me
Ryder's POV
My heart leaped when I saw Sage at the door of Tommy's room.
She was here. After a week of silence and distance between us and me being too much of a coward to go to her, she had come to me.
But the hope died before it fully formed when I saw the expression on her face.
She looked exhausted, dark circles shadowing her eyes and her skin pale and dry looking beneath the fluorescent hospital lights. Her hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail and she wore jeans and a sweater I did not recognize. I wouldn't say I knew all her clothes but the ones she wore looked new.
But it was not the physical exhaustion that stopped my heart. It was the way she held herself. Rigid and careful, like someone who had already made peace with a decision and had only come here to deliver it.
She looked like she came here to tell me something terrible and not to see me.
"Sage." I stood up from the chair beside Tommy's bed. "I was just about to come find you—"
"Don't." Her voice was flat and emotionless. "We both know that's not true."
I blinked and shook my head slightly at the coldness in her tone. "I know I should have come sooner. I'm sorry. Tommy almost died and I couldn't—"
"I'm leaving." She cut me off, her arms crossed over her chest like armor.
Relief flooded through me even though I knew I did not deserve it. "Going back to your apartment in Manhattan? That's probably a good idea. You need rest and—"
"Arizona." The single word dropped into the room like a bomb. "I'm going to Arizona with Diego."
The words hit me like a physical blow. I felt the wind being knocked clean out of my lungs. I actually took a step back, my hand gripping the back of the chair to keep myself steady.
"What?" I could barely get the word out.
"I'm leaving for Arizona tomorrow morning." Sage's voice was still that terrible flat monotone. "With Diego. We're finally getting married."
"No." I shook my head, refusing to accept what she was saying. "No, you can't. We just — we said we loved each other. We were going to be together."
"That was before." Her eyes were hard when they met mine. "Before I spent a week watching my brother fight for his life while you couldn't be bothered to even send a text message."
"I was dealing with Tommy almost dying!" The words exploded out of me. "He stopped breathing in the ambulance. I had to do CPR on my own brother. I watched him nearly die and I couldn't — I couldn't leave him, Sage. He's the only family I have."
"And Jaxon is the only family I have!" Her voice rose for the first time, cracking with emotion she had been holding back since she walked through the door. "He almost died too, Ryder. He was in surgery for hours and I didn't know if he was going to survive. I sat in that waiting room alone not knowing if my brother was going to come back to me. And you weren't there. You weren't there for me when I needed you the most."
"I wanted to be—"
"Diego was there." She cut me off again. "Diego was there when the doctors came out with news. Diego was there when I broke down crying in the hallway. Diego brought me food and made sure I ate and sat beside me every single day while you hid in this room pretending I didn't exist."
"I wasn't pretending—"
"You couldn't pick up the phone?" Her voice broke on it. "You couldn't even ask if Jaxon was alive? You couldn't spare five minutes in an entire week to check on me?"
The crack in her voice did more damage than the anger had. I opened my mouth and closed it again.
Guilt twisted in my gut like a knife because she was right. I had no excuse that would make this okay. Not a single one.
"I was scared," I admitted, my voice rough. "I was terrified of losing Tommy and that fear paralyzed me. I know that's not good enough but it's the truth."
"Diego was there when I needed someone." Sage's voice went back to that terrible flatness. "You were not. That tells me everything I need to know about where your priorities lie."
"That's not fair—"
"Fair?" She scoffed. "Nothing about this is fair, Ryder. Nothing about watching Jaxon almost bleed out on our back porch was fair. Nothing about being forced to stand at a wedding arch with a gun to my head was fair. And nothing about being abandoned by the man who said he loved me was fair."
"I do love you." I took a step toward her. "Sage, please. I made a mistake. A terrible, awful mistake. But we can fix this. I can do better. I will do better."
"It's too late." She took a step back, maintaining the distance between us like she needed it to stay resolved. "I've already made my decision."
"Don't do this." Desperation clawed at my chest. "Don't marry Diego because you're angry at me. That's not a reason to spend the rest of your life with someone."
"I'm not marrying him because I'm angry." Sage's voice was quiet now, quieter than anything she had said since she walked in, and somehow that was the worst version of it. "I'm marrying him because he showed me what it means to actually be there for someone. He didn't abandon me when things got hard. He didn't hide in a hospital room for a week making excuses. He was there, Ryder. And you were not."
I reached for her hand, needing to touch her, needing some physical connection to stop her from slipping away. "Sage, please—"
She pulled her hand away before I could make contact.