Chapter 180
Lily's POV
"Don't." Ryan's voice turned fierce. "Don't you dare think that. Lily, you—meeting you was the first real thing that happened to me in years. The first time someone saw me as just... me. Not the Carter heir, not the kid with the tragic backstory, just Ryan. I love you. I love you so much it terrifies me."
Tears were streaming down my face now. Across from me, I saw Ellie's hands curl into fists against her thighs, saw something flash in her eyes—sympathy? Pain? Her fingers pressed harder into the fabric, and I swore I heard stitching pop.
"Then how can you ask me to just disappear?" I whispered. "How can you ask me to wait without knowing if you'll ever actually come back?"
Another long pause. When Ryan spoke again, his voice was thick with unshed tears.
"I can't. I shouldn't. You're right—this is... God, Lily, this is so unfair to you. You deserve someone who can be there, someone whose life isn't this complicated fucking disaster. You deserve..."
He trailed off, and in the silence I could hear him struggling with something.
"If someone else comes along," he said finally, carefully, like each word cost him. "Someone good, someone who can give you normal and stable and—if you want to move on, I... I wouldn't blame you. I'd understand. You shouldn't have to put your life on hold for—"
"Are you breaking up with me?" The question came out sharp and clear, cutting through his rambling. "Ryan Carter, are you seriously calling me from a stolen phone at a gas station to break up with me?"
"No! Jesus, no, that's not—" He sounded panicked now. "I'm just saying I don't have the right to ask you to wait. That's different from not wanting you to wait. I want—fuck, Lily, I want to tell you to wait for me, I want to ask you not to even look at another guy, I want to be so selfish about this but I can't because—"
"Stop." I cut him off, my voice suddenly calm. Eerily calm, considering the storm raging in my chest. "Just... stop talking for a second."
I looked at Ellie. She was gripping the edge of Megan's mattress now, knuckles white, and I realized she was shaking. Not from cold—the room was warm despite the early hour. She was shaking like she was holding something massive back, her whole body vibrating with tension.
But when her eyes met mine, they were steady. Supportive. Like whatever I decided, she'd back me.
I took a deep breath.
"Okay," I said into the phone. "One year. I'll wait one year, Ryan Carter."
"Lily—"
"I'm not done." My voice hardened. "One year. That means from right now, this exact moment, to exactly one year from now. Do you understand? Not 'approximately a year.' Not 'around that time.' Exactly one year from this second."
"Okay." He sounded confused but hopeful. "Okay, I can—"
"And if you haven't contacted me by one minute past that deadline, I'm done." The words came out fierce now, powered by something sharp and protective deep in my chest. "I'm not going to sit around forever waiting for you to decide I'm worth the risk. So the second that deadline passes, I'm moving on. I'll find someone new. I'll go on dates. I'll fall in love again. I'll let him propose. I'll marry him, and we'll have a whole normal life with a house and kids and Sunday brunch and everything you're apparently too trapped to give me."
I heard Ryan's sharp intake of breath.
"I will build a complete, full, happy life without you," I continued, each word deliberate. "And I won't feel guilty about it. I won't wonder if you're coming back. I won't check my phone every five minutes. You'll have lost your chance, and I won't give you another one. Ever. Do you understand?"
Silence on the line. I could hear his breathing, quick and uneven.
Then: "I understand."
Something in his voice—broken and awed and desperately sad—made my own throat close up.
"I'll remember," he said quietly. "Every word. I'll be there, Lily. I swear to God, I'll—"
"Carter! We got your coffee!"
A male voice in the background, loud and close. Ryan cursed under his breath.
"I have to go. Lily, listen—" His words came fast now, desperate. "Don't trust anyone who claims to be from my family. Not letters, not lawyers, not random people who show up claiming they have messages from me. If it's not directly from me, from a number you recognize as mine, assume it's a trap. Do you understand?"
"Yes, but—"
"Don't tell anyone except Ellie about this call. Not Megan, not your other friends, nobody. The fewer people who know, the safer you are. And Lily?" His voice cracked. "I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry for all of this. I never wanted—I love you. Remember that. Whatever happens, remember that I—"
The line went dead.
I sat there, phone pressed to my ear, listening to the empty silence. Somewhere outside our dorm window, the campus was waking up—footsteps in the hallway, doors opening and closing, someone's alarm going off three rooms over playing that annoying pop song everyone used.
Normal. Everything was so normal out there.
"Lily." Ellie's voice, soft and careful.
I looked at her. Really looked. At the exhaustion carved into her face, the way she was still shaking, the odd golden tint to her eyes that I'd been half-noticing all semester and never quite questioning. At my best friend who'd sat up all night helping me prepare for a phone call that never happened, who'd known somehow to tell me to answer that unknown number, who was looking at me now with such profound understanding that it hurt.
"He's really gone," I said. Not a question.
"For now." Ellie moved across the space between us, sitting beside me on the bed. "But he'll come back. I know he will."
"How can you possibly know that?"
She hesitated, and I saw something flicker across her face—an internal debate, maybe, or a secret she was choosing not to share. Then she just said, "Because nobody who loves someone the way he clearly loves you would walk away permanently. Not if they had any choice."