Chapter 23

*Ryder*

She's going to pull a runner. I guess I should've expected something like this. Though the girl I knew wasn't one for running from anything, her behavior over the last five years had been quite different from the norm. I felt guilty that I was the cause of her giving up her vacation; in fact, I wasn't quite sure how to feel about her leaving after seeing me. But I also don't know what I'd expected.

Yeah, I do; I expected her to run into my arms like some cheesy romcom movie, something I instinctively knew was not going to happen because, along with her sweetness, she had a stubborn streak a mile long that would not allow her to just give in to me at first sight.

I'd built up the moment of our first meeting in my head for so long that I think I'd overlooked a few things, like the fact that real life hardly ever, if ever, follows the plans and ideas in my head. Still, the decision to follow her here was a compulsion I couldn't resist.

I still have to work on my impulsiveness where she's concerned. But this whole situation was unexpected for me as well, all of it. Had I not been drugged out of my mind, none of what happened in the last five years would've occurred.

I'm still not too clear on all that had gone down there other than her betrayal, which is the one thing that has never left me, maybe because Janie and her friends always used every opportunity to remind me.

But the last few weeks out under her influence had got me thinking about how I'd handled that whole situation, and I was coming up with more questions than answers. From what I'd gathered from going through social media posts and tabloid writeups, I hadn't been acting like myself for as long as I'd been married.

This is the real me. The Ryder who'd fallen in love with her when we were little more than kids would most definitely follow her halfway across the world. I don't know who that other asshole is that went off and got married to someone else.

I've been thinking about that and wondering why the love of my life hadn't found it strange that I'd done such a dumb fuck thing. Why hadn't she fought for me for us? But that felt too much like accusing the victim, which I'm not about to do. I'd done enough to her already, apparently, even beyond the whole getting married thing.

I was tempted to follow her as I watched her sneak away from the yacht in the middle of the night, and it hurt to accept that this was not what was right for her and only served my selfish need to be close to her. I watched until the car she was in disappeared before running below the deck of my own yacht and throwing myself down on the bed facedown.

I haven't cried out yet, but I'm close. I find that each time I shed a tear, I feel less heavy and closer to getting to where I want to be. Someone once said that instead of trying to clean out all the muck in your life, you should purge it by adding good things. If I tried to unpack all my screwups, it would take years.

I had myself a good cry before rolling over in bed to stare at the ceiling. I have to make a decision about what it is that I want to do here. So far, I'd only been concentrating on getting clean because I knew I couldn't do anything else until that was out of the way, but I hadn't really let myself look beyond that point. Though in the back of my mind, there's always the thought of getting her back.

Okay, if I'm being honest, that's always been my endgame, making my way back to her. But I know that I need to do a lot of work before that day comes. I ordered the captain to head back and made arrangements to go back to Arizona to finish what I'd started. The last few days of watching her were going to have to be enough for now.

***

I looked out across the desert from my place on the ground in front of my tent. The sky was one of the prettiest I'd ever seen, with blending shades of red and orange with some pink and grey added in. My first thought was that I wished she was here with me; she'd like it, I'm sure.

The last few weeks had been grueling as heck and more taxing than I'd expected. I'd done the whole rehab thing before but not like this. This was soul-wrenching and, at some points, almost dehumanizing, but I guess some of the things I'd done weren't so humane, so fair is fair.

It sucks like a son of a bitch having to face the truth about yourself when that truth isn't good. Facing and accepting are two different things, though, so I'd had to work on that. I know that part of why I didn't want to accept the whole truth is because I didn't want to lay claim to the bullshit that I'd done, especially to her, but that was one hurdle I couldn't walk around. Not if I was genuine in my desire to make things right.

The teacher never let on that he knew who I was, and the fact that he never leaves this place, has no Internet, and seems to have a serious aversion to all things modern supported that fact. But the way he kept me isolated from everyone else kind of gave me a hint that he'd seen through my disguise, which wasn't much to begin with because it was hot as all seven levels of hell in this place, so minimalist was the way to go.

What's more, he didn't care one wit who I was or how much wealth I had. His only interest was in getting me better and not just my addiction but all aspects of my life. I've never known the person he brought out of me, never met him.

He was a mixture of the young innocent I was before the fame and the man I always imagined myself being, along with the man I knew she deserved. Knowing that at this time was kind of hard because there were still some things I needed to do back in my old life. Things that I still hadn't given much thought to how to handle.

I spent the last few days gearing myself up to face what awaited me back there without giving away the fact that when I walked out of this desert, I wouldn't be the same person I was when I walked in. There was still a huge block of my memory missing, but I knew enough to know that I'd made a huge mistake and just had to learn how to fix it.

I figured the new me would be strong enough to face what may come out better on the other side. So, when it was time to go the next morning after the amazing sunset, I felt ready to face the world. That was until the phone call from Mom. "Ryder, you have to get back here right now."

"What is it? Did something happen to Elena?"

I gripped the steering wheel and tried to stay calm. I hadn't looked her up since coming back and hadn't ventured into the outside world, not even through my phone. I'd cut off all communication, and since I was using my new phone, no one else had any of getting in contact with me except Mom, who was the only other person to have the number.

I hadn't seen the many messages she'd tried sending me before I turned my phone back on, but the anxiousness in her voice was freaking me out. "No, nothing like that. I can't explain it over the phone; just get back here as soon as you can. It's important."

"Okay, I'm on my way. It's going to take me a few hours, though."

We hung up, and I forced myself not to go over the speed limit. Though I was miles away from the nearest town, part of my new beginning was doing things the right way no matter what. Thinking that whatever this was had something to do with Elena added to the panic in Mom's voice and pretty much knocked all of my good intentions out of my head. "Fuck this!" I gunned it the rest of the way to the airport.

Because I didn't want anyone to know where I was, I haven't used my pilot since I went to see her in the hospital, and though my alias gets things done, that name doesn't have the same power and pull as Ryder Sumner does. Hoisted by my own petard.

***

*Elena*

It took me a couple of days to feel at ease again after running from my vacation. The first thing I did was throw myself into the new project, a TV series, the first in many years since the last and a completely different genre than I was accustomed to, which helped to keep my mind off of my real life because it took all of my attention.

It was only at night, back in my apartment in the new city where I was left alone with my own thoughts, that I relived that moment of seeing him in the crowd. I might have gotten over it sooner rather than later had the tabloids not gotten ahold of it somehow with a whole ass picture that was planted on the front page of every damn Pop magazine, not to mention the Internet.

For weeks it was all people would talk about, and since his face was pretty well hidden behind the mask, there were teams of people trying to dissect the image frame by frame to prove its authenticity. He might've escaped, we both might've, with just a still image, but of course, my life can never be this simple. Someone had a video.

Of course, they did! Now it was my reaction to the stranger with the hoodie pulled up over his head and a mask on his face that was giving away the fact that it was, indeed, Ryder. This, in turn, got his crazy wife and her friends to open up a new campaign against me, and well, let's just say that had it not been for my new job and the contract I'd signed, I'd probably have been tempted to go back into hiding.

The funny thing is, I liked this new city; I felt freer than I have in years, and though there were cameras everywhere, most of them were my fans which I'd take over the vultures any day. I was having fun and, as Sydney so succinctly phrased it, flourishing.

After the news broke about Ryder blending in with my fans to get close to me, she'd gone on the warpath, which for her means she's been furiously writing songs. Sydney likes to have mortal combat through melody; it's her thing. And no matter how I begged her to leave that whole thing alone, she'd had enough, according to her, and she wasn't putting up with any more of their shit; her words.

Having friends like her and a few others in the industry who were constantly checking up on me is one of the things that has helped me stay settled this time around, and staying the heck off the Internet.

Someone in my profession should relish the amount of free press I've received over the years, but I'm not built that way. Being the topic of discussion on everyone's tongue makes me sick to my stomach.

Whoever said any press is good press has never been on the receiving end of this kind of attack, or they're just not human. It was all I could do to hold onto my sanity, especially when all the speculation had the paparazzi relocating to my safe haven in droves. Thanks a lot, Ryder; jackass.