Free Heart by Rachel Higginson Page B

have responded if I wanted
to. His words had depleted any coherent thoughts in my head and
erased the words I wanted to speak. Mixed signals much? Geez.
    “Let’s go, Red!” he called from outside. His
voice was muffled through the windshield, but it still had an
effect on me. I still felt the gravelly tenor of the nickname he
gave me skitter down my spine to my very bones.
    I had to close my eyes and remind myself to
breath before I found the courage to meet him outside.
    He hadn’t been exactly kind to me since I’d
come back into his life, but then at the same time, he had. He had
shown up first thing this morning when he heard I was in trouble.
He had offered to drive me around and keep me safe while I was
here.
    He had revived my soul… my heart. I had lived
for so long by just coasting. It was something I was used to.
Shutting off all of my emotions and focusing on goals was one of my
strongest survival techniques and yet it never worked around Ryder.
He forced the feeling back into my body. He demanded that I wake up
and pay attention. And he always got what he wanted with me.
    Or most of the time.
    I finally jumped down from the cab and joined
him on the porch. We stood there ringing Smith’s doorbell for a
solid ten minutes, but nobody answered.
    I let out a sigh and let my forehead fall to
the hot door. I had wanted some easy answers, but it was clear I
wasn’t going to get them.
    “Let’s try your apartment,” Ryder suggested.
“Maybe there’s something there.”
    “Okay.”
    When we turned to walk down the porch steps
his hand landed on my back for a brief moment before he snatched it
back. My skin burned where his fingers had brushed and I
immediately missed his touch, even though it had been brief.
    It was the first time he had touched me since
the night I left him.
    He was wound tightly by the time we were in
his Bronco again. He didn’t say a word as he started the car and
drove out of the neighborhood.
    It was a twenty-ish minute drive from Smith’s
West Omaha estate to the midtown condo I lived in with my mom. The
geography of the city transformed drastically in those minutes.
Sprawling neighborhoods and strip malls gave way to clustered
buildings and old architecture mingled with new. My building was a
new construction project nestled between lower income neighborhoods
and the Mutual of Omaha skyscraper.
    “Is it always going to be this awkward
between us?” I asked when we were close to my old apartment.
    “How much time are we going to spend together
before you head back?” he returned.
    He pulled into the huge circle drive that was
mainly for people coming to shop the high-end Midtown boutiques or
grab some food. He found a spot close to the stairs that led to the
walkway around the shops beneath the condos and parked.
    Neither of us hesitated to scramble out of
the car and away from the tension that seemed to follow us
everywhere today. We walked up to the shops that were quiet this
early in the morning. Only a few of the stores had opened up and
the heat kept everyone inside.
    My heart stuttered when a punch of nostalgia
hit me. I hadn’t expected to miss this place. I hated my mother and
because of that, I hated my apartment. So many terrible memories
were wrapped up in this place. Yet, my heart still recognized it as home . I loved this area of town and I loved this town
especially.
    Good memories lived and breathed here, too.
Ryder giving me rides home when we were just starting our fragile
friendship. Hanging out at Delice with Phoenix, Ryder, Exie and
Sloane. Ryder rescuing me from my birthday party last summer. Ryder
texting me or calling me late at night to check up on me.
    Okay, so maybe my good memories had more to
do with Ryder than this physical place. Maybe that was the reason
that I felt safe here now. I had Ryder with me and he had always
protected me in the past.
    He had always done whatever he could to keep
me safe.
    “Do you still work at Delice?” I asked as