Ryan's Love - C.A. Harms Page 0,42

felt lightheaded. Tears formed in my eyes.

“It is, Ryan,” I said.

He started to speak again, but I placed my finger against his lips to quiet him. “The trouble between you and Olivia started when we began seeing one another. I can’t keep coming between the two of you. I could never look at myself in the mirror, knowing I’ve hurt her. She’s scared and she needs you. She’s having a hard time, and right now your full attention needs to be directed to her.”

“I know,” he whispered against my finger, his voice laced with longing and his eyes glistening with tears. “But I need you too.”

His confession made my knees almost buckle. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and hold him close, but I knew couldn’t do that.

“I think it’s best if we stop seeing each other.” I swallowed past the lump in my throat, feeling close to breaking down. “I think she needs you, and I can’t keep causing her emotional pain. I won’t, Ryan. Your daughter needs you.”

I lightly pushed against his chest, forcing him to step back even farther. “Go,” I insisted.

He gripped the back of his neck and let his head sag toward the ground. “We could make this work, Amber. If you would just give me—”

“No.” Even I could hear the break in my voice as tears filled my eyes. But I couldn’t take much more of this before I would give in and allow this roller-coaster ride to continue. We could keep doing this, but it wouldn’t be fair to Olivia. She needed to heal from her grief, and she needed her father. The only way I could make sure she had his full attention was to walk away.

“We can’t make it work. I’m sorry, but it’s for the best right now. My presence is only making things harder on her.”

Ryan tucked his hands deep into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. His head was still hung, and I was unable to read his expression. He remained silent as he took a few steps back, still staring at the ground. I thought he may be trying to come up with another reason to stop me from making this choice. Instead he turned away from me and walked back toward the hospital.

As I watched him enter through the double doors without looking back, I suddenly felt sick. The last thing I wanted to do was push him away. I had to fight the urge to run after him and tell him I made a mistake. After our time together last night, I never thought I would be walking away from him today. But I had to do this, not only for him but for Olivia. They needed to heal together, and my presence was making that impossible.

An emptiness settled deep in my stomach.

Chapter Twenty-One

Ryan

It had been almost two weeks since Amber ended things between us, and I’d gone back to being the quiet, withdrawn guy I’d been for the last three years. Yeah, I smiled when I needed to, and I laughed when I felt I should, but at the end of the day, I felt hollow.

After Olivia came home from the hospital, I took a week off from work. I needed some time not only because I was feeling the loss of Amber and needed to take care of Olivia, I also realized I had to sort out my own heart. It was time I packed away all the things that still belonged to Claire—her sweater that was still draped across her reading chair in the corner of the living room, her clothes in the spare bedroom she had taken over because they wouldn’t all fit in our closet, all the things I knew we would never need again, and things others could use.

Olivia and I decided to donate her clothes and shoes. Well, at least those Liv decided she was able to part with. After we removed those remnants from our home, we decided it was time to say good-bye to Claire. Our love for her would always remain, but our longing to keep her close was only holding us back.

We chose to spend that week doing all the things Claire loved to do. We laid in the hammock on the back deck and watched the stars, trying to find the constellations, and we made s’mores with double the chocolate. But the main thing we did was pull out all the old albums and talk about our memories of