“I can’t tell you.”
He laughed once.
No humor in it.
“Of course.”
“I’m sorry.”
He looked at me.
“For what?”
“Missing it.”
His jaw tightened.
“I used that against you.”
“You were scared.”
“So were you.”
I didn’t answer.
He looked down at the Trident on his chest.
“I think I needed you to be a disappointment.”
The sentence was so strange that I turned to face him fully.
“What?”
He kept staring down.
“When I decided to try for this, everyone talked about you.”
I frowned.
“Me?”
“Not like today.”
He shook his head.
“They’d say, ‘At least Ryan knows what he wants.’ Or Dad would say he was glad one of his kids had direction.”
My stomach knotted.
“I didn’t know.”
“Yeah.”
A bitter smile.
“Apparently that runs in the family.”
I let that sit.
Ryan continued.
“The worse they made you sound, the better I felt.”
He breathed out slowly.
“I hate admitting that.”
“Then why admit it?”
“Because it’s true.”
That was the first moment all day when I felt something inside me loosen.
Not because he apologized.
Because he was finally telling the truth without shielding himself from it.
Ryan looked at me.
“When Commander Hayes walked toward you, my first thought wasn’t even that you might be important.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“What was it?”
“I thought you were in trouble.”
I laughed.
Actually laughed.
A startled sound slipped out of him.
Then he started laughing too.
For maybe ten seconds, we were children again.
Then his expression sobered.
“I really thought security was about to remove you.”
“Well, Mom had already suggested it.”
He winced.
“I heard.”
“You also heard Madison.”
“Yes.”
“You smiled.”
His face tightened.
“I know.”
“That hurt.”
“I know.”
“No.”
I looked him straight in the eye.
“You know now.”
He absorbed that.
Then nodded.
“You’re right.”
The ocean wind swept over us.
Ryan stared at his hands.
“I’m sorry.”
There was no speech attached.
