Chapter 11: The Quad

I stopped at the bottom of the steps.

Ryan stood up and brushed off his jeans.

He picked up the phone and turned it so the camera caught both of us.

"Guys, she's here," he said to it. "She actually came."

"I live here."

"I drove eleven hours," he said. "Eleven hours, Linds. I slept at a rest stop in New York."

"Nobody asked you to."

He held out the roses.

I didn't take them.

He kept holding them out, with his arm straight, so the camera could see.

Two girls coming out of Pell Hall slowed down.

A guy with a skateboard stopped at the bottom of the path.

"I know I messed up," Ryan said, loud and cracked. "I know I said things. But I love you."

"I came all this way to say it to your face. Doesn't that count for anything?"

"How did you know where I live?"

He blinked.

"You posted it."

"I didn't."

"Kendall found it," he said, and then looked like he wished he hadn't.

More people were gathering.

It was four in the afternoon on the first week of classes. The quad was full.

Somebody said, "Is that the guy from the video?"

Somebody else said, "What video?"

A girl held up her phone and started filming too.

Ryan heard it.

He turned toward the growing crowd.

"This is the girl who took twenty thousand dollars from me," he said, "and ran away to a rich school."

"And I still love her. That's how stupid I am."

A couple of people said "aww" before they could stop themselves.

He turned back to me and dropped to one knee on the concrete.

Second time in five months.

"Come home, Linds. Just come home."

The crowd went quiet.

I looked at him on his knee, with his roses and his phone and his sad eyes.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Future Self Called to Save My Ruined Life from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.