“You know this is tough on him too,” she uttered, setting the rose arrangement on my dining table. “He is suffering along with you.”

I knew she wanted me to see his side through my self-centered focus, but I was still so angry with him that I was only worried about protecting myself now. He obviously didn’t care enough to protect my reputation so I was on my own.

Ellen sprayed polish on a rag and started dusting my furniture. Something made her smile.

“Do you remember that time when Ryan called his father from here and told him that you took him fishing?” She turned to look at me.

“Yes,” I answered her, recalling that evening quite clearly.

“He called me later that night when he got back to his hotel.” She smiled. “He was so elated! He said, ‘Mom, I found the woman I’m going to marry!’ Of course I was thrilled for him, but as his mother I was also concerned. I mean he had only known you for a few weeks, but he was so sure right from the very start. Taryn, you know he loves you more than anything in this world, don’t you?”

Her guilt trip was working. I tried to hold firm to my reasons for feeling betrayed so my position in this fight would be validated, but her one-sided conversation was pecking at my resolve. I started to feel like crap for being mad at him.

“He said last night that he feels completely responsible for the accident. After all, it was one of his demented fans that terrorized you, and you were on your way to see him when he couldn’t be here.”

“It’s not his fault,” I muttered. “He shouldn’t think that.”

“But he does,” she assured me. “He cried so hard last night when I talked to him.” Her voice trembled with pain and remorse.

“He… he said he killed his baby.” Her hand covered her quivering lips when she spoke the words, stifling her urge to cry out loud. Ellen quickly dropped the dust rag and shielded her face in her hands when her tears broke.

Tears of my own cracked again and I watched her hurry away to the bathroom through my blurry eyes.

He didn’t kill our baby – I did. I was the heinous monster.

“Taryn, I’m so sorry,” Ryan breathed in the phone when he answered my call.

I couldn’t stop crying. I never knew I had so many tears to shed in one lifetime.

Chapter 32 – Downward Spirals

I turned my laptop off when I had enough. New pictures were posted on the Internet of Ryan coming out of the back door of some exclusive club in Miami. His eyes were glazed over and he looked wasted, which angered me. Seeing gorgeous Lauren Delaney smiling in the same picture, just two steps behind Ryan, scorched my heart. Viewing the photos of Ryan guiding Lauren into the same car so they could head back to their hotel just about sent me over the edge.

He’d been partying a lot lately since my accident. Late night cast dinners, rumors of the excessive drinking binges, private outings with Lauren, and his denials of it all over the telephone were piling up on me.

Photos from the set were leaked and posted all over the Internet as well. Clear shots of Ryan playing with Lauren’s rings on her fingers, sitting so close that you couldn’t slide a sheet of paper between them made me crack into tears. It was hard to discern what interaction between them was for the film and what was… not.

And then there was the kissing...

The pictures of his lips on hers over and over again surrounded by words like “Rekindled Love” and “Ryan dumps Taryn Mitchell for old flame” made me deranged.

Ryan had informed me on several occasions that Lauren had a boyfriend, but every piece of photographic

evidence pointed to that being complete bull. I wanted so badly to believe him. Some days I did; some days my faith wavered. It didn’t help that all the tabloid websites stated that her relationship with Lucas Banks was over.

This absence from being in his presence drove the wedge deeper and deeper. Just knowing that he was spending so much intimate time with the last woman he had a relationship with before me was terrifying.

Every day he told me he loved me. Every day that we were apart seemed to last an eternity.

I had asked my doctor for a prescription refill, using the excuse that I was still in pain. Even though my body was healing, my mind was in pain. I was also starting to like the way the combination of antidepressants and narcotics made me feel numb.

Ryan was dealing with his own pain, drowning his misery in alcohol. I feared that he would slip and seek comfort in another woman’s arms – someone who wasn’t the source of his woes.

Ellen finally flew back to Pittsburgh. She had stayed with me for over two weeks, but she had to get back home and back to running Bill’s dental office. I was fending for myself fairly well so there wasn’t any need for her to stay. As much as I loved her, she was starting to get on my nerves.

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