Chapter 17
Nicole
The crescent moon and my evening yoga and meditation hadn’t cleared my thoughts. Not entirely. I sat at my computer, where I usually poured my heart out to people I had never met in my life, but no words came out. My fingers just sat on the keyboard. I couldn’t press a button to make words that made sense.
So I closed the screen, and closed my eyes to wish that, somehow, I could relax.
However, my mind’s eye kept conjuring the image of Ryder and how he’d walked away.
I’d created that scene, and the pain was mine to bear as my reality took shape out of my crazy thoughts.
I had pushed the best man I’d ever met in my life out the door … because of my laptop and the years I’d spent taking solace in the crowd.
A knock at the door jolted me out of my skin and I jumped up
