Chapter Thirty-Nine

DAWN. 

Silence descends in the air with Ryder saying nothing for minutes, but I can feel his breathing heavy in my ear and the pounding of his heart against my chest. 

When he pulls me away from his embrace; a guilty expression covers his face, and the earlier glint in his eyes is nowhere to be found. I never meant for him to react this way, but somehow, he has. 

"Why do you ask, Dawn? "

He says in a voice barely a whisper that if I wasn't pressed against him; I wouldn't have heard. 

Gulping down the sudden bile in my throat, I speak in a voice nearly the same as his, "I think I deserve to know and its sort has been bugging at me these past few days. I think I've come to terms with that fact that the shit happened, and I think I am now ready to accept the truth. "

Ryder stares at me for a long minute of silence, and I'm regretting my words until he says, "Okay. I think you deserve to know, anyway. "

He brings my bo