Forty.

Ryan’s POV

Elle didn’t speak to me for a few days, escaping the apartment any chance she got or just generlly avoiding me. She had even picked up extra shifts, but the icing on the cake was when I woke to find a note from her scrunched up in my hand. Telling me not to look for her.

Things had been tense, the atmosphere between us strained as I struggled to put together what I had done wrong to make her avoid me, but this note clearly meant that I had screwed up. The last time I had seen her, she looked atme the same way as Aria did, like she pitied me. Maybe I should have told her the truth about me from the beginning!

Knocking on her bedroom door was a habit. If it had been Aria I would have just forced myself in but I had needed Elle. I had needed her trust and had kept up the pretence of being a good man, something far more difficult than revealing the truth.

Elle’s room was immaculate, not a single spec of dust could be seen and yet something in here just felt off. Her white curta