The Only Way ✓

37. Lingering

Camila

There were things that I could not stand at the moment. As much as I kept myself composed and trimmed, the things around me were going far too fast. At times too fast, that I did not even have the time to react apropriately to them. Then, there were times were time could not pass by any slower. 

"Camila, I'm going to go ahead and take a shower..." Hearing Ryder speak, was the only anchor I had at the moment to keep me sane. I was on the my first tour, or as far as my memory went, the first tour I would have memories of. 

"Mila... You haven't once spoken ever since that meeting. What's going on in up there," Ryder stood before me, as I sat on my bed, pointlessly going through my bag. I tried my best to pretend that it was all okay, but a shake of my head was not enough for him. He continued to stand there, with a toweled wrapped around his torso. I looked up at him and he waited for a real answer.

"Does your head still feel fuzzy?" Ryder asked and pushed my bag aside so that he could take a seat beside me. My hands fell limp and empty on the duvet.

"It's not my head. There is so much to take in. I'm on a tour where I am suppose to play my music, which I'd have no clue of if it wasn't for the music sheets you happened to get a hold of," I spoke in low volumes. I was rather embarassed that whenever I spoke with Ryder it was over the same things. Ryder sat there watching me carefully, listening attentively. 

"Only recently, was I living with five others and now I have to collaborate with them, to somehow make music with them. I don't even know them well enough. Scratch that. I don't know them at all," I belted out. Ryder sat there taking it all in.

"Here I am, in a whole new place, where I probably stood before and I don't even have an ounce of a memory to attach it to. I'm in this hotel suite, with you, talking about my problems. The best thing about all of this, is that everyone else seems to know more about me than I do. I try my best to keep myself together, plaster a smile on my face so that no one else can ask questions, I can't even ask others who I was because no one can know about how I came to have amnesia." I hadn't realized I had gotten up during my tirade, until I felt Ryder grab my hands and pull me to him. I sat beside him, my hands still in his. 

"Miss Reid," Ryder spoke softly and placed a kiss on my forehead, "do you wanna hear what I have to say about all of this drama that burdens you?" I gazed into his eyes and nodded. 

"First, I think this," he motioned to the lot in general, "might actually help you trigger something. I want to believe this will help you."  He stared down at me and I offered him a weak smile. We could be doing thousands of other things at this moment and here we were seated on the edge of my bed, talking.

"I want you to trust me, when I say that your past, whatever it holds, no matter what, cannot define you completely. The more you feel pressured to remember the less you find. Maybe if you pushed it aside, it will come to you."

"But-" Ryder didn't let me speak.

"It will, I promise you that it will. If it doesn't then I will do everything so it does. And before you thank me for being an awesome person, for sitting here instead of doing anything else," Ryder squeezed my hand, "I wouldn't like to be anywhere else, Mila. Remember that. Forget about everything else and worry about now and everything will follow."

"Thank you." Ryder smiled.

"Anytime. Now I must shower, though I do enjoy the freedom of a towel," Ryder said and I shoved him playfully. That was one of his best qualities, being able to shift from a glum moment into laughter. 

"Go shower," I ushered him off and he dashed off, but not before kissing my cheek. I got up from the bed, and with my worries gone, my senses were in full action. Simon was right when he said that emotions clouded not only our judgment but our senses more importantly.