When the Star and Moon No Longer Meet

After Ryan Spencer cheated on me again with his secretary, I completely lost it.

When my mind started to spiral, I grabbed the fruit knife off the table. I just wanted it to end.

“Why are you hurting yourself again? He doesn’t love you anymore?”

I looked up.

The sixteen-year-old Ryan was walking toward me, heartbreak written all over his face. His voice was gentle.

“Tell me who he is. I’ll make him pay.”

I stared into the bright, earnest eyes of the boy standing in front of me.

I didn’t say a word.

I simply lifted my hand and pointed at his face.

Later, Ryan was the one who had me admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

When the sedative began to wear off, the teenage boy appeared again, sitting by my bed.

He stared at the man outside who looked just like him. The light in his eyes faded little by little.

Then he spoke, his voice strained.

“I don’t care who he is. I’ll kill him.”

The sixteen-year-old Ryan never lied to me.

When he said something, he meant it.

When Ryan Spencer walked in, the scent that followed him was Wendy Henderson’s signature perfume.

His eyes fell on the fresh bandage wrapped around my wrist. He frowned.

“Jane, I was only gone for a minute. Why do you always have to make things harder for me?”

Before I could answer, he reached for the gauze. There was no concern in the gesture. Just impatience. Irritation.

I pulled my hand back instinctively and held it against my chest.

“It’s already been taken care of,” I said quietly.

His hand hung in the air for a second before dropping. The look he gave me slowly turned tired.

At first, when I said someone was protecting me, he thought my condition was getting worse. He used to hold me tightly, eyes red, like he could keep the world away if he tried hard enough.

Now, my pain had become something he couldn’t shake off. A weight he was done carrying.

“There is no one,” he said flatly. “Jane Nelson, how long are you going to keep lying to me?”

He didn’t wait for my reply. He grabbed my wrist.

My hand was shaking, but that didn’t soften him. If anything, his grip tightened.

He tore the bandage off. The dried blood stuck to the gauze pulled at my skin as it came away.

Cold sweat broke out across my back. Still, I lifted my wrist toward him.

“I didn’t lie to you,” I said, my voice trembling. “Not since I was fifteen. You know that.”

Something flickered across his face. Then he looked away.

“What about you?” I asked, staring at his back. My nose stung. “Have you lied to me?”

He froze.

He didn’t turn around. He didn’t answer.

The sixteen-year-old Ryan didn’t know how to lie.

The thirty-year-old Ryan had learned that silence said enough.

A few seconds later, he called out coldly toward the hallway.

“Maria, get