The hospital smell hit me the second I pushed through the glass doors—bleach mixed with something metallic, something too clean it almost burned. My chest felt heavy, the weight of everything I’d left behind and was waiting for me clawing at me.
Skylar’s lips on mine. I could never forget that. Then there was the way I’d walked out on her without a proper explanation. The look in her eyes. Damn it, even now, every step toward the reception desk had her face burned into my head.
It was as if her essence had been plastered on my very soul and distance was no longer a barrier to what she can do to me.
“Ryans.”
I turned and then tried to smile.
Jasmine was standing near one of the hospital elevators, her hair loose around her shoulders, that chocolate brown catching the yellow light ov
