They moved silently through the house, Liam carrying her duffle bag while she collected the few items she’d left downstairs — her jacket on the hook by the door, a book she’d been reading, her favorite mug. Each object a thread being severed from the tapestry of the life she’d woven here.
From upstairs came the muffled sounds of Hailey’s continued distress, punctuated by Beth’s soothing murmurs. Sunny paused at the foot of the stairs, looking up with longing. She should say a proper goodbye, not leave with Hailey’s desperate pleas as their last interaction. But the thought of facing that devastation again, of prolonging the inevitable, was unbearable.
“It might be better this way,” Liam said quietly, seeming to read her thoughts. “A clean break.”
A clean break. As if anything about this were clean.
Sunny nodded, though every instinct screamed to run upstairs, to gather the girls in her arms one last time, to promise she’d see them again soon. But promises were dangerous things when you couldn’t guarantee you’d keep them.
At the front door, Liam set her bag down. Their hands brushed accidentally as they both reached for the handle, and despite everything, that small contact sent a jolt through Sunny’s system — a reminder of all they’d shared, all they were throwing away.
She pulled back as if burned, pressing her palm flat against her jeans.
“Are you sure?” she asked, the question quiet but weighted with meaning. “Is this really what you want?”
It was one last chance, one final opportunity for him to stop this, to fight for what they’d built together.
Liam’s gaze dropped to the floor, his broad shoulders slumping slightly. “What I want isn’t important any more.”
It wasn’t an answer, not really. But it was answer enough.
Sunny reached into her pocket and withdrew her house key, placing it silently on the entry table. The small metallic sound as it touched the wood seemed to echo with finality.
She took one last look around the foyer — at the girls’ coats hanging on child-height hooks, at the family photos lining the staircase wall, at the scuff marks on the hardwood floor where Hailey had ridden her scooter indoors despite repeated warnings. All the small details that made a house a home.
Outside, the sky had darkened, heavy clouds promising rain. Fitting, Sunny thought. The universe providing atmospheric accompaniment to her shattered heart.
She walked to her car without looking back, every step an effort of will. The duffle bag felt impossibly heavy, as if it contained not just her clothes and toiletries but the weight of all she was leaving behind.
Only when she was seated behind the wheel, key in the ignition, did she allow herself one last glance at the house. Liam stood in the doorway, watching her. His expression was impossible to read from this distance — was it relief? Regret? A mixture of both?
The first fat raindrops began to fall as she put the car in reverse, splattering against the windshield like tears. Through the rearview mirror, she watched the Anderson house grow smaller, taking with it the only real full family she’d ever had.
Sunny made it exactly three blocks before she had to pull over, her vision too blurred with tears to continue safely. She parked beneath a large oak tree,its branches providing meager shelter as the rain intensified.
Her phone felt heavy in her hand as she stared at the screen, realizing with a painful jolt that she had no one to call. The Andersons had become her whole world — her friends, her family, her support system. Without them, she was adrift again, untethered and alone as she had been so many times before.
Her finger hovered over Liam’s contact information. One call. One admission that they’d made a terrible mistake. Would he answer? Would he agree? Or had that door closed permanently the moment she set her key on the table?
A sob tore from her throat, raw and primal. She pressed her forehead against the steering wheel, allowing the grief to wash over her in relentless waves. She had lost everything — the man she loved, the children who had claimed pieces of her heart, the future she’d dared to imagine.
And for what? To protect them? From whispers and sidelong glances? From corporate pressures and career complications? The justifications that had seemed so solid yesterday now felt flimsy, insubstantial compared to the tangible reality of Hailey’s desperate grip, Maddie’s betrayed eyes.
When the storm of emotion finally subsided enough for her to think clearly, Sunny lifted her head and wiped roughly at her cheeks. She needed to go back to her tiny flat, to start planning for whatever came next. One step at a time. It was how she’d survived before; it was how she would survive now.
But even as she put the car back in drive, merging into the sparse mid-morning traffic, a small, stubborn spark refused to be extinguished in her soul. For now, she would keep driving, putting physical distance between herself and the Anderson house, even as her heart remained trapped within its walls.
Liam
Silence. That was the first thing Liam noticed. The suffocating, absolute silence that pressed against his eardrums like a physical weight. He stood in the center of his living room, staring at the emptiness that surrounded him.
Had the house always been this quiet? This hollow?
Footsteps echoed against hardwood as he moved through rooms that seemed to have expanded in Sunny’s absence, as if the walls themselves were stretching to accommodate the void she’d left behind. His hand trailed along the back of the couch — the exact spot where she’d curled up on countless evenings, reading to the girls, her voice bringing stories to life with different accents and animated expressions.
In the kitchen, breakfast dishes remained in the sink, abandoned in the chaos of the final morning. Blueberry pancakes with smiley faces — Sunny’s specialty. The sight of them, now cold and congealed, sent a sharp pain lancing through his chest. He reached for a plate, then let his hand drop. He couldn’t bring himself to wash away this last trace of her presence.
His reflection caught in the stainless steel refrigerator door — three days of stubble darkening his jaw, hair sticking up at odd angles, eyes hollow and bloodshot. When had he last showered? Changed clothes? The wrinkled Coyotes T-shirt he wore still smelled faintly of rink sweat andstale coffee.
