I inch closer, my heart pounding so hard it feels like it might break my ribs. Just as I’m about to round the corner, Carl keeps going.
“Son,” he says, his voice syrupy, fake concern oozing from every word. “I’m not saying this to hurt you. I’m trying to prevent you from making the same mistakes I did.” A pause. Then he asks, “You screwing her?”
Liam makes a low, dangerous sound deep in his throat, but Carl doesn’t stop.
“Easy now,” Carl says smoothly. “It’s a simple question. And you just gave me the answer.”
Another pause that might as well be a dagger sliding right between my ribs.
“I hope you’ve been smart, boy,” Carl says coldly. “Because women like that? They’ll get pregnant just to trap you.”
The air rushes out of my lungs in a ragged, silent sob. I stumble back a step, pressing my hand against my mouth. Surely Liam doesn’t believe that. Surely he knows me better.
Carl’s voice twists the knife one last time.
“That’s what your momma did to me,” he says. “And it ruined my life. Hers too, if we’re being honest.”
I stand there, frozen. Devastated. Torn between running and fighting.
Because if Liam doubts me…
If he believes even a sliver of what Carl says…
It might shatter everything we've built. Everything I thought we were becoming.
I square my shoulders. Wipe my tears away with a shaking hand. And walk straight into the tent.
Liam and Carl both turn at the same time. Carl's face twists into a smug, satisfied smirk. Liam’s expression—God. Liam looks torn. Like part of him wants to run to me and part of him is terrified of what that would mean.
I stop a few feet away, every cell in my body screaming.
“I stayed,” I say, my voice low and raw. “Because I loved you.”
Carl scoffs under his breath, but I don’t look at him. I can’t. I only have eyes for Liam.
“I loved you before you ever touched me,” I whisper. “Loved you when you didn’t even know you needed someone.”
Tears burn my throat, but I swallow them down.
“I didn’t stay because I wanted something from you,” I say, shaking my head. “I stayed because you were home to me.”
For a long moment, he just stares at me. Silent. Frozen. And the silence says everything. Because if he believed me, he would have already moved. But he hasn’t. And I realize it’s not that Liam believes Carl. It’s that he’s too scared not to. Too scared that loving me is just setting himself up to lose again.
Slowly, like my heart is breaking bone by bone, I take a step back. And another. Until there’s a gulf between us that feels impossible to cross.
Carl watches, victorious.
Liam still doesn’t move.
“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” I say, my voice breaking.
I turn.
Walk away.
And Liam…
Liam Stone lets me go.
