“Can I get you anything?” he asks.
He looks like he wants to pull me in.
Hell, he looks likeheneeds the hug.
Normally, I might relish the feel of his warm body, his size, the way being in his arms always made the world feel small and manageable.
But now?
Now I can’t reconcile the man I loved with the man whose world and secrets nearly cost me the two people I love most.
Loved.
I keep forcing it into the past tense, like that will somehow make this easier. I never responded to his confession in my apartment.
I don’t know why he chose to say it then.
Maybe he thought it would clarify the mess he’d made.
Maybe he thought it would make up for the weeks he disappeared on me.
It didn’t.
“I think…”
The words scrape out of me as I take a slow breath, exhaling until something inside me splinters.
“I think I want you to leave.”
His brows pull together in confusion. The hallway light behind him casts his face in shadow, hiding the sage green of his eyes, and thank God for that.
I couldn’t survive seeing the exact moment he understands what I’m asking.
I couldn’t take the full force of that heartbreak.
“For now, or...” It’s a question disguised as a statement.
“I don’t know,” I say, and I’m being honest.
He shifts his weight, trying to find some steady ground. “Do you…Want me to take Laddie somewhere for a while? Give you space to go home, shower, and eat? Or I can stay with Talia while you two —”
“No,” I say firmly. “No, I don’t need any of that. I just need you to leave.”
A muscle in his jaw ticks as he looks at Talia in her hospital bed.
“May I ask why?” he finally asks.
I thought I was done crying.
God knows I’ve cried these last two days enough to wring myself dry. I feel scraped out inside, raw, exhausted.
But the moment I try to explain, the sting comes back. My throat tightens.
“My sister...she’s my best friend. She’s been there every step of the way for me, and I couldn’t...I couldn’t live with myself if something...if she hadn’t...”
I can’t even finish the sentence.
Liam swallows hard, nodding. “I get it.”
