“Thanks, Liam,” I whisper.“Really, I do appreciate it.”
He clears his throat.“Okay.Well, when you’re back in London, we’ll celebrate properly.Dinner with no strings attached.Just something nice.”
“Yeah,” I breathe, though my throat tightens painfully.“That sounds great.”
“Good.”A smile in his voice now.“Then rest.You sound wrecked.I’ll check in in a few days, yeah?”
“Yeah.Okay.”
The line goes quiet, then clicks closed.
And the silence comes rushing back in.
Back in London.
The words echo through me like a reminder of a life I used to belong to and a future I’m not sure exists anymore.
I climb the stairs slowly, like each step might break me.But when I push open my door, I freeze.
Nate is sitting on my bed, holding Bones—my old stuffed toy—like he’s afraid to let go.He looks… I don’t know.His skin is too pale, eyes hollowed by exhaustion, hair unwashed, hands trembling.
“Nate?”
He looks up, and the shame in his eyes steals the air from my lungs.
“I… I needed to see you.”
I take a few hesitant steps forward, but something in me keeps my distance.He looks too fragile, too breakable.
“My mom came to see me yesterday,” he says with a bitter laugh.“She finally told me the truth, about everything.Just when I thought life couldn’t get more fucked up.”
“Nate—”
“I almost wrote you another letter instead of coming here but I owed you this in person.”
The tone of his voice—the raw finality of it—makes my stomach twist.
“I’m not okay,” he says quietly.“I haven’t been okay for a long time.I’m unwell.I’m fucked up in the head and I’m not helping myself.I know that.”He swallows hard.“Which is why I have to get help.”
Relief and dread twist inside me all at once.
“That’s good, Nate.That’s really good?—”
The moment the words leave my mouth, he flinches.Then he pushes himself up from the bed—slowly at first, then fully rising to his feet like the distance is something he suddenly needs.Standing puts him at eye level with me and further away all at once.
“Nora,” he says, voice tight, “getting help means… this can’t happen.You and me.”He shakes his head once, jaw clenching.“It’s not healthy for me right now.”
It feels like the floor shatters beneath me.
“I know I’ve hurt you,” he continues, voice breaking.“Every time I swear I won’t, and then I do.And you deserve better than the mess I keep handing you.”
“I get hurt whether I stay or go,” I whisper without meaning to.
He flinches.“I know.And I’m sorry.”
Here’s the thing, there’s a difference between knowing something and wanting it.I know Nate needs to go.I know he needs to save himself in a place I can’t follow.
But wanting him to stay is its own kind of addiction.
