This was already complicated enough and adding his number back felt like opening a door I’d spent so long trying to keep closed.
But my thumb moved anyway.
And I typed his name: Alex Harrington.
Save.
I stared at the name in my phone. At the message thread that now had a face attached to it again and my stomach twisted.
What am I doing?
My phone buzzed again.
Emily
I love you. You know that, right?
The words sat there on my screen. Familiar. Safe. Everything I was supposed to want.
I typed back.
Love you too.
Three words. Easy.
I deleted what I’d written. Tried again.
I know.
Not enough. She’d notice. I forced myself to type it. Send.
Liam
I know. Love you too.
I did love her. I did. But saying it felt like swallowing glass, not because I didn’t love her but because my feelings for Alex were coming back. It was like no matter what the situtation, if he was around, I'd have feelings for him. The pull was magnetic… inevitable.
I set my phone face-down on the nightstand and lay back on my bed. Noah’s whale sounds hummed softly across the room.
I closed my eyes.
Alex’s number was in my phone again.
Emily’s text sat in my notifications.
And I was caught in the current between them—stuck in the middle of something I didn’t know how to navigate.
I didn’t fall asleep for a long time.
Chapter 14: Alex
The river path was darker than I expected.
Street lamps cast pools of yellow light every fifty feet or so, leaving gaps of shadow between them. I kept my hands in my jacket pockets, breath visible in the cool evening air. Fall had settled in—the kind of cold that bit at your face but hadn’t quite turned brutal yet.
Days since the debate. Days since I’d stood in that Kingswell lobby and told Liam I trusted him.
Liam had texted yesterday to make plans for tonight and it felt good to see his name in my messages.
