"Don't."
I stopped.
"Don't just— don't justapologize." His voice was quiet but something underneath was shaking. "All I can hear is you sayingmaybe this was a mistakewhile I'm standing in your room afterI—" He stopped. Breathed through his nose. Tried again. "After I drove across town. And carried you up the stairs. And held you—" His voice caught. He looked away fast. At the water. "Forget it."
"Liam—"
"You know what the worst part is?" He was still looking at the river. His jaw working. "It's not what you said. It's that I believed you. For like three days I actually believed you. That I was a mistake. That the whole thing was—" He pressed the heel of his hand against his eye. "Fuck."
My chest was being crushed.
"You weren't—"
"Don't tell me what I wasn't." He turned back. Eyes bright. Not crying—close. "You don't get to say that to me and then come here and take it back like it's nothing. It's not nothing, Alex. Ibelievedyou."
"I was wrong."
"Yeah. You were." He pushed off the railing. Stood straight. Facing me. "But you meant it when you said it. You meant it in that moment."
And for a second—one horrible second—the instinct kicked in. The door. The composure. The smooth response that would de-escalate and deflect.
Stop reaching for people when you're falling apart. Reach for them when you're standing up.
Ethan's voice.
I was standing up. This was standing up.
"Yeah," I said. "I meant it. In that moment I meant it because I was scared and being scared makes me—" I struggled. The right words weren't coming because there weren't right words for this. "It makes me stupid. And cruel. And I go for the thing that'll make you leave because if you leave then I don't have to— I don't have to deal with—"
"With what? Me?"
"No… with the fact that youcareabout me." It came out raw. "Like actually care about me. Not the rowing. Not the name. You just—drove across town in the middle of the night andstayedand I've never— nobody's ever—"
I couldn't finish. My throat closed. I pressed my fist against my mouth and stood there on the bridge trying not to fall apart because falling apart was the pattern and I was supposed to be standing up.
Liam watched me. The anger still there but something else pushing through it. Something that looked like it hurt more than the anger.
"You know… my mom called me the other day. And she asked me something."
I waited.
"She asked me who's carrying me." His voice got rough. "And the truth is—" He stopped. Swallowed. Started again. "The truth is I wanted to say you. I wanted to tell her it was you. That there's this person who makes me feel alive—" His shoulders tensed. "But I couldn't say that. Because you're a guy. Because you told me I was a mistake. Because all of this is fucked up."
Liam turned away and stared down into the dark water.
"God, Liam. I really—"
"So who's carrying me? Nobody. Because the person I wanted it to be threw me out of his room at four in the morning."
The words landed in my chest like a fist.
"Liam—"
"And that's what I can't figure out." His voice was climbing again. Not yelling—just urgent. Raw. "Because you said all that stuff when you were drunk. That I was the best thing. That you regretted the lake. And Ifeltthat, Alex. I felt it in your body. You weren't lying. But then you woke up and you—" He made a sound. Half laugh, half something broken. "So which one is real?The guy who holds onto me at midnight or the guy who tells me to leave at four AM? Because I can't keep—" His voice cracked. "I can't keep switching back and forth. I can't."
The bridge. The river. The cold.
"Both," I said. "Both of them are real. And that's the problem. The guy who holds onto you and the guy who pushes you away are the same person and I hate that but it's true."
