Chapter 47
FORTY-SEVEN
I didn’t move for a long time after the door closed behind him.
I stood there, frozen in the middle of my living room, tears streaming down my face, waiting for him to come back. Waiting for him to burst through the door and tell me it was all some horrible joke, something—anything—other than what had just happened.
He didn’t come back.
The silence in the apartment was deafening. Sydney wasn’t home, which was probably for the best because I didn’t want anyone to see me like this.
I enjoyed the chase.
His words echoed in my head, sharp and cruel, and I pressed my hand to my heart like it might physically hold the jagged pieces together.
The forbidden aspect turned me on.
God. God. I was so stupid. So fucking stupid to think I was different. To think that I was the exception to every rule Liam Farrell had ever made about not doing relationships.
I’m already getting restless.
The sob that tore out of me was ugly, broken, and heart-wrenching, as I sank to the floor, curling over and letting out the pain that was ripping me apart. Nothing had ever hurt me the way his words did. Not even when I’d found out about Chris.
Chris, who’d cheated on me because I was boring in bed.
Liam had gotten bored of me entirely.
I cried until my throat was raw and my eyes burned. Cried until there was nothing left, until I was hollow and empty and numb. Then I sat there in the dark, my back resting against the couch as I stared at nothing, replaying every word he’d said.
This was always supposed to be temporary. An arrangement.
But it hadn’t been. Not for me. And I’d been so sure—so stupidly sure—that it wasn’t temporary for him either. Not after the hockey game. Not after he’d said he loved me.
The anger came slowly at first. A spark in my chest that flickered to life beneath all the grief.
Because wait just a fucking minute.
I’d watched his face when he said those words.
I’d been standing right there, close enough to see every flicker of emotion, every muscle twitch.
And despite how he made everything sound and the doubt he’d planted in that moment, I knew Liam.
And his voice had been flat, yes. Cold, even. But his eyes—
His eyes had been devastated.
The same eyes that had looked at me like I hung the moon. The same eyes that had gone soft and vulnerable when he’d told me he loved me. Those eyes had been swimming with pain tonight, even as his mouth formed words designed to push me away.
I frowned, as clarity cut sharply through the haze of heartbreak.
Liam Farrell was many things, but he wasn’t a good liar.
Not to me. He could bullshit his way through conversations with anyone else, but I’d always been able to read him.
And tonight, nothing had matched. His words said one thing, but everything else—his clenched jaw, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, the way he wouldn’t let himself get close to me—said something else entirely.
He’d looked like a man destroyed.
And the only times I’d ever seen him doubt himself were always when his dad came around. Liam never talked to me about his dad, but I’d seen him when we were growing up and the wreckage his dad always left in his wake.
I’d asked him directly if this was about his dad, and he’d denied it. But the denial had been too quick. And I knew his dad had texted him, which made me believe this absolutely had everything to do with him.
What the fuck kind of lies had he poisoned Liam with?
I wiped my face with the back of my hand, my mind racing. Part of me wanted to run after him, demand answers, and force him to admit he was lying.
But I didn’t move.
Because even if I was right—even if Liam was lying about being done with me—the fact remained that he’d chosen to say those words. He’d looked me in the eye and told me I was just a chase. A thrill. Something temporary.
And a bigger part of me refused to beg a man to be with me.
I was done wanting men who didn’t want me enough to fight for me and work it out.
If Liam wanted to push me away, that was his choice.
If he wanted to self-destruct for whatever reason, that was his choice too.
But I wasn’t going to chase someone who’d just told me I was forgettable.
I wasn’t going to humiliate myself trying to convince a man to love me.
Even if I suspected that man already did.
I pulled myself off the floor, my legs shaky, and walked to my bedroom on autopilot. The bed was still unmade from this morning, the sheets still rumpled from the last time we’d been tangled up in them together. I couldn’t look at it.
Instead, my eyes landed on my desk. On the pen holder sitting in the corner, that used to be stuffed full of pens and highlighters but still held strips of paper from last spring.
My chest seized.
I crossed the room and pulled them out, one by one.
Little slips of paper covered in my handwriting, each one an item from the list I’d made all those months ago.
Liam had cut them up himself, turning my bucket list into something we could draw from randomly, making a game of it.
Although, we’d only ever pulled one out of here. The rest had come more naturally.
But I’d still kept every single one.
Even after we’d checked them all off, I’d saved them.
Having to be quiet so I don’t get caught.
Skinny-dipping.
Kiss outside in the rain.
I spread them across my desk, staring at the evidence of everything we’d done together. Every experience and memory that had started as an arrangement and turned into something that felt so real and deep I knew I’d feel Liam in my heart for the rest of my life—even if he wasn’t there in person.
The list is done, and so are we.
His words rang in my ears, and something inside me snapped.
I grabbed the metal trash can from under my desk and set it in the middle of the floor. Then I dug through the drawer until I found the lighter I kept for candles.
The first strip caught fire easily.
I watched my handwriting curl and blacken, the words disappearing into ash.
Oral sex (receiving).
Gone. I dropped it into the trash can and lit another.
Sexy striptease.
Gone.
Role-playing.
Gone.
One by one, I burned them all. Every fantasy I’d written down, every experience I’d checked off, every piece of the arrangement that had somehow become so much more. The flames licked at the paper, consuming everything, and the grief loosened in my chest with each one that turned to ash.
This was supposed to be about me. About proving to myself that I was capable of wanting openly, of being bold, of owning my desires. And I had done that. I had. But somewhere along the way, the list had stopped being mine.
It had become ours.
And now there was no more ours.
I sat back on my heels and stared at the smoking remains of my bucket list. My eyes were dry now—I’d cried myself out earlier, and the anger had burned away the rest. All that was left was a hollow ache in my chest and the acrid smell of burnt paper.
The list had served its purpose. But I didn’t need it anymore. And I sure as hell didn’t need the reminder of everything I’d shared with a man who could throw it all away with a few well-chosen lies.
Because they were lies. I was sure of that now.
I just didn’t know why he was telling them.
I cleaned up the ashes, opened my window to air out the smoke, and climbed into bed still wearing his old hockey shirt because I wasn’t ready to take it off yet.
Tomorrow I would have to face reality. Tomorrow I would have to figure out how to exist in a world where Liam Farrell had chosen to walk away from me.
But tonight, I let myself grieve. Not just for him, but for the future I’d started to imagine.
That future was gone now.
But I would build a new one. One that didn’t depend on a man who was too afraid to let himself be loved.
I just wished believing that didn’t hurt so much.