34. Eli
CHAPTER 34
ELI
I shut the door gently behind me, but the moment it clicked into place, something inside me cracked wide open.
I stood there for a second—maybe longer—my hand still on the doorknob like I could rewind time if I just turned it back. Like maybe if I waited long enough, he’d follow. Say something. Anything.
But the silence on the other side of the door was louder than any slam.
I pressed my forehead against the wood, my breath catching in my throat. I hadn’t meant to say all that—not like that—but once the words were out, there was no stuffing them back down. And maybe I didn’t want to. Maybe, for once, I needed to say the thing instead of swallowing it whole.
Still didn’t make it hurt any less.
I crossed the room and sank onto the edge of my bed. My chest was tight, my hands shaking as I tried to breathe past the ache building behind my ribs. I felt like I was trying not to fall apart. Like I was walking a tightrope with no safety net.
Because I wanted Niall. I wanted us .
But I couldn’t be the only one fighting for it.
Not again.
My ex used to say all the right things, too—when it suited him. He’d make me feel wanted behind closed doors, but in the light of day, I was just a ghost. A maybe. A hypothetical. And every time I convinced myself it would get better, I gave up another piece of myself in the process.
I’d promised myself I wouldn’t do that again.
But here I was. Hurting for someone who’d made me feel invisible in the same way.
Only this time, it was worse. Because I knew Niall cared. I could feel it every time he touched me, like I was someone he couldn’t believe was real. I saw it in the way he watched me when he thought I wasn’t looking. I celebrated the way his walls slipped—just barely—when we were alone.
But care wasn’t the same as courage.
And love—if that’s what this was—couldn’t survive in the dark.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, frustration burning behind my eyes. I didn’t want to give up on him. I didn’t. But I was tired of begging for scraps. Tired of hoping today would be the day he chose me in the daylight.
I looked around the room, suddenly restless. I grabbed my duffel from under the bed and started packing—not because I was leaving permanently. Not yet. But I needed space. Time. I needed to stop bleeding for someone who couldn’t decide if I was worth the risk.
Halfway through, I paused and sat down again, my hand wrapped around his jacket I’d ‘ borrowed ’ a few weeks ago. It still smelled like him—soap and ice and something warm I couldn’t name. I hated how a part of me still wanted to curl up in it and pretend everything was fine.
But pretending wasn’t love.
And I didn’t survive the last version of this just to live through a softer kind of heartbreak.
I don’t know how long I sat there. Long enough for the jacket to end up clutched in my lap. Long enough to wonder if he was still out there, thinking. Hurting.
Long enough to realize he hadn’t come after me—and might not come at all.
And that if he didn’t—if this was the end—I needed to be strong enough to let him go.