Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
ROSE
Ibreak the moment the door closes behind us.
One moment I’m upright, holding it together with clenched teeth and pure spite, and the next I’m folding forward, a sound tearing out of my chest that doesn’t even feel human. Clara barely has time to drop her bag before her arms are around me, steady and solid, catching me as my knees give out.
“I know,” she murmurs instantly, like she doesn’t need me to explain. And she can feel the weight of it shaking through me. “I’ve got you. Just—cry. Let it out.”
I sob into her shoulder, my fingers twisted into the fabric of her jumper like I’m afraid if I let go of anything I’ll completely unravel.
My chest aches, my throat burns, and my head feels too full, and it might split open from the pressure of everything I’ve been holding back since the story broke this morning.
“I feel so stupid,” I choke, the words coming out broken and ugly. “I feel—God, I feel so fucking stupid.”
“You’re not,” Clara says fiercely, tightening her grip. “Rose, you’re not.”
But it doesn’t matter what she says. The thought has already rooted itself deep in my chest, sharp and poisonous. I trusted him. I let him into places I don’t let anyone. I believed him when he looked at me like I was safe. And now every single memory feels tainted.
I pull back just enough to wipe my face with the sleeve of my jumper, then immediately start crying harder when I see the pity in Clara’s eyes. Not judgement. Not shock. Just heartbreak on my behalf, and somehow that makes it worse.
“He knew,” I say hoarsely. “He knew the whole time. He knew it was me.”
Clara’s mouth presses into a thin line. She doesn’t interrupt. She doesn’t try to soften it. She lets me say it.
“He found me in the hospital,” I continue, my voice trembling. “He stood there and looked at me and let me talk about how scared I’d been. How I couldn’t stop shaking. How I didn’t even see the other car until it was too late.” My breath hitches violently. “And he didn’t tell me.”
The room feels too small. The air too thick.
I pull away from her and pace a few steps, dragging my hands through my hair, the motion frantic.
“I trusted him,” I whisper. I told myself Talia was just bitter, that she was trying to get in my head.
” A shallow laugh slips out. “Turns out she didn’t even have to try too hard. ”
Clara swears under her breath.
“I feel like everything between us was fake,” I say, the words tearing at my throat as I say them aloud. “Like every look, every touch, every time he told me I mattered—how am I supposed to believe any of it now?”
I sink onto the sofa, curling forward, elbows on my knees, staring at the floor hoping it might give me answers. “He didn’t just lie to me,” I say. “He built a whole relationship on it.”
Clara sits beside me, close but not crowding, her knee pressed gently against mine. “Rose… I know this feels unbearable right now, but—”
“No,” I interrupt, shaking my head hard. “Don’t try to make it better. Please. I need to say this.”
She nods immediately. “Okay.”
I swallow thickly. “I think—” My voice cracks and I have to stop, press my fist to my mouth until I can breathe again. “I think him cheating on me would’ve hurt less.”
Clara stiffens beside me.
“At least then,” I continue, tears spilling over again, “it would’ve been about wanting someone else. About temptation or weakness or being an idiot.” I laugh weakly through my sobs. “This feels… calculated. Like he looked at me every day and made an active choice not to tell me the truth.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, images flashing through my mind without permission. Callum in my kitchen, barefoot and half-asleep. Callum laughing with his team at the rink. Callum’s voice low in my ear, telling me I was safe with him.
All of it feels poisoned now.
“I let myself fall in love with him,” I whisper. “I trusted him with the worst parts of me. And he knew—he knew he was the reason I was hurt, and he still let me love him.”
My chest tightens painfully, grief curling in on itself until it feels like it might crush my lungs.
“I don’t even know who he is anymore.”
Clara reaches for my hand, threading our fingers together. “You don’t have to decide anything right now.”
“I feel like an idiot,” I say again, quieter this time. “Like I should’ve known. Or I missed something obvious.”
“You didn’t,” she says firmly. “You loved him. That’s not the same thing.”
I shake my head, staring down at our joined hands. “Everyone’s going to see me as that girl now. The one who dated the guy who caused her accident and didn’t even know. The one who got played.”
Her grip tightens. “No. They’re going to see a man who made a terrible choice and a woman who didn’t deserve to be caught in the fallout.”
I don’t answer. I don’t know if I can believe that yet.
My phone buzzes on the coffee table, the sound slicing through the room like a blade. My heart stutters instinctively before I can stop it. I already know who it is.
I don’t look.
“I can’t,” I say hoarsely. “I can’t talk to him.”
“That’s okay,” Clara says. “You don’t owe him anything right now.”
I nod, even as my chest aches at the thought of his voice.
At the thought of what he might say. Apologies.
Explanations. Words that might make this hurt less, or shatter me completely.
Right now, everything between us feels like a lie.
And I don’t trust myself to hear the truth without breaking all over again.
I curl into Clara’s side, exhaustion washing over me in a tidal wave, heavy and relentless.
Outside, the city carries on, uncaring. Somewhere across town, Callum is dealing with the consequences of his choices.
And here I am, mourning a love I thought was genuine, wondering how something that felt so safe could turn into the sharpest betrayal I’ve ever known.
“I need you to see something.”
Clara’s voice is careful. I’m still curled into her side, my face pressed against her shoulder, when she pulls back slightly and lifts her phone between us.
I don’t look at it straight away. My body reacts before my brain does.
My stomach tightening, my pulse kicking hard, a familiar dread blooming behind my ribs.
“I don’t want to,” I whisper.
“I know,” she says softly. “But it’s… different from the rest. This isn’t social media noise. This is their official statement. The one his team just released.”
That makes my chest ache in a new way. Official. Everything our relationship suddenly feels like it never was.
“I can’t,” I say again, “I can’t read another version of him being sorry. Or spinning it. Or—”
“Rose,” Clara interrupts gently. “I wouldn’t show you if I thought it was bullshit.”
That gets me. I pull back enough to look at her face. Her eyes are steady. Protective in the way only someone who loves you can be when they’re trying not to influence you but also won’t let you walk blind into something.
“Just read it,” she says. “You don’t have to do anything.”
My hands feel numb when I take the phone from her.
CALLUM FRASER — STATEMENT
My throat tightens painfully.
Earlier, inaccurate and incomplete reports began circulating regarding an accident that occurred several months ago.
My heart stutters. I keep going.
I want to be completely clear about my role in what happened. I ran a red light. I did not collide with another vehicle, but my actions directly caused an accident involving multiple cars. I panicked. I made the wrong decision and I left the scene.
This was a failure of judgement that I will regret for the rest of my life.
The following day, after learning that those involved were not critically injured, I went to the hospital to ensure they were safe and to take responsibility.
I did not speak publicly about this at the time because I was deeply ashamed.
That silence was not an attempt to evade responsibility.
I understand that my choices have caused pain, disappointment, and anger and I accept that.
There is one additional point I need to address clearly.
The woman I am currently in a relationship with was not aware of my involvement in this incident.
She deserves honesty and respect, and I failed her by not telling her sooner.
That failure is mine alone. I never intended to deceive her, but intent does not erase harm.
I am telling the truth now because it is the only way forward.
I am not asking for forgiveness. I am taking responsibility.
I will accept whatever consequences come from this. I will not hide from them.
I stare at the screen long after the words stop. My heart is pounding, loud in my ears, my emotions a tangled, unbearable mess. And beneath all of it, something I don’t quite want to acknowledge yet.
Truth. Not a clean one. Not a comforting one. But a full one.
Clara watches me carefully. “What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. My voice sounds distant to my own ears. “I don’t know what to do with this.”
Because it doesn’t erase the betrayal. It doesn’t undo the months of not knowing. It doesn’t soften the way it feels to realise the man I loved carried this secret into every moment we shared.
But it also doesn’t read like spin. It doesn’t paint him as a victim and it certainly doesn’t excuse what he did. And the part of me that hates how much I know him recognises his voice in it. The bluntness. The refusal to sugarcoat. The way he takes the blame without trying to spread it.
“He didn’t say your name,” Clara says quietly. “They protected your privacy.”
I nod slowly.
“And he didn’t lie,” she adds. “About the facts.”
“No,” I whisper. “He didn’t.”
That doesn’t mean I’m okay. It doesn’t mean I forgive him. My trust still feels shattered, like broken glass in my chest every time I think about his hands on me, his mouth saying my name, his eyes holding secrets I didn’t know existed. But the narrative in my head shifts, just slightly.
He didn’t hit my car. He didn’t drive away because he didn’t care. He panicked. He made a catastrophic choice. And then he lived with it. And somehow, against all logic, I can see how fear might have twisted itself around love and turned into silence.
“I still feel betrayed,” I say, my voice thick. “I still feel like an idiot.”
Clara shakes her head. “You’re not an idiot. You’re a person who loved someone complicated.”
I lean back against the sofa, exhaustion seeping into my bones. “I don’t know if I can trust him again.”
“That’s okay,” she says. “You don’t have to know that today.”
I stare at the phone again, at his name at the top of the statement and I don’t feel relief. Not yet. But the rage has shifted. Softened at the edges. Made room for something heavier and more painful.
Grief.
For the version of us that existed before I knew. For the girl I was when I believed love didn’t come with this kind of cost. And somewhere beneath all of that, a reluctant truth settles in my chest.
Whatever else Callum did wrong, when it mattered most, he didn’t hide anymore. And I don’t know what that means for us yet.
But for the first time since everything fell apart, the story feels unfinished instead of over.