Chapter Forty #2
He slammed his hand on the counter, making me jump. “Nothing about this is fair, Livi. You said you were done with him. You said you wanted a life with me. But every time I turn around, it’s like I’m competing with a ghost. A fucking memory!”
I tried to step past him, but he blocked my way.
“Nate, please,” I said. “I’m tired. Can we just—”
He jabbed a finger at me. “You never fucking loved me. You just wanted a new project. Something to keep you busy until you could go crawling back.”
The words hit me harder than I expected. I opened my mouth to deny it, but the tears came instead, stinging and hot.
He saw them, and for a moment I thought it would calm him down, make him see how much he was hurting me. But it only made him angrier.
“God, you’re pathetic,” he spat. “Crying over him, even now. You don’t even try to hide it.”
He knocked the beer bottle over; it spun across the counter and shattered on the tile. Glass and foam everywhere.
I started to cry for real then, ugly and gasping.
Nate stalked closer. “You think you’re the only one hurting? You think you’re the only one who’s ever lost anything?”
He grabbed my arm, hard, fingers digging into the soft part just above my wrist. I tried to pull away, but he held on.
“I tried, Livi,” he said, voice cracking. “I fucking tried. But you never gave me a chance. You never gave us a chance.”
I shook my head, sobbing. “I did. I swear I did.”
He let go, shoving me backward. I lost my balance and hit the corner of the countertop with my hip, pain blooming white-hot. I yelped and tried to sidestep him, but he was already right there, looming over me.
“Why can’t you just love me?!” he screamed, face inches from mine. “Why can’t you just—”
I reached for his arm, maybe to calm him, maybe to steady myself.
He slapped my hand away, hard. Before I knew what was happening, the back of his other hand exploded on my face.
Harder than he meant to, maybe, but enough that my head whipped to the side and I crashed into the cabinet door.
There was a dull, wet thud, and then everything went blurry.
I slumped to the ground, vision tunneling. I could feel the blood in my hair, warm and thick, and the room spun in slow, nauseating loops.
For a minute, Nate kept yelling. I could hear his voice, high and fractured, but the words turned liquid, then static, then nothing at all.
I fumbled for my phone, fingers slick with blood and panic. I got it out, managed to swipe and hit the call button. I didn’t even know who I was dialing until the ringing started.
“Hello?” Cam’s voice, sharp with alarm.
I tried to answer, but my mouth was full of copper. I heard Nate curse, and then there was a bright, shattering sound as my phone was stomped out of my hand and into a spray of glass and plastic.
I curled up, hands over my head, waiting for the next blow. But it didn’t come.
Nate’s footsteps thundered into the bedroom, then the bathroom. Cupboard doors slamming, the medicine cabinet ripped open and rattled shut. The hiss of the faucet, then the unmistakable sound of retching.
I pressed my palm to the side of my head and felt the skin split open, a ragged line above my ear.
The blood was still coming, slower now, but steady.
I tried to stand, made it halfway up the cabinet, then slid down again.
I didn’t want to cry anymore, but the tears kept coming, mixing with the blood on my cheeks until I couldn’t tell one from the other.
After a while, the apartment got very quiet. I heard the soft snick of the bedroom door, the shuffle of Nate’s feet as he paced on the other side. He didn’t come out. He didn’t say a word.
I lay there, head cradled in my hands, and watched the blood drip from my fingers onto the tile.
I tried to think of what to do next, who to call, how to move at all.
But the only thing I could manage was to breathe, in and out, in and out, and hope that maybe, if I waited long enough, it would all stop hurting.
It didn’t.
∞∞∞
Cam
I used to believe there was no such thing as true emergency, not unless blood was spurting or bones poked through skin.
That was what my dad taught me, with his ice-cold hands and his voice like the inside of a mausoleum.
“Never panic,” he had said. “The real disasters aren’t loud—they’re silent, they sneak up, and by the time you notice it’s already too late. ”
When the call came through, I almost didn’t answer.
It was after midnight and I’d spent the last hour moving around the house like an inmate, counting the seconds until I could justify another Ambien.
The number wasn’t saved in my contacts, but the city prefix made my heart thump like a boxer’s fist. I answered, expecting a wrong number, maybe a robocall.
But the noise on the line—static, then a sob, then a man’s voice screaming—I recognized both, and it made me colder than death.
I heard Livi’s breathing first, ragged and wet, and then Nate’s voice, high and broken, “You never fucking loved me!” and a sound like something shattering against tile.
For a second, I just listened, trying to break it down, but all I got was chaos: Livi gasping, crying, and Nate yelling, the line hot with violence.
Then a hollow thud, a scream that wasn’t quite hers, and silence.
I snapped out of it and called back. No answer.
I called again. The line picked up, but there was only muffled noise—like someone had thrown the phone across the room, or stepped on it. Then, a single sharp inhale, and a click.
I didn’t even put on shoes. I grabbed my keys and was out the door before the rest of me caught up. In the car, I tried to call her again, but it went straight to voicemail. I texted Rachel, then Jackson, but the words were just: Call me. Now.
The streets were empty, washed in orange streetlight and the shine of last night’s rain.
I drove like I was racing a bomb, running every red, fingers drumming the wheel, mind already flipping through the worst-case scenarios.
I knew where she was. Of course I did. When you’ve loved someone long enough, you always know where to find them, even when they wish you wouldn’t.
Nate’s building was only a ten-minute drive, but it felt longer. The parking lot was empty except for a single old sedan, headlights on, engine running. I recognized it—Nate’s car. He wasn’t there, but I saw the smudge of his handprints on the hood.
I took the stairs three at a time, my chest burning. The hallway on the third floor reeked of disinfectant and despair. I pounded on 302, and when no one answered, I kicked it. The door wasn’t locked.
Inside, the apartment was a ruin. Books everywhere, some ripped in half, the couch overturned, the TV face down on the rug. In the kitchen, glass littered the tile and a patch of red smeared across the linoleum. At first, I thought it was wine.
Then I saw her.
She was slumped against the lower cabinets, knees tucked to her chest, one hand clamped to her head. Blood pooled under her ear, bright and dark, running in rivulets down her jaw. Her eyes fluttered, but she was awake, somehow.
“Jesus, Livi—” I dropped to my knees. My hands hovered, afraid to touch her, afraid to make it worse. “Can you hear me?”
She tried to smile. “Hey,” she whispered, then coughed, a raw and rattling sound.
“Don’t move.” I looked for a towel, a shirt, anything to press to her head, but there was only broken glass and the stench of liquor. I took off my own shirt, wadded it against her scalp, and tried to keep the pressure steady.
“Where’s Nate?” I asked, barely able to say his name.
She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “Bathroom, maybe.”
“Stay with me,” I said, even as I fumbled for my phone to call 911.
But before I could, Nate stumbled into the kitchen. His face was ruined—eyes swollen, nose leaking blood, a split lip that looked weeks old but was probably fresh. He saw us, and for a second he just stood there, blinking. Then he lunged at me.
I caught him with one hand, pushed him back, and he hit the counter with a sick thump.
“She’s mine,” he said, voice muffled by blood and teeth.
“No,” I said. “She’s done with you.”
He tried to hit me, but he was too far gone. I pinned him to the fridge, using every ounce of what I had left.
“You need to leave,” I said, low and deadly. “Right now.”
He didn’t fight. He just sagged, crying into his hands, and then he was gone—out the door, down the hall, echoing footsteps fading away. I wanted to go after him. I wanted to kill him. But I had to take care of her first.
I went back to Livi. Her eyes were open, but glassy. I couldn’t tell if she was still bleeding, or if I was just making it worse. I called 911, gave them the address, and held her until the sirens got closer.
She didn’t say anything until the paramedics were loading her onto the gurney.
“Don’t let him come,” she whispered. “Please.”
“I won’t,” I said, and meant it.
∞∞∞
The hospital was a blur of bright lights, antiseptic, and paperwork. I’d never hated a place more in my life.
They took her straight back, stapled her head, and ran a battery of scans.
I stayed in the waiting room, clutching a Styrofoam cup of bad coffee and staring at the clock, counting every second like it might buy her a better future.
I called Rachel again, left another message.
I called Jackson. I even tried Nate’s number, just to scream at him, but it rang and rang and finally died.
When they let me see her, she was in a curtained-off bay, IV taped to her wrist, hair matted with blood.
She looked at me, and I saw the shame before she could hide it.
“Don’t,” I said, pulling up a chair. “None of this is on you.”
She started to cry, soft and silent. I took her hand, careful of the needles.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I never meant to—”
“Stop,” I said, voice thick. “None of this is your fault. He’s a fucking psycho. If I could kill him, I would.”
She squeezed my hand, and for a while we just sat there, the hum of machines and the hush of night the only company.
After a long silence, she said, “He was good, once. Or he tried to be. I thought I could help him. I always think I can help.”
I shook my head. “You don’t have to fix anyone. Least of all him.”
She nodded, but her eyes stayed on the wall.
“He said I’d never get over you,” she said, barely above a whisper.
I flinched, but didn’t let go. “Is that true?”
She took a long time to answer. “I don’t know,” she said, finally.
I wanted to believe it. I wanted to be the person she needed, not the one who’d ruined her.
Rachel and Jackson showed up an hour later. Rachel went straight for Livi, wrapped her in a hug that looked like it might break both of them. Jackson stood back, hands in pockets, and gave me a look that said, We did our best, man, but none of us saw this coming.
They talked, quietly, for a while. I stepped out into the hall, called the police again, made sure there was a report. I called the lawyer they suggested, told him to get a restraining order. I did everything I could think of to make it right, knowing none of it would matter.
When I came back, Livi was sitting up, bandaged and pale, but more herself.
Rachel said, “You can come stay with me. As long as you need.”
But I shook my head. “She’s coming home with me. For now.”
Livi looked at me, surprised. “You don’t have to—”
I cut her off. “I want to.”
She hesitated, then nodded. “Okay.”
Rachel looked at me, and I could see the calculation in her eyes. She was still skeptical, but she trusted Livi to make her own decisions.
We left together, Livi leaning on me, her steps slow but steady. I got her into the car, buckled her in, and drove through the city with a kind of vengeance, daring the world to try and take her from me again.
At home, I helped her into bed, washed the blood out of her hair, held her until she fell asleep.
In the dark, I stayed awake, listening to her breathe, counting every rise and fall like a miracle.
I didn’t know what tomorrow would bring. Maybe more pain, maybe more loss. But for tonight, she was safe.
And that was enough.