Chapter 16 Liam
Ifound my shoes in the dark. Put them on. Pulled my hoodie off the bedpost. Zipped it.
Didn't look at him. Couldn't.
I walked to the door. Put my hand on the knob.
Turned back anyway.
Alex was at the window. Hand on the glass. Shoulders shaking. Small tremors he didn't know I could see.
I opened the door. Stepped into the hallway. Closed it behind me.
The click of the latch and then nothing. Just the silence of Langford Hall at four in the morning. Portraits of dead rich men on the walls. Crown molding. The faint smell of floor polish and old money.
I stood there for a second. Fists clenched. Jaw locked.
Walk.
I took the stairs too fast. Nearly missed the last step. Front door. The quad. Grey dawn. Mist on everything.
I got in my car and slammed the door hard enough to rock the frame.
The engine caught on the second try. Heater blowing cold.
I drove.
And the anger came. Not the slow build—the instant kind. The kind that filled my chest like lighter fluid and just needed a spark.
Please go.
He'd said please. Like I was a guest who'd overstayed. Like I hadn't driven across town to scrape him off a couch. Like I hadn't held his wrist an hour ago when he was grabbing at me because I knew—I knew—he'd hate himself in the morning if I let it happen.
And I was right. He hated himself. And then he turned that hate on me.
Maybe this was a mistake.
"Fuck you," I said. Out loud. To nobody. The windshield fogging from my breath. "Fuck you, Alex."
I said it again and again, my voice going hoarse.
I hit the steering wheel. Once. Twice. The horn blared the second time and I jerked my hand back. The sound dying into the fog.
My knuckles ached. Good. Something I could feel that wasn't this.
I wanted to go back. Kick the door open. Get in his face the way I'd gotten in Braden's. You don't get to do this. You don't get to pull me in and then throw me out. You don't get to be honest at midnight and a coward by dawn.
The bridge. I was on the bridge. Didn't remember deciding to drive here.
I pulled over. Killed the engine.
Sat there. Hands on the wheel. Breathing too fast.
The anger was right there. Hot and ready. Telling me to go back. To fight. To make him feel it the way I was feeling it.
And that's when it scared me.
Because I knew this feeling. I knew what it did to me. Knew where it went when I let it drive.
Marcus at the party—my fist connecting with his jaw before my brain caught up.
Braden in the parking lot—hands on his jacket, slamming him into metal.
Every time I let the anger decide, I lost something.
And right now the anger was saying go back, make him hear you, don't let him shut the door.
But going back was how I'd gotten here. Going after Braden when Alex told me not to. Swinging when I should have stayed still. Doing something because sitting with the fear felt like dying.
I pressed my forehead against the steering wheel.
Don't go back.
The anger wanted me to. Every muscle in my body wanted me to. But the anger was a liar. It dressed itself up as strength and it was just a faster way to break things.
I sat there until the heat bled out of it. Until my hands unclenched. Until my breathing slowed and the fog crept over the windshield and closed me in completely.
What was left wasn't anger. It was the thing underneath. The thing I'd been covering with fists and attitude my whole life.
I was scared.
Not of Alex. Not of Braden or the texts or whoever was watching. Scared of myself. Of the pattern. Of the fact that every good thing I'd ever touched had my fingerprints on the cracks.
The river was somewhere below me. Invisible. Just the sound of water moving in the dark.
I turned the key. Drove the rest of the way to Riverside. Parked in the lot behind the dorm and sat there for a while.
Eventually, I got out, walked inside, and climbed the stairs. Noah was asleep. His breathing steady. His side of the room neat and organized. Mine was a pile of crew gear and an unmade bed.
I sat on the mattress. Didn't take off my shoes. Didn't take off the hoodie that smelled like Alex's room.
I laid back on the bed. Stared at the ceiling. The same ceiling I'd stared at a thousand nights before—after fights, after races, after Emily, after every time I'd let the worst version of myself make the decisions.
The anger was quiet now. Not gone. Just resting. Waiting for the next time I'd be scared enough to let it out.
I closed my eyes and waited until it was bright enough to start the day.