Chapter Thirty-Eight
Maggie
I’d spent most of my life in delusion.
I thought if I acted confident enough, or pretended I didn’t need anyone, it would make it true. Over the years, I’d gotten so good at pretending that sometimes I even managed to fool myself.
The thing about pretending, though, was sometimes you could trick other people when really the only one you wanted to convince was yourself.
Brody thought I didn’t need him. Brody thought I was fine on my own.
And I would let him think that, rather than let him see how broken I was without him.
I couldn’t tell him he was the only piece I needed to complete the puzzle of my life.
Not when I’m the one who broke everything apart in the first place.
I was done with dragging Brody through my ups and downs. I needed to stabilize myself first before I could even think of trying to get him back.
And if he moved on in the meantime, well, he deserved happiness more than anyone else I knew.
Standing in the wreckage of my life, I was finally seeing things clearly. I knew what I had to do—and for now, that was putting some distance between me and everyone I cared about while I sorted through my own baggage.
And unfortunately, that happened to be the one client I’d wanted to help more than anyone. I’d already proven I couldn’t be what he needed. I’d already failed him.
“Mr. Reilly,” I said into the phone, pacing outside of the restaurant. “Hi.”
“Maggie,” Mr. Reilly said, and I couldn’t help but smile at the fact that he’d taken me up on the offer of using my first name. “Sorry I’m calling out of the blue. Do you have a minute?”
I blew out a breath, staring behind me through the glass window where I still had the perfect view of the table.
Brody was surrounded by his friends. A life I’d never been part of. I felt foreign and uncomfortable in my own skin sitting there, knowing everyone was aware of how I’d broken his heart.
Little did they know, I’d broken mine, too.
“Yeah, I do,” I answered, wanting a few minutes’ reprieve from the lunch.
“You haven’t answered my last email, so I got worried. I know we only just had the court hearing last week, but I need to know what our next step is.”
“Our next step… right,” I said, clenching my eyes shut, because the thing was—even thinking about his case hurt. It was the catalyst that forced me to finally open my eyes to my own life. The reason I unraveled it all.
How could I help this man when I’d let my emotions get in the way of the facts? I’d spent so long trying to repress everything, to keep my personal feelings at bay—and now they had opened up like a dam, drowning out every rational part of my brain.
“You see, the thing is, Mr. Reilly, I just don’t know if…
” I paused, gritting my teeth. He was another person I was going to disappoint.
But if I wanted to help him, the best thing to do was just remove myself from the picture.
“I don’t think I’m the right person for this case anymore. I can refer you to someone great—”
“What?” His voice on the other side of the line was filled with betrayal. “No, no, no. Absolutely not. You’ve been working on this with me. You’re the only person I trust with this!”
“How can you still want to work with me after the mess I made at court?” I said, fighting the urge to cry. “I got emotional and—”
“That’s why I trust you. You care about me. My kids. I see it and I feel it when we work together. This is more than a job to you, isn’t it? Your work matters to you, and that’s something I can’t say the same for any of the other lawyers I’ve spoken to before.”
I sighed. He was right, I did care. But could it be that he was right? Was it something to be proud of, an asset, even—instead of something I had to shy away from?
My entire life I’d guarded myself from my feelings. I left before they got the better of me. If I cared about something too much, it meant I was already too invested and that’s when I knew I had to pull the trigger on it.
Caring too much could hurt you.
But running away might be even more detrimental than I’d ever realized.
“Please don’t give up on me, Ms. Brynn.” His voice was a desperate plea. “If anyone can help me, it’s you.”
I could do this, emotional entanglement and all. And if I could do this and succeed? Well, it might even prove that I was capable of more than I knew. It might prove that I didn’t have to suppress who I was and what I felt to be a good lawyer, or sister, or partner.
Because the thing about burying everything deep down is… it always finds a way to bleed through the cracks. Maybe it was time to stop patching the surface—and start rebuilding what was underneath instead.
“You’ve got yourself a lawyer, Mr. Reilly,” I confirmed to him, newly energized with a purpose to drive me forward. “And I’m not going anywhere until we get you what you need.”
It was strange that Brody had an entire life I’d never really seen before.
I mean, it made sense. Everyone had a past. But these guys, they weren’t just casual acquaintances or teammates he used to play with in high school years ago.
They treated him like a brother.
Brody was loved. Of course he was. He was brilliant and wonderful and made everyone who spoke to him feel like they were being bathed in sunlight. And even though he hadn’t seen these friends in probably years, they still embraced him as if no time at all had passed.
We were in the backseat of his friend Aiden’s car, with a guy named Sean riding shotgun. The entirety of the car ride had been spent half in tears over stories from high school.
“And then,” Aiden laughed, doubling over the steering wheel, face red and breathless from lack of oxygen, “the vice-principal chased us down the hallway with the bird flying out of his office after him.”
“Yeah, I remember.” Brody laughed, eyes locked with Aiden’s through the rearview mirror.
“Brody,” I gasped. “I had no idea you were such a little menace!”
“Retired menace,” he corrected, all the while reveling in the memories of his glory days.
I stared at him, appreciating the way his face lit up when he was happy. I hadn’t seen him laugh in a while and hated myself for how much I’d put him through lately.
Without thinking, he dropped a hand down to my knee and squeezed, my body freezing under a touch that used to be the most natural thing in the world to me.
I missed it. I wanted to lean into it. I wanted everything to go back to normal.
But then he remembered and ripped his hand away as if it had touched a stovetop rather than my thigh.
“Sorry,” he winced, barely looking at me as he said it.
“It’s okay,” I told him.
I watched as he shifted in his seat, pretending to fall back into the conversation, but I knew him well enough to see the tension locked in his jaw.
With his body angled away from mine, he felt farther away than ever as he sat right beside me.
The rest of the car ride passed in a blur, and when we pulled back up to Liam’s house, I was more than ready to get out of the stifling atmosphere of the tension-filled backseat.
“Don’t forget what we talked about,” Aiden said, giving him a dab handshake through the driver’s side window.
“Yeah,” Brody said, sparing a quick glance at me. “Will do.”
“It was nice to meet you guys,” I said, even though I had the oddest sensation of jealousy toward them that I couldn’t explain.
I guess if I tried, it would be simplified down to one thing: when you’re dating someone, you’re the most important person in their life. But once you break up, you’re out of it, as if you never existed at all.
But his friends? They would be able to talk to him, see him, hear him laugh long after I was a blip in his memories.
I even resented them for the conversations I was sure he’d have about me someday. I’d probably go down in their group lore as the stupid girl who let Brody get away.
Not that I didn’t deserve it.
“Yeah, you too,” Aiden called out, and I wasn’t sure if I was imagining the judgment radiating off his gaze. Sean offered a nod and a wave, and then we watched their car disappear down Liam and Cassie’s driveway.
“That was fun,” I said, trying to break the ice as Brody and I made our way into the foyer. “Thanks for bringing me.”
“Fun?” He raised his brows. “You mean the part where they interrogated you at lunch, or the Family Guy impressions over dessert?”
“They weren’t interrogating me,” I huffed out a laugh. “They’re just… protective of you. It’s nice to see.”
“Yeah,” he mused. “I guess they are. But I’m sorry if it made you uncomfortable.”
“It didn’t,” I told him.
The only thing that made me uncomfortable was the truth I had to admit out loud about our relationship, but that wasn’t anyone’s fault but my own.
“Well, good.” He said, and we lingered in the silence for a few moments. Brody looked as if he wanted to disappear, and I was so worried that if I let him walk away, we might lose any chance at repairing the damage.
If nothing else, I at least wanted to bridge the gap between us a little. Show him he could talk to me like a normal person, despite the erratic behavior I’d been displaying of late.
“Well, I should—” He pointed a thumb upstairs, and I just knew he was going to say something about getting his stuff and leaving, and I couldn’t bear for it to be all the way over yet.
“It is weird though,” I said, cutting him off.
“What is?”
“That you had this whole other life before you came here. Before we ever met.”
“Well, yeah, Mags.” He let out a chuckle. “Isn’t that true for most people?”
“I guess,” I shrugged. “But you’re so immersed in every part of my world. You’ve been to my childhood home, you know my family, you’ve met everyone I’ve ever cared about. I don’t know, it just feels like—well, it just feels like I’ve known you my entire life.”
And somehow it still feels like I’ll know him for the rest of it, too.
“Yeah,” he exhaled a breath. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I mean, you’ve never walked through the halls of my high school, or maybe you haven’t met the guys I used to hang out with growing up before today, but—you know the story behind every scar on my body.
You know how I cried like hell when my aunt died and the only thing that made me feel better was watching Golden Girls reruns.
And you know about how I had to drive myself to the ER after I split my head open playing hockey because I was too worried my mom would pass out at the sight of the blood I was covered in. ”
I was still, listening to him. To these stories I’d memorized until they’d become part of my own.
Brody was ingrained in my very DNA and I didn’t know how I was supposed to part with him.
How was I supposed to spend a Christmas without remembering the time he was eight and caught his dad dressing up as Santa and he ruined it for his siblings by waking them up to tell them all?
How could I pass an Italian bakery without thinking about the little cannolis he loved so much?
How could I do anything without the memory of him lingering over me for the rest of my life?
I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I didn’t want to.
“You might not have been there for any of my earliest core memories, Mags,” he said, staring me dead in the eye. “But it feels like you might as well have been.”
Oh, Brody. I thought with a pang to my heart, not knowing how I could miss someone so desperately who was standing right in front of me.
I know I broke everything, but I’m going to fix it. I swear.
“I—” I started, not knowing what I could possibly say in that moment besides I love you.
But that would be selfish of me. Just like with Liam, I couldn’t rely on empty words anymore. I had to show him I meant it with actions and follow-through.
And before I could do that, I needed to get a grip on my life. I needed to follow through on my promises.
“I have to go to practice soon,” Brody said, offering me a sad smile at all the things unsaid between the two of us. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
“Yeah, okay,” I said, but he was already walking up the stairs.
I waited till he rounded the corner before breathing out, “I’ll be seeing you.”