Chapter 11
Iknew before he said anything.
The text — my father called — had been enough. Three words and my stomach dropped the way it does when you catch a crab at full pressure: the handle jerking, the boat lurching, every system that was working a second ago suddenly wrong.
I crossed the footbridge fast. November cold, six-fifteen, the sky already black. The river underneath running high from days of rain. I could hear it but not see it. Just the sound of water moving in the dark.
Alex's dorm. Second floor. Third door on the right. I took the stairs two at a time. Knocked once.
He opened the door and I knew.
Not the specifics but something had happened on that call and whatever it was had put the mask back on. Kingswell quarter-zip. The Harrington face — smooth, composed. I hadn't seen that face in a week.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey."
I walked in. The room was small and too warm. Desk lamp casting everything in yellow. Bed made, books stacked. Even in crisis, Alex kept a neat room.
My Riverside shirt was draped over the desk chair. He wasn't wearing it now.
I sat on the edge of the bed and he stayed standing. Leaned against the desk. Arms crossed.
"Just tell me," I said.
He told me. Patterson's office. The concerned parent routine. Then Patterson leaving the room and the real conversation — the Caldwell deal.
"What's the price?"
Alex looked at the floor.
"He wants me to end it. With you. Publicly. Tell the team it was a misunderstanding. No more joint training. No Riverside."
"And you said?"
His jaw was tight. The bruise on it yellow-green in the lamp light.
"I said okay."
All of my insides crumpled.
"You said okay?"
"Liam—"
"You were just telling me how you wanted to come out."
"I got freaked out." His hands were gripping his own arms. "It all happened in twenty minutes. I said okay to end the call. To buy time."
"Buy time?"
"You have to understand what he was threatening. Not just the deal. The alternative."
"The alternative was me." My chest heaved at the thought of him leaving me.
"The alternative was James."
"Who's James?"
Something shifted in his face. Real fear.
"My cousin."
"Okay… what about him?"
"He was at Yale. Pre-law. Did everything the family wanted. And when he was twenty-three, he brought his boyfriend home for Thanksgiving."
I waited.
"Within hours he lost everything. Trust fund. Apartment. Car. Internship." Alex's voice was flat. "He's in Portland now. Works at a nonprofit. Nobody in my family has spoken to him in six years."
"Your family's fucked up."
I could see Alex shaking at that point. "I know. That's what I'm telling you. He basically said I was next."
He's telling the truth. No. He's going to leave you.
"I folded," Alex said.
"And now?"
"Now I'm telling you the truth. I don't know what I'd do without my family's support. And I know how that sounds—"
"It sounds like you're choosing them." Pressure started building behind my eyes, this was really happening.
"I'm telling you what I'm choosing between. It's not you versus money. It's you versus being erased by every person in my family."
The room was quiet. The vent clicking.
"That doesn't change the fact that you said okay."
"No."
"And it doesn't change the fact that we've been here before."
All I could think about was him asking me to leave the morning after the party. He was doing it again.
"Two months ago. You told me that you weren't going to shut the door again." I kept my voice steady. "And I told you — if you let me in and shut the door, I'm done. I won't come back."
"I remember."
"Do you? Because here I am. Listening to you explain why you agreed to break up with me."
"It's not—"
"It's exactly the same thing, Alex."
Silence. I just watched him as the gears turned in his head. But I couldn't wait for him to figure this out. I had to go, I had to be the one to leave. I couldn't make him choose me.
So I stood up and grabbed my jacket off the bed.
"Liam—"
"I can't do this." I was already moving. Jacket on. Three steps to the door then I turned to face him. "I told you on that bridge what would happen and you did it anyway. You agreed to ending us and I'm supposed to understand? Because your family's scary?"
"Liam, wait—"
"Everyone's family is scary. Mine left. At least yours is fighting to keep you."
I turned to the door and grabbed the knob.
"You're poor, Liam."
I stopped. My hand still on the door. Not because of the words but because of the sound of his voice. He was desperate and maybe that meant he cared.
"You're poor. And I'm a Harrington. My pedigree, my family, my name — all of it. Why would I stick around for a guy like you?" His voice was shaking. "It doesn't make sense. On paper, you don't matter. You're a poor scholarship kid. My father would tell you that. Marcus would tell you that."
My jaw locked. The anger rising hot and fast—
"But here I am. Shaking. In my dorm room.
Terrified of you walking through that door.
" His voice broke. "Think about it, Liam.
Think. Why would I risk everything for a guy who has nothing to offer me except himself?
Why would I sneak around and hide this for the last three months?
Why would I beat Marcus bloody in a library? "
I didn't turn around. But I didn't open the door.
"Pancakes at the diner. You touched my face and I knew. Right then. That it would always be you." His breath hitching. "I knew it didn't make sense. I knew my father would never understand it. I knew it would cost me everything. And I didn't care."
"Stop," I said.
"No. I'm not stopping. Because me ditching you doesn't make sense. There's no logic to it. I have every reason to walk away and I can't. I physically cannot do it."
I stood at the door. My hand on the knob. The metal cold.
"There's a reason I'm shaking, Liam. It's because either way this goes, I lose everything. I choose you, I lose my future. I choose them, I lose you. There's no version of this where I don't lose."
He put his hand on my shoulder and I want to swat it away, and at the same time I wanted to turned to him and collapse in his arms. I turned to face him.
He stood there with fear in his eyes and hands trembling — actually trembling. A twenty-year-old kid with a bruised jaw and tears in his eyes who was scared out of his mind.
"Other people make it without the family money, Alex. People do it every day."
"I know." His voice small, his hand dropped to his side.
"But I'm not like you, Liam. I wasn't built for it.
I grew up with everything handed to me and I've never once had to survive without a safety net.
" He wiped his face with the back of his hand.
"And that's the thing — that's why I admire you so much.
You showed up here with nothing. You earned everything you have. "
Don't.
"You're the strongest person I've ever met. And I said okay to my father because I'm not that strong. I'm not. I wish I was."
Don't let him do this.
"But I'm trying. I'm trying to be the person who says no. And I need you to — I need—"
His voice gave out. Just stopped. Like the engine cut. He stood there with his hands shaking and his face wet.
I looked at him. The bruise on his jaw that he got defending us.
People who are leaving don't do this.
I sat down on the bed.
"Sit down," I said.
He sat right next to me, head down.
"Ever since the race in September… this has been insane. I've lost my direction. I've lost my girlfriend. I could lose my career."
He turned his head towards me, blue eyes still scared and still tearing up.
"You were the last thing that was supposed to happen to me."
His forehead relaxed and his face softened.
"So don't tell me I don't understand what this costs. I've been paying for it too."
The room was quiet.
"I need time," I said. "I believe you. I think. Most of me believes you. But there's a part that doesn't trust anyone and I can't shut it off."
A hurt look flashed across his face and I hated it. I hate that my lack of trust hurt him. It was just a fucked up situation but I had to protect myself.
"Okay. Just give me the weekend. I'm going to Vermont with Ethan for this film thing. And when I get back, I'll have a plan."
"Alright. That's fine."
I didn't feel fine but what was I supposed to do, he was trying. I stood up and walked to the door and just as I was about to open it I felt his hand on my shoulder. Warmth trickled down my body from the place he touched me. And my shoulder relaxed. I turned to him.
His eyes on me.
"I know you don't trust me right now. But can I kiss you before I go?"
I watched him unsure what to do but my body knew. I leaned towards him and he stepped forward.
Our lips touched and the same warmth spread from my lips down my body setting whatever tension I'd been feeling my chest. We pulled back and I opened my eyes, our faces still close, and his eyes bright.
"I care about you Liam. I'm not going to leave. I care too much."
I shut my eyes and leaned my forehead against his.
"You better fucking not."
We spent another moment touching, I hoped it wasn't our last, then I stepped back.
"Have a good trip. Be safe."
I couldn't tell him how much I cared about him. About how scared I was he'd leave. About all the feelings that were constantly swarming around in my heart. No, not like this.
I turned and opened the door and left his dorm. Down the stairs. Across the quad. Onto the footbridge.
Halfway across I stopped.
My hands were shaking. He'd been choosing me since the lake but was always being pulled away from me by his world of money.
Do you believe him?
Most of me does.
And the rest?
The rest was the kid at the window. Watching headlights pull away. Learning early that people who say they'll stay don't always stay.
He might fold again. His father might call and the scared fifteen-year-old might say okay and you'll be standing on this bridge alone.
Or he might walk through the door.
I couldn't know. That was the whole problem with trusting someone, you had to do it before you had proof.