Chapter 35 #2
“For a while things were good. My mum got pregnant with Felicity, and I thought maybe another baby would finally make my father happy. Maybe we’d be okay.
But shortly after she was born my father started up another affair.
” He hesitates, jaw clenching. “One night I heard a crash and came into the kitchen to find broken glass all over the floor and my mum kneeling, her shaking hands covered in blood. I knew my father had been the one to throw it and she was cleaning up the mess the way she always did, the way she was expected to, and something in me just sort of snapped. I couldn’t keep pretending. ”
There’s a pang in my chest, hurt and indignation clashing together inside me. “What happened?”
“I told my dad that if he ever touched her again, I’d kill him. I was seventeen and hotheaded, but I was so angry, I thought maybe I really could.” His mouth pulls down, like the memory still haunts him.
“After he kicked me out, I expected my mum and sister to leave with me. I figured we’d go and start somewhere new, together. That it would be a relief to my mum that someone had finally stood up to him.” He hesitates, swallowing a long, shaky breath before he says, “But she didn’t want to.”
I frown, trying to gather his meaning. “But why?”
“She told me I’d made a mistake in confronting him, that I should have kept it to myself. That I’d made everything worse. She told me I should have pretended I hadn’t seen anything. That it was better that way.”
He rubs his face, eyes dark and ashy. “I know it’s hard to leave an abusive relationship.
It’s something I’ve talked about with my therapist. And eventually, someday if I can, I’d like to reconcile with my mum, but it’s still difficult to get past the fact that she chose to stay and pretend everything was fine over her kids. ”
My stomach—no, everything—sinks, like the sand is dragging me down. It’s not just the confession; it’s the carved-out meaning behind it. The way everything slides into place like dominos falling in perfect order.
I think back to all the times Liam didn’t stand up to my family about my writing because he was afraid to rock the boat, all the times he walked out and shut down when hard topics came up.
But this time I see it all through a new lens.
A lens in which Liam was afraid to confront conflict because the last time he had, his whole world fell apart and he’d been blamed for it.
Because he’d spent his whole life being told to brush things under the rug, to pretend.
Suddenly the word pretend—the very thing we’ve been doing this whole time—takes on a new, sour meaning, one laced with bad memories and broken relationships.
I think about the perennial advice splashed across dating columns and social media, If he wanted to, he would. But the same advice that once felt bloated with righteous indignation and empowerment now feels flimsy, toxic even.
Maybe he wanted to but couldn’t. Because Liam’s guardedness was never about me.
It was about him. About old wounds that were still bloody and raw.
Wounds that he was too afraid to share lest I see him as he saw himself—not a brilliant doctor or esteemed researcher or responsible husband, but a scared, uncertain boy who couldn’t protect the people he loved.
Someone whom his own mother hadn’t even been able to choose.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “I wish she chose you. But it’s not your fault, Liam.”
“I could have done more,” he says, his voice stretching thin.
“I could have protected my mum. I could have applied for custody of my sister when I turned eighteen. I could have told someone. I could have…” But he doesn’t finish.
Instead, he drops my hand and looks away.
“I just left like a fucking coward,” he says.
I shake my head. “You’re not a coward. You were a kid. What were you supposed to do? Take care of an infant all on your own? You can’t blame yourself. You did what you could.”
He nods, but I can feel the tension winding him tight.
“There are so many days I still wake up with this guilt in my chest, this feeling of what if. Sometimes it’s, What if I’d told someone? What if I’d been the older brother my sister needed? And other times, it’s What if I hadn’t said anything? What if I’d kept their secrets?”
His eyes meet mine and the lump in my throat grows.
“I think that’s why it meant so much to be included in your family,” he says.
“I remember when you first brought me home for Christmas and there was this funny ache in my chest, this realization that you can have a family who isn’t trying to hide anything.
Who you don’t have to hide your emotions from.
I didn’t realize how badly I wanted something like that until I met you.
Until the funny ache in my chest started to go away. Until I felt a little less fucked up.”
I lift my thumb to trace the creases along his jaw, lines formed by years of anger and hurt and fear. “You’re not fucked up,” I whisper. “But you did have some fucked-up stuff happen to you. Stuff that wasn’t your fault.”
“But it doesn’t mean I haven’t hurt people along the way,” he says, sounding tired.
“It’s taken therapy to finally see just how much of my behavior was a trauma response and how much I hurt people as a result.
” He pauses, bringing his forehead to mine, our mouths only inches apart.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you the way you needed me to be after your mum died,” he whispers.
“I’m sorry I shut you out when I should have let you in. I’m sorry that I hurt you.”
His voice cracks on the last syllable, and my heart breaks in a thousand different ways. For him. For me. For us. For our marriage, sacrificed at the altar of hurt and grief and loss.
“I’m sorry too,” I whisper. “I’m sorry you went through that alone.”
“I should have opened up a long time ago,” he says.
“But every time I thought about it, I felt helpless all over again. Even saying that makes me feel like a failure, like I let you down.” He brings his thumb to my chin, commanding my gaze.
“But I want you to know that I didn’t keep things from you because I didn’t love you or because I didn’t trust you.
It was because I was afraid to show you a version of myself I didn’t like very much.
” Then lower, almost a whisper, “A version I didn’t think you’d want. ”
He looks the way he did the other night.
Not shiny, perfect, everyone’s favorite golden boy Liam.
But someone raw and scrubbed down. Someone he’s worked hard to put out of reach.
And suddenly I feel greedy for him. All of him.
Every sharp corner and jagged edge. Every version I haven’t had the privilege of knowing.
“I would have wanted it,” I whisper, looping my fingers through his. “I wanted every version of you. Even the ones you didn’t like.”
For a moment he just looks at me, gaze awash in the dying light, then he wraps his arms around me, pulling me into his chest where I rest my head, fingers fisting the back of his shirt, heartbeats echoing, breath synchronized.
When I brought up this conversation, I’d thought it was for me—for some kind of closure.
But as his grip tightens, hands carving into my back like he’s afraid the tide might rush up and sweep me away, I wonder if maybe this wasn’t for me at all.
If this was something he needed—has needed for a long time.
I’m not sure how long we stay like that, bodies bending into each other, rib cages expanding and contracting, but eventually I pull back, making myself do it before I can no longer come up with a reason not to.
“We should probably go back,” I say, my voice coming out thick. “It’s going to start to rain.” As soon as I’ve said it, two fat raindrops plop on my head, followed by three, four more.
I squeal, throwing my hands up for cover, but it’s no use as the rain falls harder, soaking us both.
“Come on,” I shout over the downpour. “Let’s go!” But Liam’s feet stay rooted in the sand.
“Want to go for a swim?” he asks.
I blink. “It’s raining.”
“I can see that,” he says, droplets coming down in droves around us.
My gaze travels beyond him to the ocean, now wrinkled with raindrops.
It’s the kind of thing that would happen in a rom-com. Something witty and classic starring Julia Roberts or Jennifer Aniston. Something where one of them would look up at the sky and start laughing, all while their makeup and hair remain flawless.
It’s a fantasy. A trope. Certainly not something that happens in real life. And yet here I am, on a beach, in the pouring rain, with a man who makes my heart swell too big for my chest, being given an opportunity to dance in the rain.
“Okay,” I say, looking back at him. “Let’s swim.”
He takes my hand, and I don’t pause to question it, or to tell myself no.
I just fall into him, letting his firm fingers thread through mine, as we rush the ocean, still fully dressed.
His laughter echoes in my eardrums, my pulse, my blood as we wade out, shrieking every time a wave breaks against our thighs.
When we get out to our waists, Liam scoops me up into a fireman’s carry, and I cry out with surprised, happy laughter.
One arm curls under my thighs, while his other catches my lower back, pressing me against him just as a wave crashes over us, dragging us into the ocean in a tumble of limbs and salty spray.
When we bob to the surface, our lungs burning, waterlogged clothes sticking to our skin, his face cracks into a wide, open-mouthed grin, like I’ve just caught him mid-laugh.
A moment earlier, I was aware of the ocean lapping against my skin, the sand between my toes, the taste of salt on my tongue. But all of that melts away under the warm press of his hand on my back and the rhythmic hammer of my pulse, now narrowed to everywhere his eyes fall.
He reaches out, thumb tracing the soft pathway of my jawline, and my heart patters in my chest, the same tune it composed for him nine years ago.
His, his, his.
There’s want behind his gaze. But it’s more than that. There’s regret. And need. And longing. And hope. And a dozen other emotions so finely intertwined, I can’t quite distinguish one from another.
I want to tell him he shouldn’t look at me like that, that it’s not fair to either of us, not when the end is so near, but I can’t manage the words, so I shut my eyes and look away.
“Ros.” He tips my chin with his thumb. “Look at me.”
I open my eyes, and I wish I didn’t. I wish I didn’t have to see the tenderness of his gaze. Or the softness of his mouth. Or the tiny flecks of water clinging to his hair and eyelashes.
Mostly, I wish I didn’t have to see the way he’s looking at me.
Like he still loves me, I think.
Like I’m still his.
And in that moment, in between the rush of rain on my face and the heat of his thumb on my chin, I desperately want it to be true.