Chapter 47 Breaking Point
Breaking Point
Harper
"You're back?" Maddie says from the couch when I burst through the door.
I can't answer. The tears are already streaming down my face, hot and fast and unstoppable. I run over to her, practically shoving Sirus aside, and collapse into her arms.
"What happened?" Her voice is panicked now. "Did you guys break up?"
I shake my head against her shoulder, gasping for air between sobs. "No.” I cry more. “This feels worse."
"What do you mean worse?"
I can't speak. The words are stuck in my throat, tangled up with the image of Liam's smirk, Cole's desperate eyes, the casual way they talked about sharing girls like it was nothing. Like those girls were nothing.
Like maybe I'm nothing.
Sirus appears with a box of tissues. I take a handful and blow my nose, the sound embarrassingly loud in the quiet apartment.
"You need to talk to me because I'm freaking out," Maddie says, rubbing my back.
I look at Sirus through blurry eyes. He's standing there awkwardly, clearly wanting to give us space but also worried.
"If you're going to stay, you have to promise me to keep it to yourself." I stick out my pinky.
He walks over and takes it. "Promise."
I take a shaky breath. "So, Liam came over."
Maddie's eyes widen. "Oh God."
"He... he told me something that I'm not sure I can forgive."
Maddie looks at Sirus, then back at me. "I am going to murder him."
I shake my head quickly. "It's not like that. It's..." I trail off, not sure how to say it.
She waits, patient but tense.
"They used to… have threesomes."
Maddie gasps. Sirus's eyes practically bulge out of his head in horror.
"Liam kept offering." My voice cracks. "This morning. He was... he was suggesting..."
"Oh hell no!" Maddie starts making this sound between a growl and a scream, and if the situation wasn't so awful, I might laugh.
More tears fall, and I wipe them away uselessly. They just keep coming. "Cole doesn't want to. But he let Liam talk so that I could understand what was going on. Like he thought I needed to know their history or something."
"Wait, wait." Maddie holds up her hand, processing. "What they did before you doesn't matter... right? Cole still wants to be with you?"
I nod miserably. "That's what he says. But I can't stop thinking about—" I stop, the words catching in my throat. "I can't stop thinking that maybe they discussed it. Maybe at some point, I was just... an option. Something they could pass between them."
Sirus leans forward, elbows on his knees. "So, let me get this straight. You sleep with Liam and then date Cole. You’ve been with Cole for almost a year now. And then Liam comes out of nowhere and suddenly wants to have a threesome?"
"Right," Maddie says, nodding. "Like why do this now? Why bring it up now?"
I shrug helplessly. "I can't figure it out either."
"I think it's because Liam's miserable and he wants Cole to be too," Sirus says quietly. "I've watched him this year. He's been spiraling. Drinking too much, hooking up with random girls, picking fights. This is just another way to blow everything up."
The tears come harder now. "So much for wedding bells, right, Mads?"
Maddie's eyes immediately go glassy. She pulls me into a tight hug, and I cling to her like I'm drowning.
"You don't have to decide anything right now," she whispers. "You just need time to think."
I nod against her shoulder, but I don't know if time will help. How do you process something like this? How do you reconcile the man you love with the person who used to treat women like interchangeable entertainment?
"Do you still love him?" Maddie asks, the critical question hanging in the air.
I pull back and look at her. "I still love him. But I don't know if that's enough."
My phone buzzes on the coffee table. We all look at it. Liam's name flashes across the screen.
"I don't know if you should answer that," Sirus says immediately.
"I agree," Maddie adds. "Let it go to voicemail."
But my gut is screaming at me to answer. To hear what he has to say. To understand what game he's playing.
I grab the phone and swipe to answer. "What?"
"Are you going to say yes?" Liam's voice is smooth, confident.
I make eye contact with Maddie and scoff. "Get over yourself, Liam."
He's quiet for a moment, and I can practically hear his smile through the phone.
"Why are you calling me?" I demand.
"Just to see if I was right."
"About what?"
"If you would answer."
I hit mute and look at Maddie and Sirus, my voice rising. "He set me up! He thinks I want to have a fucking threesome with him and my boyfriend!"
I unmute myself, rage replacing the sadness. "Are you out of your fucking mind, Liam? Why are you doing this? Why would you wait an entire year to come out with this? Is there something wrong with you?"
"I waited because I didn't think it would last this long, Trouble." His voice drops lower. "If you don't want a threesome, fine. But break up with him and be with me."
"YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW ME!"
"There's this thing called chemistry, Trouble. I don't need to know your favorite color or what you do every second of the day to know you. I know that we make sense when we're together."
"Liam––" I warn, feeling my heart crack. I know exactly what he means, and he’s right.
"One date."
"No!"
"Trouble, go on one date with me, and I'll leave you alone if it's not what you want."
"No! I have a boyfriend!"
"He supports it."
"You are such a fucking liar!"
I end the call and immediately dial Cole. Maddie and Sirus are staring at me, but I can't look at them.
Cole answers on the first ring. "Harper—"
"Did you say that Liam could take me on a date?"
"What?"
"DID YOU OR DID YOU NOT?"
"As a joke, Harper. I knew you wouldn't do it."
"As a joke?" I stare at Maddie, whose face is frozen in an expression of absolute horror, mouth slightly open, eyes wide like she's watching a car crash in slow motion. "You know what? I'm going to go on the date."
"What?"
"Yeah, you heard me. You two want to keep fucking with me and fighting over me? I'm going to go on the date!"
"To spite me? I thought you wanted to be with me?"
"I do, but I'm tired of these games. I need Liam to back off."
Cole's voice breaks, and I hear him start crying. "Harper, you can't be fucking serious! Harper, you better not. Harper—"
I end the call.
Maddie and Sirus are looking at me like I've lost my mind.
Maddie breaks the silence. "You can't be serious?"
I set my phone down on the coffee table with shaking hands. "I am."
"Harper—"
"I'm going on the date. I'm going to prove to both of them that there's nothing there. That Liam is delusional. That whatever chemistry he thinks we have died the second I chose Cole." My voice is getting louder, more frantic. "And then maybe, maybe, everyone can move the fuck on with their lives."
"This is a terrible idea," Sirus says.
"I'm tired of being the thing they fight over. I'm tired of feeling like I don't have any control. So I'm going on the date, I'm going to feel absolutely nothing, and then Liam will finally leave us alone."
"What if you don't feel nothing?" Maddie asks quietly.
The question hangs in the air between us, heavy and terrible.
"I will," I say, but my voice doesn't sound as certain as I want it to.
Maddie shakes her head slowly. "Harper, this is going to blow up in your face."
I don’t care.
Maddie looks like she's going to be sick.
"This isn't you," Maddie says softly. "You're not vindictive like this."
"I’m going to go lay down for minute," I say, walking into their bedroom and close the door. I flop on the bed and fluff the pillow under my head. I sigh, thinking about what I’ve done and said, and how complicated this feels in my chest.