Chapter 18
HIS CONFESSION
LIAM
Irearrange the bowl of oranges on the dining table three times before I give up and eat one.
The peel comes off in a single spiraling strip, which feels like an omen, or maybe just muscle memory from a childhood spent compulsively perfecting useless skills.
The house is too quiet, the air too static, as if the walls are holding their breath alongside me.
I wipe citrus oil from my thumb onto the side of my pants, frown at the oily streak, and then rub it harder as if I can erase the evidence.
The clock on the microwave glows, a constant unblinking eye, and I can’t remember if I set it fast or slow. I check my phone for the time, then check the wall clock, then the microwave again. The numbers never match and it makes me want to tear them all off the wall and start over.
I circle the perimeter of my own house like a security guard, pausing at every threshold to adjust or inspect.
The sofa cushions are too lumpy. I punch them into vague submission.
There’s a smudge on the glass of the credenza, probably from last week when Simone leaned against it in her thigh-high socks and nothing else, her palm flat and leaving a ghostly print.
I polish the glass with my shirtsleeve, cursing under my breath, then immediately regret erasing her mark.
My body is a vibrating string, pulled so tight that even my shadow paces with me.
I can’t focus long enough to reread the last two lines of the poem on my phone, which is a first. I try standing at the window with my hands in my pockets, an imitation of myself from another life—calm, above it all, not the kind of man who would ever let a student see him sweat.
I last maybe fifteen seconds before my foot starts tapping an SOS on the floorboards.
The doorbell detonates the silence. My heart leaps, crashes, then races to catch up with the new world order. I wipe both hands down my pants, then open the door.
Simone stands there, haloed in the porch light, one hand knotted in her backpack strap and the other shoved deep in her jacket pocket.
The anxiety in her posture is a perfect mirror of mine.
Her eyes are guarded, shoulders up around her ears, but her face is bare—no makeup, no armor, just the raw blue of her stare and the faintest shadow of exhaustion under her cheekbones.
“Hi,” I say, my voice too loud.
The gorgeous girl steps inside, leaving her shoes in a perfect line by the mat. “Hey.”
She scans the house as if expecting it to have changed since last time. Maybe it has. Maybe I’ve repainted every surface in the color of regret.
“Can I get you something?” I offer. “Water? Tea?”
She shrugs, the movement making her look even smaller. “I’m good.” She drifts into the living room, stands by the bookshelf, runs a finger along the spines without really reading any of the titles.
I shut the door behind us and stand, useless, for a second before joining her. The kitchen is a no-man’s-land, the dining table a neutral zone, so we face off amid the books.
She glances at the coffee table, where I’ve stacked all the donor forms and surrogacy packets in a neat pile—visible, but not front and center. My little monument to the last six months of idiocy.
I say nothing at first, just let the moment stretch. She finally breaks the silence: “So. You wanted to talk?”
I nod, but the words stick. I clear my throat, try again. “I—” I falter, then force myself to keep going. “I owe you an apology, Simone. A real one.”
She waits, arms folded across her chest, jaw set at a stubborn angle. I half expect her to bolt.
I take a slow breath. “I know I handled things really, really fucking badly. There’s no excuse for what I did.
For what I said. I was out of my mind with …
I don’t even know. But I know I was scared.
Scared of how much I needed you. Scared that you’d see me as just another loser clinging to a student for validation. ”
Her eyes flick away, then back. “Is that what I was to you?”
I close my eyes for a second, try to find the truth in the knots of my stomach. “At first, maybe,” I say, honest as I can be. “But not for long. You were—are—the only person who’s ever really made me want to be better. Not just at work. At life.”
She gives me a long, appraising look, as if testing for sincerity.
I push on, the need to purge outweighing the fear of what it’ll cost me. “When I saw you with Dylan, I lost it. I realized how bad I was acting and all because of some pimply, idiotic jock.”
“Don’t say that about Dylan,” Simone says in a sharp voice. “You don’t know him.”
I hold two hands up in apology.
“You’re right. But that boy aside, I weaponized your medical history.
I hurt you by making you feel defective because of the fibroids.
And then I turned it around and made your fibroids into some kind of sick shield so I wouldn’t have to admit how much I’d already hurt you.
” The admission tastes like acid, but I keep going.
“I convinced myself that if I gave you a contract, I’d be protecting you.
But it was really just me protecting myself. ”
The air between us is heavy, a static charge waiting for the first spark.
She looks down at her shoes, then up again. “Was any of it real?” Her voice is even, but there’s a tremor in it. “Or was it all just—” she gestures at the pile of paperwork, “—a means to an end?”
I shake my head, hard. “No. It was real. It’s the realest thing I’ve ever had. That’s what made it so terrifying.”
She exhales, slow and controlled. “Because you wanted a family.”
“No,” I say, voice cracking just a little. “Because I wanted you. The rest was noise. I just didn’t know how to say it until I’d already broken everything.”
She sits on the arm of the sofa, shoulders hunched, arms wrapped around her middle. “I don’t know if I can trust you, Liam. You used my body as an excuse and then threw it in my face when it was convenient. That’s not love. That’s…” She trails off, unwilling to say the word.
I move to the coffee table, pick up the top file, and walk it over to her.
“I withdrew my surrogacy applications,” I say, holding out the packet.
“Every application, every email. I shredded the forms, deleted the drafts. I can’t undo what I said, but I can promise you I’m not looking for anyone else to fill some fucked up hole in my life. ”
She takes the file, flips through the pages, then lets it fall shut. “So now what?”
I laugh, soft and ugly. “Now I beg you to forgive me. Or at least, to let me spend the rest of this year proving I’m not the piece of shit you have every reason to think I am.”
The room is quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator. She stands, walks to the window, stares out into the suburban blackness. I follow, not too close, and wait.
After a long moment, she says, “You really loved me?”
I nod, feeling the truth land somewhere deep in my chest. “Still do.”
She turns, eyes bright with unshed tears. “If you ever, ever try to use my body against me again, I’ll ruin your fucking career. Do you understand?”
“Perfectly,” I say. “You have all the power now. I’m okay with that.”
She wipes her eyes, then laughs, the sound sharp and a little deranged. “I don’t want power. I just want you to treat me like I matter.”
“I can do that,” I say, and mean it.
She sets the file back on the table, hands trembling. “You’re lucky I’m an optimist,” she says, her smile crooked and sad. “Otherwise, I’d set fire to your house and dance on the ashes.”
I let out a breath, a small, nervous laugh of my own. “I believe you would.”
She stands there, uncertain, and for a second I’m terrified she’ll just leave. Instead, she sits down on the couch, legs curled under her, and pats the cushion next to her.
I sit, careful not to crowd her.
We don’t touch. We just sit, side by side, listening to the clock tick and the fridge buzz and the world turn outside.
After a minute, she says, “You need therapy.”
“I know,” I say.
She nods, then leans her head on my shoulder, just for a moment. “So do I.”
We sit in silence, two broken people in a house that finally feels like it belongs to both of us.
For the first time in months, I don’t want to leave.
For the first time, I believe she might stay.
There’s a pause, and then there’s a chasm. I can feel the next words in the room, coiled and waiting, a rattlesnake in the slipstream of our silence.
She looks at me, her head tilted, eyes sharp behind the remnants of tears. “Why did you want to do it that way, anyways?” she asks, voice so even it almost sounds bored. “Surrogacy. All the contracts, all the egg donor packets. Why not just—” she gestures at the universe, “—do it the regular way?”
The room contracts to a single point. I stare at my hands, counting the red marks on my knuckles, then force myself to look at her. The answer is a nest of knives, but she’s owed it.
“I never wanted to talk about this,” I say, and already my mouth tastes of metal. “But I will.”
She waits, gaze unflinching.
“After my divorce, I lost my mind for a year or so.” I say this like I’m reciting from an outdated CV, a bullet point of shame.
“I think I told you that Sandra was my first love, so I never really dated anyone else. As a result, after the divorce, I went buck wild. I drank. I fucked around. I tried to pretend I was immune to consequences. Then I went to a conference—one of those poetry symposiums for academic types—and I met Lyra and Natalie. Both grad students. Both brilliant, both impossibly young. We ended up together. All three of us.”
I see the moment it lands. Her eyes go big, then small, like she’s squinting at a magic trick she already knows the solution to.