Chapter Twenty-Nine
I ’ve been dreading this phone call ever since Bunny Newman threw down the gauntlet.
I sit on the edge of my couch, elbows braced on knees in the universal posture of men about to deliver bad news. My phone feels like a brick—no, bricks have purpose. This feels like holding condensed failure.
The past twenty-four hours have been a masterclass in winning battles while losing wars. CBA victory? Check. Crushing conversation with a woman who could buy and sell my entire existence? Check. The gut-wrenching realization that I’ve failed someone who trusted me? Check, check, and check.
Time to make it official.
I press the call button. One ring. Two rings. Three rings—
“Liam! I’m so glad you called, I actually have something to tell you,” Claire answers, her voice carrying the lightness of someone who doesn’t know her world is about to collapse.
“Claire, before you go on…” I start, but my voice catches like it’s been clotheslined by my own guilt. I swallow hard, gripping the phone like I’m holding onto the edge of a cliff. Then I begin again: “I—I’m so sorry. I thought I had—” I say, stumbling for the right words, any words.
She cuts me off. “Remember after I redid your place?”
“What? Yeah, I remember…”
“And remember when I asked if I could share the photos on my social media?” Claire continues, her voice crescendoing.
I look around my apartment, really look at it. The sleek bookshelves that make me look literate, the lighting that suggests I understand ambiance.
“Yes, yes. Of course, Claire.” I rub my face, wondering where this is going when we should be discussing her impending doom.
“Well, remember also how you told me your PR guy’s wife saw the photos pop up on her Instagram feed?”
I sit up straighter, my confusion developing its own confusion. “Yeah…?”
“She wasn’t the only one, Liam!” Her voice brightens even further.
“What are you talking about?”
“I got an email yesterday from a tenured professor at Parsons. Turns out she saw the photos, and she loved what I did.”
My heartbeat picks up. “Wait, what?”
“She told me she saw my posts on Instagram—and I posted the before pictures too, by the way, so people could see the absolute disaster you were living in before I saved you.” A surprised chuckle escapes despite the knot in my gut.
“So anyway,” she continues, “I quickly arranged a call with this Parsons professor, and we hit it off immediately. She asked for more photos of other work I’ve done, so I sent everything over. ”
Hope tiptoes into my chest, quiet but insistent. “Claire…”
“This morning,” her voice trembles with emotion that makes my own chest clench, “the professor emailed me and said she spoke to admissions. A spot opened up—a student dropped out, and they re-evaluated my application.”
I’m holding my breath.
“I got in, Liam!”
Silence.
The words hang in the air, rearranging the molecular structure of everything. My vision blurs, and something hot and overwhelming builds inside me, climbing up my throat like emotional lava.
“You—” my voice cracks like I’m thirteen again. I clear my throat, trying to gather the pieces of myself that just shattered in the best possible way. “Claire, you did it?”
She lets out a watery laugh, the kind that comes when joy and disbelief collide. “I did it.”
I close my eyes, and suddenly the guilt that’s been crushing me vanishes.
“You did it,” I repeat. “And you did it on your own.”
The last part matters. She didn’t need Bunny Newman’s poisoned favor. She didn’t need my failed negotiations. She earned this with her talent and her transformation of my disaster apartment into something Instagram-worthy.
“That’s not all, Liam.”
My eyes widen instinctively. “What?”
Claire laughs again, breathless, like she can barely believe her own life. “The professor—she has a design firm. She wants me to intern for her while I’m in school. It’s unpaid, but the experience is going to be incredible.”
I let out a disbelieving laugh, my head falling back against the couch as further relief crashes over me, warm and comforting.
I’ve spent the last twelve hours thinking I’d failed her, that my principles had cost her everything.
But she saved herself with talent. And initiative.
And yes, the before-and-after photos of my shameful bachelor pad.
“Claire,” I murmur, my throat doing that thing where it pretends to be smaller than it is. “I’m so damn proud of you.”
“I can’t believe it,” she admits, sniffling on the other end. “After everything—I actually did it.”
I shake my head, wiping at eyes that have sprung leaks. “I should have never doubted you.”
We laugh together, our voices shaking like leaves in an emotional windstorm.
A knock at the door interrupts our celebration.
Claire hears it through the phone. “Is that Petra at your door?”
I exhale, suddenly grounded back in reality. I’d spent hours preparing for a conversation that would destroy everything. Now I don’t have to have it at all.
“Are you gonna tell her? About all of this?”
I glance toward the door, considering. I could tell Petra everything: the lies, the cover-up, Bunny’s ultimatum, my choice.
Lay it all out like evidence at a trial nobody asked for.
But what would that accomplish now? Claire got in legitimately.
Petra will be thrilled. The messy middle part—the lies and threats and impossible choices—what purpose would revealing them serve?
Sometimes the truth isn’t noble. Sometimes it’s just selfish, a way to transfer your guilt to someone else’s shoulders.
“What matters is that Claire Montgomery is moving to New York to attend Parsons in the fall,” I say, my voice warm with certainty. “That’s the only story that needs to be told.”
Claire is quiet for a beat, processing this gift of selective amnesia. Then she lets out a breathy laugh.
“You know what? I think you’re right.”
“Of course I am,” I say, because even in emotional moments, my ego needs feeding.
The knock comes again, impatient now. Petra, wondering why I’m taking so long to answer my own door. I stand up, my heart finally light enough to remember what normal feels like.
“See you soon, Parsons girl.”
“See you soon, Liam…and thank you.”
“For what? You did it, Claire.”
“Thank you for having such a dismal apartment that enabled me to fix it up and show everyone what I’m capable of.”
I smile. “You’re welcome.”
I hang up then hurry to the front door. For the first time in weeks, everything feels exactly as it should be.
Not perfect—perfect is for people who don’t understand how messy life actually is.
But right. Correct. Like the universe just issued an apology for the chaos and decided to balance the books.
Sometimes you don’t get the victory you planned for. Sometimes you get something better: the victory you didn’t know was possible. Claire earned her spot at Parsons not through manipulation or connections but through talent and Instagram’s mysterious algorithm.
And the secret? The lie that started everything?
It gets to die quietly, unmoored, taking all its complicated ethics with it to the grave.
Some truths, I’m learning, are better left unspoken.
Not because they’re not true, but because their time has passed, and revealing them now would be like performing CPR on something that needs to stay dead.
Petra doesn’t need to know her sister lied. Claire doesn’t need to carry that guilt. And me? I get to keep this secret like a scar that’s healed over, still there if you know where to look, but no longer defining.