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Despite knowing he deserved some explanations, I was a bit flustered. Maybe he was right. Maybe I did run when things got too intense. That was precisely how I felt now. I would have given anything to crawl under the picnic blanket and hide.

Perhaps that was why I thought it was wise to take things a step further and sabotage myself. “I don’t think either one of us believes that you don’t deserve better than you’ve gotten from me. So, I guess my question is, why do you even care to do this? If you can see how horribly I’ve treated you, I’m certain you would have had no trouble finding someone else who might have given you everything you deserved. Why didn’t you just move on?”

The moment the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. I didn’t know if I was prepared for his response. Because even if he was here talking to me about this now, even if he’d done what he had with me last night, I had to believe that Liam had found ways to move on and give himself some happiness over the years. Surely, he’d found comfort in other women, and I’d just all but invited him to tell me about it.

Liam looked like he’d been slapped in the face. “Are you serious?”

I jerked my chin down. “Yes. It’s obvious I’ve caused you tremendous heartache. Why not just move on and forget about me?”

“Do you think it’s that easy?” he firedback. “Do you think it was as simple as sending me a letter, telling me to move on, and it would just happen? Is that how it was for you? Do you think I wanted things to be the way they were for me? Do you think I wanted to love you when you didn’t love me? Do you think I wanted to need you when you didn’t need me?”

Damn.

Brutal.

I sat here thinking he was going to tell me how he’d drowned his sorrows in other women, and he destroyed me in a completely different way. My face burned with humiliation, and the pain in my chest and throat was unbearable.

Yeah.

I wanted nothing more than to crawl under the blanket and hide.

My silence gave Liam the opportunity to get even more off his chest, because he continued unloading on me, decimating the few remaining fragments of my heart in the process.

“Trust me, Layla, if I could have moved on, I would have. It was impossible. But believe me when I say that I would have loved nothing more than to pretend that what we had all those years ago meant nothing to me. I would have loved to be like you and walk away. I would have givenanythingto not wake up every single day for the last eight years wondering what I could have done differently to hold on to you.”

Hanging my head in shame, I rasped, “There was nothing you could have done, Liam. Nothing.”

The tension hung heavy in the air between us, something I couldn’t put my finger on emanating from the man seated beside me. And it was only after many long silent moments that he finally spoke.

“So, it’s true,” he murmured in a way it felt like he was talking to himself. “You didn’t love me. Or, at the very least, you fell out of love with me. And that’s why you walked away.”

I closed my eyes as I attempted to swallow past the lump in my throat. I could have cried for months over all that we’d lost because of my stupid, stupid decision.

Shaking my head, I blinked them open and met his heartbreaking stare. “I didn’t turn down your proposal and walk away that day because I didn’t love you, Liam. It was the opposite. I loved you so much. I still do.”

Liam looked away, set his sandwich down, and let out a deep sigh. “If you expect me to believe that’s true, I think you owe it to me to offer an explanation. Why did you reject my proposal? Why did you leave me?”

All the thoughts I’d had that day when he got down on one knee and presented me with a ring drifted through my mind. All the things I’d told myself about why I couldn’t accept, why I had to save him, save us, from a bitter ending, were boiling to the surface. And as they rushed forward, I wondered if they were enough. I questioned whether they’d been justifiable reasons.

Looking back now, I could admit I was young and stupid and didn’t have all the answers. But I knew what I felt, and that feeling wasn’t something I could shake. Itwas too strong, and I believed I would have been a fool to ignore it.

Now, I wished I had.

Because even if my worst fears had come to fruition, at least it would have been both of us being responsible for our demise. We could have shared the blame.

As it stood, I was solely responsible. And Liam needed to understand why.

“I was afraid,” I confessed as I gave my sandwich a reprieve and set it down on the parchment paper Liam had wrapped it in.

“Of me?”

“Not like that. Never like that,” I insisted. “I was terrified I’d wind up like my mom.”

The distress on his face had turned to confusion. “In what way? You love your mom.”

I nodded. “Yes. Of course, I do. But my mom… Liam, my mom is a mess. Shewasa mess. It’s taken her a very long time to get to where she is, and honestly, she still has her moments.”

He narrowed his eyes on me. “Am I missing something?”