Page 28 of Because I Liked A Boy (Because I Liked A Boy Trilogy #1)

The drive to Texas was long, heavy, and silent. My car felt like a coffin with wheels, the radio off, the hum of the engine the only sound. I refused to think about Ruby’s hug or Hunter’s voice. Just the road. Mile after mile until the station finally rose ahead, glowing in the dusk.

I left the car in the lot, keys buried deep in my bag like evidence. Maybe I would never come back for it. Maybe that was the point.

The train to Los Angeles was crowded but anonymous. No one looked twice at me. Just another girl with a suitcase, staring out the window as the night blurred past. The scenery rolled by in shadow, but my reflection stayed sharp in the glass. Pale. Hollow-eyed. Hunter’s ghost still clinging to me.

Every station felt like another nail in Maplewood’s coffin. Another step away from what might have been.

By the time we screeched into LA, exhaustion sat in my bones. The airport was too bright and too clean. Families huddled together. Couples kissed goodbye. I stood alone with a one-way ticket burning my palm.

I ordered a vanilla latte without thinking. It tasted wrong. Bitter, burnt, nothing like The Maple Bean. Nothing like home. I forced it down anyway.

The boarding call came too soon.

On the plane, I curled against the window. Strangers fussed with bags. A child whined. A man snapped at his wife. Normal life kept moving while mine had split open.

The engines roared and the city lights scattered beneath us like sparks.

Eleven hours to London. Eleven hours trapped with nothing but my thoughts.

Hunter’s voice clawed at me. I never wanted to be the reason you stopped believing in love.

My father’s venom threaded through it. You killed him. You abandoned her. You destroy everything you touch.

Tears blurred the horizon. The Atlantic stretched endless and black below. I pressed my forehead to the glass and let the silent sobs roll through me.

And in the middle of it all, Penny. Fifteen now.

Not a stranger, not anymore. We had tried after Nathan.

We had sat on back steps and talked about books and bad TV and how grief crawls into every corner.

I had left anyway. I told myself she would be safer if I disappeared.

That staying would poison her the way it had poisoned me.

Maybe that was a lie. Maybe he was manipulating me. Maybe he was not. I could not make her pay for my fear.

My hands fisted in my lap until my nails bit skin.

This was not about Hunter now. It was not even about me. It was about her. I had left because I thought leaving would protect her. I was wrong. If I did not show up, she would believe I had left her too.

I leaned into the thrum of the cabin and carved the words out of guilt and love and all the years we had lost.

“I am coming for you, Penny.”

The landing jolted me awake. Wheels slammed the tarmac. The pilot announced Heathrow and the cabin filled with rustling coats and scraping luggage.

London.

The word alone made my stomach twist. The air already felt heavier, pressing against the windows like it knew I did not belong here anymore.

I stayed seated until the aisle thinned. My body ached from folding in on itself for eleven hours, but it was dread that made me stiff.

I stood, slung my bag over my shoulder, and joined the stream of strangers. The terminal was too polished and too loud. Voices carried the cadence of a past life.

Each step forward felt like sinking.

My phone buzzed. Ruby’s name lit the screen before I could unlock it.

Made it?

My thumbs hesitated. I typed anyway.

Yeah. Landed safe. Don’t worry.

It was not true, but it was all I had.

Outside, taxis idled under a low, gray sky. Jet fuel. Damp concrete. The stink of home that was not home.

I was back on his ground. It did not feel like a return. It felt like a battlefield.

The cab pulled away and left me at the gates with a battered suitcase and a ridiculous, oversized bunny wedged on top. Hunter’s bunny. The one he had shoved into my arms with a grin. Now it felt like a weight I could not put down.

Gravel crunched under my wheels. The cemetery stretched in rows, stone biting up through winter grass. The air smelled like wet earth and rot.

Nathan Ashbourne.

The letters were clean and merciless.

My knees hit mud. Cold bit through denim. I reached for the stone and traced the grooves of his name with shaking fingers.

“Hey, Nate.” My voice was a splinter. “I am sorry it took me so long.”

Silence pressed back. Heavy. Punishing.

“I should have come months ago,” I kept going, because stopping would crush me. “I ran. I told myself distance would help. It did not.”

Wind rattled the branches overhead.

“I miss you,” I whispered. “You were the only one who ever really saw me. You are gone and he still wins. He walks free while you are under stone.”

The crash hit me again. The blood. The terrible, ringing quiet after. “I should have stopped you. I should have been better. I should have protected you. I let my anger blind me and now you are gone.”

The name blurred. My palm flattened over the marble.

“I tried again with Hunter,” I said. “I let someone in. I thought maybe I could have something different. He lied. He worked for him. It was a job. All of it.”

A breath tore out of me. “I am tired of being used. Of opening my hands and getting cut every time.”

The bunny’s pink bow peeked from the suitcase. A stupid ribbon in a gray world. I let out a broken laugh. “He won this for me. Carried it like proof. It was never proof. Not like you were. Not like us.”

I bowed my head to the stone. “I cannot save you,” I said. “But I can save her.” Penny’s name throbbed behind my ribs. “He will not break her the way he broke us. I swear it. I will burn every inch of what he built before I let that happen.”

Wind cut colder. For a heartbeat I pretended it was you, telling me you heard me.

“I love you,” I said. “Always.” I pressed a kiss to the marble. “Goodbye, for now.”

I stood on unsteady legs and wiped my face with my sleeve. The suitcase handle felt heavier when I gripped it. The bunny slumped to the side as if even it understood what I was walking toward.

Outside the gates, I called a cab. When the operator picked up, my voice rasped.

“Pickup at Highgate Cemetery. Kensington, off Cromwell Road.”

“Ten minutes.”

I hung up and hugged the stupid bunny to my chest. Cars hissed by on wet tarmac. The skyline sat in mist. This city was mine and not mine. Full of ghosts. Full of him. I was not here for me.

I was here for her.

Headlights cut through the gray. I climbed in and did not look back.

By the time I stepped out again, my body was running on fumes. Exhaustion pressed at my skull. London’s weight was a hand on the back of my neck.

The street was quiet. One porch light glowed. Seven months since I had last stood here. Poker nights. Beers in the garden. Before we learned how little say we had in our lives.

I gripped the suitcase handle. The white bunny bounced on top, ears flopping with each stair.

I did not know if he would let me stay.

I did not have anywhere else to go.

Weathered brick. Dark blue door. The same doormat that said fuck off in polite cursive. Nathan used to laugh at that.

I knocked.

Footsteps. A lock. The door opened and Liam Carter stared back at me. Tired. Confused. Blue eyes sharp as ever.

His gaze went from the suitcase to the bunny to my face. His jaw tightened. He did not move aside.

“It is nice to see you too, Carter,” I said.

“I did not expect to see you at all.” His voice was flat. It still stung.

The last time we saw each other was the night everything exploded. He stood beside Nathan while my family’s secrets blew across headlines and I ran. No goodbye. No explanation. Seven months of silence.

“I know,” I said. “I should have—”

“Should have what?” His words cracked the quiet. “Called? Sent a text? Pretended we mattered? You did not disappear from a party, Isabella. You disappeared from our lives.”

Guilt burned hot in my chest.

“I was not just his best friend,” he said, rougher now. “He was my brother. When you left, it felt like losing you both.”

I had never thought of it from his side. I had been too swallowed by my own shame to see anything else.

“You did not even say goodbye,” he added, rubbing a hand through his hair.

“I know,” I said. “I am sorry.”

He laughed once. Empty. “Doesn’t change it now.”

Cold bit at my skin. I forced myself to meet his eyes. “I am not here to make excuses. I was not okay. I did not know how to exist in this city without him, so I ran. That is the truth. It is shitty. I am here now. I do not have anywhere else.”

He studied me like he could see the seams holding me together.

“You sold your flat,” he said.

“Yeah,” I answered. “I did not think I would ever come back.”

Silence stretched. Then Liam sighed and stepped back enough to open the door.

“Come in,” he said. “Before you freeze to death on my steps.”

Relief hit, but I kept it small. I dragged the suitcase in. The bunny flopped against the frame. Warmth and low music wrapped the room. Cedary soap and beer. Books on shelves. Dark leather couch. It was like the house had held its breath and waited. I had not.

I set the bag down and looked at him. “Thank you.”

“Do not thank me yet.” He shut the door and locked it. His eyes stayed steady. “You have not told me why you are really here.”

He had always seen through me.

“It is my father,” I said. My throat tightened on the words. “And I need help.”