Page 43 of Cruel When He Smiles

I stare at him, frowning. “What do you mean?” I ask; my throat’s already raw, so what’s one more scraped word?

“I mean,” he says, closing the distance with that same unshakable calm he always carries, “that when you screamed in that hotel room, I recognized it. Not just the sound, but the way it tore out of you. That kind of scream doesn’t come from nowhere.”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. My throat closes around any sound that might try escaping.

He keeps going. “I used to have night terrors, too. I used to wake up so soaked in sweat I’d have to change the sheets before my dad noticed. Used to count the seconds after I opened my eyes, trying to figure out what year I was in.”

I blink. That shouldn’t hurt, but it does.

“Why are you telling me this?” I whisper.

“Because I know what it’s like to feel like the world’s moved on without you,” he says. “To feel like everyone else is just…functioning. And you’re still trapped somewhere no one else can see.”

The tears burn before they fall. I try to hold them in, to blink them back or swallow them down, or do anything but let them win. But they come anyway, silent and stubborn.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I whisper, my voice shaking. “I don’t even know who I’m supposed to talk to anymore. Sage doesn’t care. My parents sure as hell don’t. Dr. Ellis is too fucking stupid to see something’s wrong with me. And you—”

My voice cracks and dies. I can’t say it. I can’t say what he means to me because I don’t even understand it myself.

I don’t know when he got inside my head, or when the lines between hate and need started blurring. Or why I let him touch me and didn’t flinch, or why his voice is the only thing that doesn’t send me spiraling when I’m stuck in a nightmare I can’t climb out of.

I don’t know why I trust him, but I fucking do.

A bitter sound leaves me before I can stop it. A weak, barely-there laugh. My head drops, and I press the heels of my hands to my eyes, but it’s too late.

Liam steps into me without hesitation, and he doesn’t ask for permission. He presses a hand against my jaw, and his thumb catches a tear before it can fall. His fingers are warm, and his eyes are softer than I’ve ever seen them.

“Hey,” he murmurs, thumb brushing beneath my eye. “Don’t do that. Don’t hold it in.”

I shake my head. “I can’t—”

“You can,” he says, then he’s pulling me into his arms.

I don’t want to cry in front of him. But my chest pulls tight, and the pressure behind my eyes won’t back down. I try to breathe through it, but it comes out ragged, and the harder I fight it, the more it wins.

It’s not even loud, it’s worse than that. It’s quiet and pathetic. The kind of crying that sneaks up on you when you’re so fucking tired of pretending everything’s fine. It comes in waves that don’t look dramatic from the outside but are violent underneath.

His arms slide around me, and I don’t resist. I should, but instead, everything inside me gives out all at once.

I press my face into his chest, shoulders shaking with every silent cry I’ve been biting back for weeks. He holds me tighter—one hand on the back of my neck, the other splayed across my spine, grounding me without a word.

And I let myself fall apart in the arms of the one person I never expected to find comfort in; the same arms that once bruised me now steady me.

I don’t know how long we stand there, but eventually, my breathing evens out. Eventually, the tears slow, and I’m still clinging to him. He doesn’t let go. Not even when I try to step back, ashamed and exposed and too raw to look him in the eyes.

“Nate,” he says, his voice gentle. “Look at me.”

I look up, and his expression seems a little tense and tired, but honest.

“I’m not here to fuck with you,” he says. “I’m not doing this to win a game or play some long con. I’m not the monster you built in your head.”

I don’t know if I believe that. “Then what are you?”

His lips twitch into the ghost of a smile. “I’m the one who saw past the armor you wear. I’m the one who noticed the cracks before anyone else did. And I’m the one who’s not going anywhere.”

That scares me more than anything—more than my mother’s voice, more than the nightmares, and more than being alone. I know he’s dangerous in ways I don’t fully understand yet, and part of me wants to believe him even though I know I shouldn’t. Even though I know what people do when they get close.

They leave. They lie. They destroy.