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Chapter Twenty-Six

I hated my traitorous body and the incessant pounding of its heart.

I was fine. Everything was fine. I was in Liam’s car, and he was driving me home.

My body, however, felt I was an animal being hunted for sport in the wild. I was hyper-aware of everything. The cars going by, the silence in the car.

The tension radiating from Liam.

That was the worst of all.

I wondered if he was mad at me. I’d thrown a fit and run out. It was humiliating to think back on. But I couldn’t face Dave. I just didn’t have it in me. I’d never been able to do confrontations. Least of all with the man who broke my heart.

“I’m sorry,” I finally said after a few minutes of the unbearable quiet, watching the way his fingers clenched the wheel so hard they were almost white.

His head whipped so fast I thought it might’ve hurt him.

“Why are you sorry?”

“You’re mad at me, aren’t you?”

He couldn’t have looked anymore shocked if I told him I was in the running for the next presidential election.

“Why would I be mad at you?”

“Because I ran out so abruptly?” I said, my fingers twitching in my lap. “I’m sorry I did that. It was so immature of me. To run away like that? I don’t know what happened. I just—”

“, you don’t have to explain.”

But I did . I couldn’t handle the thought of Liam thinking I was some neurotic weirdo who was prone to fleeing conversations at random.

“I just saw someone that I knew, and I guess I wanted to avoid a conversation with them.”

“Someone?” Liam bit out tersely.

“Dave,” I admitted, cringing at the mere mention of his name.

“Dave,” He repeated, the name rolling off his tongue like poison.

“Yeah, my ex-boyfriend. I know it’s stupid, but I just couldn’t handle seeing him.” I looked out the window, embarrassed.

“Why the hell would it be stupid?” Liam asked incredulously. “Most people aren’t in the habit of wanting to catch up with their exes. Especially when that ex is a complete dick.”

“He wasn’t so bad.” I shrugged. “We both played a part in it.”

Almost immediately, Liam put his blinker on and pulled off over to the side of the road.

“What are you doing?” I asked, wide-eyed and anxious.

“Trying to figure out how you could possibly think that what you just said is true.”

“You don’t understand,” I fumbled, unnerved by his intensity.

Even in the darkness of the car, I could feel the heat of his stare, feel the tension that filled the small space around us.

“What don’t I understand?” he asked softly but adamantly. “Maggie’s told me stories, Cass. This guy’s just no good. And that has nothing to do with you.”

“I was… a lot. I can be needy. Sometimes I started fights. And, like I told you, I get way too emotional about things. It’s too much for anyone to be expected to handle.”

Liam didn’t know the half of it. How screwed up I was over my mom? How I’d cry each time I walked in to see the state she’d drunk herself into?

I knew after a while Dave was sick of hearing about it. Of course he couldn’t handle it. No one could.

“It’s not too much,” Liam declared passionately. “ You’re not too much. I want to kill him for making you think that.”

But he didn’t know. He didn’t understand that I’d spent my life walking around the minefield that was my mother’s alcoholic mood swings. He didn’t know how it caused anxiety to gnaw at me every moment of the day. How each time someone’s behavior changed even slightly, I was convinced it was because of me. Something I had done or said or not done enough of.

How I was convinced that everyone in my life was one step away from leaving, so I kept them all at arm’s length to dull the pain when they finally did.

If he knew the half of it, he’d run the other way screaming. I’d do the same, but there was nowhere to hide when it was yourself you were trying to run from.

I felt hands reach up to cup my face and was startled at the contact. My eyes flickered up, meeting his as they searched my face, looking for something that I couldn’t let him find.

“Why are you hiding from me?” he whispered, his words so soft I could feel his breath warm against my face.

I felt my stomach flutter, and I couldn’t tell if it was anxiety or something else. It couldn’t be anxiety because I felt… safe. Liam made me feel safe. But feeling seen by him was scary in its own way. He looked at me like he wasn’t going to let me run or hide, and I didn’t know what to do with that.

I tried to turn my head, to twist away from those eyes, but his fingers kept me in place, his face far too close for comfort.

I stared at him, feeling my resolve breaking, my emotions flooding.

“,” he whispered as his thumb grazed my cheek.

And then, I crumbled.

Tears slid down my face despite my best effort to keep them at bay, and I heard a whimper escape my throat, making me feel pitiful.

“Shhh,” Liam said, pulling my head to his shoulder, big hands stroking my hair as he whispered, “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

“I’m sorry,” I choked out through tears.

“Don’t be.” His voice sounded… sad.

“I just don’t know what was wrong with me that he needed to find someone else. I tried to be everything for him,” I cried.

And underneath my words, the deeper fear, that it would be the same ending with anyone. That because of whatever was broken inside of me, I would never be enough. Not when anyone could go and find someone whole.

“You are everything,” he affirmed, fingers still working as my tears soaked the fabric of his shirt. “You weren’t the one who wasn’t enough, okay?” he said close to my ear, as if his proximity would send the message deeper. “It was him.”

And there, on the side of the road under the lights of the city, I felt it in my chest as Liam Brynn put a few of my pieces back together.