Page 132 of Free to Fall

Liam has a grip on my hand I can’t break. As Austyn calls out a break, he drags me out the back door onto the dock behind Tide Pool.

Coming to a stop, Liam’s face is filled with remorse. He opens his mouth to speak, but I lift our joined hands before he can. “Can you please release me?”

“Will you give me a chance to talk before you walk away?” His vulnerability tugs at a heart I swore I was going to leave dead and buried.

I shake our joined hands. “Fine. Just let me go.”

“I’m not certain I know how to do that, Laura,” he murmurs as our fingers unlace.

Defiant, my hip cocks out. “You don’t have a choice. Even if we were ... what we were, I make my own choices, Liam. You have five minutes.”

“I need to apologize,” he admits, his voice laced with regret. “I want the chance to fix this, to fix us.”

A storm of resentment and hurt swirls inside of me. I lash out, “Your words didn’t just cut, they were designed to slaughter. I won’t forget a single thing you said that night.”

Desperation paints his features as he pulls his cell from his pocket. “I’m sorry. Let me make it right.”

A text hits my phone. I sneer. “What is it? Another I’m sorry?”

“No, it’s my files from Alice.”

Despite my simmering anger, I waver. “You’ve been seeing her? Really talking to her?”

His head twists to the side. “What you’re going to read isn’t easy for me to admit. But as the woman I love ...”

I hold my hand out to ward off his words as pain thunders through me.

Raw agony is visible in his eyes. “Just read the file, Laura. That’s all I ask. Then, if you want my apology, it’s yours. That’s the bare minimum of what I want to give you.”

“What do you really want?”

“To give you?” At my nod, he reaches out a hand. When I refuse to take it, it remains held out—like a plea. “Only my heart, my life, and our daughter.”

The scab over my heart is ripped off. It begins seeping again. “I promise I’ll read this, but you have to give me space, Liam.”

“Laura . . .”

“Your apologies are just words. I need room.” I can barely stand here and look up into eyes that I see in my sleep every night. I can’t figure out what to do next based on a single apology.

“I understand. Just one request ...”

“Liam,” I begin, waiting for him to ask for something like an embrace—something to make me ache more than I already am.

“Will you please find time to reach out to Bailey? She’s so confused.”

“Bailey.” I brace my hands on the rail surrounding the dock and try to drag air into my lungs. In my own pain, I isolated myself from her—from the fact she went through this trauma alongside me.

“She misses you, Laura. Every day.”

I nod, the knot at the juncture of my throat unable to let me speak.

He lays his hands on my shoulders and brushes his lips across the back of my head. “Thank you.” He hesitates before leaning forward to whisper, “I will always love you, Laura Lockwood, even if you can never forgive me.”

Why did that feel like he was saying goodbye? My heart begins to thump frantically as his footsteps walk away from me. Spinning around, I call out, “Liam?”

I catch him dashing his fingers from his eyes. “We’ve made so many memories together—you, me, and Bailey. I just want you to be happy, Laura. Whatever happy is for you.” With that, he turns and shuffles down the dock.

After he disappears from sight, I brace my forearms against the wood rail, thinking about everything he asked for and said. He loves me, and he wants me to talk with Bailey. He wants me to be happy. But he never tried to coax me to give him another chance. He left that entirely up to me.

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