Page 45 of The Grumpy Doc's Surprise Delivery

The next day, when Liam still hasn’t said anything, I text him again before I start my shift.Hope work was okay last night. How are you looking for lunch tomorrow?

With that, I shove my phone in my bag and head off to do some work. I’m helping in the ICU today. I volunteered to, in large part because it’s always busy, and busy means my head will be full of thoughts that are about anything but Liam.

It almost works.

I have to force myself not to keep checking my notifications all day, and I almost succeed. I look twice, and he’s said nothing.

When we hit lunch, I feel sick, but it doesn’t stop me from checking. My heart pounds. I unlock the phone. One new message.

My heart soars.

Work’s fine.

I stare at it, waiting for the next part of the message to come. It doesn’t. I try not to read into the period. It feels more final than I would like it to.

I’m glad,I reply, deciding not to put pressure on him to give me a response about lunch.

From there, it doesn’t get better.

All week, he’s like this, not replying to my messages, not wanting to meet.Is everything okay? You seem distant,I ask him at one point, and he ignores me. I don’t know how else to show him that I care or to get him to open up to me.

It’s like all of a sudden, a shroud has fallen over him, and he’s gone back to being that ice-cold asshole I met in Saint Lucia. I send text after text after text, and I get nothing back. We don’t meet. We don’t chat.

In the end, he stops even reading my messages at all, and that’s the moment I decide to stop sending them.

I’m tired of putting in effort to get nothing back.

That weekend, I head to Phoebe’s and burst into tears the second I walk through the door.

Phoebe steers me into the living room and sits me down on the sofa, throwing a blanket over me and sliding a glass of wine into my hand. As she always does, she knows what I need better than I do.

“I don’t think he likes me anymore,” I sob as she sits beside me, taking me into her arms.

“What’s happened? Why do you think that?”

I tell her everything: about the way Liam’s been ignoring me, about how I don’t think I can keep doing this if he’s going to keep acting this way. About how I thought this was really something, but I was clearly worthless to him this whole time.

She holds me and rubs my back soothingly. She doesn’t have any words, just comfort and listening until the tears have lessened and I’ve stopped shaking. Eventually, she asks, “Has he actually broken up with you?”

“No,” I sniffle. “But I’m starting to think we might never have really been going out.”

“Of course you were,” says Phoebe, but the floodgates of doubt have opened in my mind now, and the waves are crashing down over me.

“Were we, though? We never talked about it. He never called me his girlfriend. Sure, we hung out together and we were intimate like lovers, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t casual. A lot of people these days have a casual thing with their friends. Maybe we were just being modern.”

“Maybe,” says Phoebe, cutting me off. “You should talk to him about it. I know you didn’t want to scare him off, but was that just to make him happy? Look at your broken heart now. If this wasn’t love, then he’s going to be in trouble with me.”

I laugh despite my tears. “It’s too late now. He isn’t talking to me, and asking him is just going to make it worse. I’ve lost him forever. You found me my dream guy, and I was too stupid to keep him.”

“Hey now,” says Phoebe sternly, taking hold of my hands. “Don’t you dare start talking like that. From everything you’re saying, all I’m hearing is a coward who’s decided that ghosting you is a better way to deal with his problems than actually talking to you.”

“I guess.”

“It’s okay to be upset by this. Anyone would be. But don’t you dare start blaming yourself for things you didn’t do. You can’t change other people.”

A cracked laugh escapes my lips. “No,” I say. “No, you can’t.”

And maybe that was my issue. I had a taste of a Liam who was kind and open and loving, but from the start, he showed me who he really was. The kind of guy who loves work and hates inconvenience. Someone who sees other people as beneath him and thinks that just because he has fought for his position, he’s better than everyone else.

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