Page 88 of Chasing Lyric
Her silence is loud.
Deliberate.
“Shit,” I mutter, dragging a hand through my hair, the weight of it all sinking into my shoulders. I close my eyes for a beat,then glance back down at the phone, thumb hovering as I exhale through my nose, slow and sharp, trying to shove down the frustration clawing at my throat.
She’s screening me.
Can’t blame her.
Not after the shit I pulled.
But I’m not giving up that easy.
I open the text app, thumb still tense, already searching for words that might break through the wall I helped her build.
Me:I’m not giving up on us.
I stare at the screen, waiting, barely breathing. My pulse kicks up the second the little bubble shifts from delivered to read, and my chest tightens. Every second that passes without a response feels like a deliberate punishment, but I keep hoping she’s just thinking. Crafting a reply. Letting me sweat.
But the reply never comes.
She read it and chose silence.
Now she’s ghosting me.
And the worst part?I fucking deserve it.
I rake a hand down my face, rubbing hard against my jaw to keep from slamming my phone across the room. And as if to break me from my own internal ruin, footsteps stomp down the hall, and my door swings open without so much as a knock.
“Have you sealed the deal yet?” My father’s voice barrels in like a wrecking ball, full of arrogance and zero awareness.
I look up slowly, my jaw clenching. The urge to tell him to ‘go fuck himself’simmers right behind my tongue, but before I can even speak, he keeps going. “Jesus, son. You look like shit. Pour yourself another drink. It’ll take the edge off whatever little soap opera’s going on over there.” He gestures vaguely in my direction, like the aftermath of my relationship,my life, is just a mild inconvenience to him.
I flip my phone face down on the desk and push back in my chair, the weight of my father’s indifference pressing hard on my shoulders. My chest still hasn’t unclenched, and my skin’s hot with humiliation and fury.
Heruinedeverything.
And now he’s standing here pretending like it wasnothing.
Like Lyric and I werenothing!
Still sitting in my chair as I look up at him, I need to press him about last night. About why the fuck he was even there in the first damn place. “You never said why you were looking for Dax and me last night,” I grind out, watching him carefully, trying to keep my voice steady even though every nerve in my body is frayed to hell.
He straightens his jacket like the question’s beneath him, puffing his chest as if he’s getting ready to take the podium at a board meeting. “Oh, like I can remember that now.”
My teeth grind together. Of course, he can’t remember. Because for him, this is just another day. Another manipulation. Another wreckage left in his wake for someone else to clean up.
I lean forward, elbows on my armrests, fists clenched.
And for the first time, I realize that maybe Lyric was right to walk away.
I rise slowly from my chair, every muscle taut, my jaw clenched so hard it’s starting to ache. The anger rises, deep and molten, bubbling beneath the surface of my skin. My eyes lock on his, and when I speak, my voice is low and sharp, the edge of it honed from months of swallowing lies. “After what I did for you, after what I gave up, what I lost, youdon’tget to lie to me.”
His expression falters, just for a beat. That polished, smug mask he wears every day at the head of his empire slips, and beneath it, there’s something real. Something he knows damn well he can’t bury, not with me.Not with the son who carried the cost of his mistakes.
He shifts his weight, the bravado shrinking. His gaze meets mine, but this time it doesn’t challenge, it concedes.
Because he knows.
