Page 114 of Off The Ice

How could I answer? How could I even begin to explain this big, terrible thing that had plagued me my entire life?

It had always been a humiliating secret I guarded above all else. As if my mother’s addiction was mine, too. We didn’t talk about it. We didn’t tell other people about it. That’s how it always was. Even though we were lying to ourselves, anyone with eyes could see the situation as clear as day.

But Liam? He wouldn’t judge me. I knew in my bones that he wouldn’t. I felt it, and I needed to trust that feeling. Because he’d done something that no one else in my life ever had.

Someone had finally shown up for me. So I told him everything.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Liam

My heart was in fucking pieces. The girl in the car beside me was quiet as she stared out the window. But this time, it was a calm sort of silence. As if a weight I hadn’t known she was carrying had been lifted from her.

Now, she just looked tired.

“I’m sorry,” Cassie said after a while in the dark of the car.

“For what?” I whipped my head to look at her.

“For leaving the gala. I didn’t want to ruin anything for you.”

“Jesus Christ, Cassie. You don’t need to apologize.” I couldn’t believe this girl. “But can you do me a favor next time?”

She looked at me, nodding.

“Stop ordering fucking Ubers,” I said, exhausted. “I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. Just stop leaving without me.”

A smile crept onto her face despite everything, and she nodded, healing some fraction of the crack in my chest that had torn open tonight.

“I promise,” she whispered.

I reached over and took her hand in mine, and I held it the entire way home.

The apartment was dark when we got home, as if even the city lights that usually illuminated it had gone to sleep.

It was late, but I was wired. My mind was whirling with all the revelations that had taken place tonight about Cassie’s past and this secret part of her life I never could’ve guessed at.

“Are you going to bed?” she asked timidly.

“Are you?” I responded without answering.

She looked utterly exhausted, and I knew she needed to, but God, I didn’t want to let her out of my sight.

She shrugged. “I guess so.”

But she lingered.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, feeling stupid as hell for the question as soon as I asked it.

Everything in the world was fucking wrong.

“I think I’ll sleep on the couch if that’s okay?” she asked, tugging at her fingers.

“Why?”

It took her a breath before she admitted it, but when she did, the words twisted something inside of me.

“I don’t want to be alone.”

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