Page 100 of Because I Liked A Boy
He checked the clock, then looked back at me, softer now. “You’ve had a long day. Let me run you a bath.”
The words cut like glass. A bath. The last time someone had offered that—Hunter’s voice, Hunter’s hands—it had broken me in two. My skin prickled with old wounds, but I forced a small, brittle smile. “Thank you.”
Liam didn’t push. He just nodded once and disappeared down the hall. Water rushed. Porcelain clinked.
I carried myself there on shaking legs. Steam curled from the tub, lavender salts in the air. A towel lay folded sharp on the counter. Too thoughtful.
“Take your time,” he said from the doorway, voice low, unreadable. Then he left me to the silence.
The second the door shut, I unravelled.
My hands shook as I peeled off my clothes. The bruise on my cheek glared from the mirror, his mark etched into me all over again. My chest heaved as I sank into the water, heat swallowing my cold skin.
And then the sobs came. Silent first, then tearing, splintering. I pressed my palms to my face, but they tore through anyway. Seven months of guilt, Hunter’s ghost, Nathan’s grave, Penny’s scream—they all hit at once, drowning me. A name slipped out of me, broken in the steam. “Nathan…” Another tore through on its heels. “Penny…” Then, softer and guilty, “Hunter…” My throat closed around them, like speaking them made the ache sharper. I curled under the water, knees to chest, salt tears spilling into lavender and foam. For once, I didn’t try to hold it back. Let it scald me, let it hollow me out because at least the pain meant I still had something worth fighting for.
For the first time since I’d landed in London, I didn’t fight it. I let myself break.
And the water carried it, lavender and steam wrapping around me like something fragile but safe.
The Promise
Two days blurred into each other, quiet but heavy.
Liam worked from home, his laptop stationed on the kitchen island, papers spread in neat stacks I wasn’t allowed to touch. He said it was easier this way—that he didn’t want me left alone after what happened. I didn’t argue. Not when the bruise on my cheek still pulsed with a dull ache, the kind that reminded me with every glance in the mirror that he’d marked me. Again.
Sometimes Liam didn’t say much at all. He’d just push a fresh cup of coffee toward me, slide painkillers across the counter, or leave toast on a plate by my elbow like it wasn’t a big deal. But it was. It was everything. Because for the first time in seven months, someone stayed.
But staying didn’t mean silence. I started noticing the small ways he bent his life around mine. The way he shut his laptop whenever I drifted too close, like shielding me from work I couldn’t help with anyway. How he always claimed the sofa when we both couldn’t sleep, flicking through news on his phone while pretending he wasn’t watching me pace the hall. Once, I caught him lingering in the doorway while I was making tea, his eyes fixed not on me but on the bruise shadowing my cheek, as if memorising it, promising himself something I didn’t want to name.
At night, I whispered into the phone. Penelope’s voice cracked down the line, small but steady, like she was trying to be brave for both of us.
“Bella, I don’t want this,” she’d murmur, barely audible over the static. “I don’t want to marry him.”
My throat burned every time. “You won’t. Just sit tight. I’m coming for you.”
She never said thank you. She didn’t need to. The silence on the other end was enough—the kind that told me she believed me, even when I wasn’t sure I believed myself.
Sometimes she’d whisper about schoolwork left undone, friends she wasn’t allowed to see, the dress hanging in her closet that she hadn’t chosen but was expected to wear. Her voice always went smaller when she talked about him, like she thought even over the line he might hear. I listened to every word, catalogued every fear, letting them burn into me until sleep was impossible.
I hung up each night with my chest raw and aching, vowing to her, to Nathan’s ghost, to myself, that I wouldn’t fail her again.
By the second morning, Liam caught me staring at my phone like it held the whole world. He slid a plate of toast in front of me and set down a vanilla latte beside it. The scent hit me first—warm, sweet, too familiar. My favourite.
It made my stomach twist. Vanilla lattes used to mean Ruby sneaking me out for study breaks, Hunter laughing over the rim of his cup. Now Liam was the one sliding it across the counter, steady and unflinching, and the contrast almost broke me.
When I finally spoke, my voice shook with both defiance and guilt. “I’m going to get her back.”
He didn’t answer right away. His knuckles tapped against the laptop lid, his eyes narrowing like he wanted to argue but knew better. “Then we don’trush in blind,” he said. “Not if you want to walk out with her still breathing. Eat,” he ordered gently, settling opposite me.
I picked at the toast, fingers trembling around the mug. “I’m going to get her back,” I said finally, the words trembling out like a vow I’d carved into bone.
Liam didn’t argue. He just slid his laptop across the counter, the screen angled toward me.
There it was. An announcement, glossy and cruel: Ashbourne–Cartwright Engagement Gala. Date, time, location—all pristine.
The air left my lungs. “An engagement party?” My voice cracked.
He nodded once, jaw tight. “Two nights from now.”
