Page 77 of Ashes of Us
I turned. Tried to look surprised, like I hadn't already clocked his exact location and calculated three different escape routes.
"Hey."
He looked different. Thinner, or maybe just tired. The sling made him seem smaller somehow, less like the man who'd cheated on me and more like someone's kid brother who'd gotten hurt doing something stupid.
"Hey," he said back.
We stood there. Him holding pasta sauce, me clutching granola I didn't want. The fluorescent lights humming overhead like they were judging us.
"How's the shoulder?" I asked, because apparently that's what I was doing now. Making small talk with my ex-fiancé in the cereal aisle.
"Getting there. Physical therapy three times a week." He shifted the jar to his other hand. "Thanks for, huh, at the hospital. You didn't have to come."
"Daniel's a friend. You saved him."
Something flickered across his face. Confusion, maybe. Or surprise.
"How is he? Daniel?”
"Good. He moved to Portland. New job."
Liam went very still. I watched him process it—the past tense, the distance, the casual way I'd said "friend" instead of "boyfriend."
"He moved," Liam repeated slowly.
"Yeah. About two weeks ago."
"And you're—" He didn't finish the question, and that’s when it hit me.
He hadn't known.
Of coursehe hadn’t known.
The realization hit me like cold water. When he'd gone into that burning building, when he'd risked his life pulling Daniel out, when he'd taken a beam to the shoulder to protect him… he'd thought Daniel and I were together.
He'd thought he was saving my boyfriend.
My chest felt tight.
"Well," I said, because I needed to leave before I started crying in the cereal aisle like an actual insane person. "I should?—"
"Yeah. Me too."
We both stood there for another three seconds, neither of us moving.
Then I turned and walked away with my stupid granola and my racing heart and the absolute certainty that I was not fine, had never been fine, and would not be fine for the foreseeable future.
The second time,I was ready.
It was Thursday morning. 5:45 AM at the pool, like always. I'd just finished my twentieth lap when I saw him in the lane next to mine.
He must have switched his physical therapy schedule. Or maybe this was part of his recovery. Whatever. It didn't really matter. We were both adults and could swim in the same pool without it being weird.
Except…
It was absolutely weird.
I kept swimming. So did he. We were both very focused on our respective lanes, very careful not to acknowledge each other's existence.
