Chapter 69

I didn’t drive home. I couldn’t.

Not after what I saw. Not after the way Liam looked at me. The panic in his eyes, the guilt etched in his features, as if realizing too late that I’d just watched him kiss another woman. Or maybe she kissed him. It didn’t matter.

The damage was done.

I couldn’t go home. Not in this state. Not with my mother waiting there, cheerful and unaware, eager to hear all about the boy who had made her daughter smile again.

How was I supposed to tell her that smile had been crushed under the weight of someone else’s lips?

So I drove.

Nowhere specific. Just let the city fall behind me. I drove passed the palm-lined streets, the overpriced juice bars, the empty beaches glowing under dying sunlight. One hand gripping the wheel and the other clutching the last pieces of myself.

Eventually, I pulled into a forgotten corner of the city, a canyon overlook littered with cracked pavement and cigarette butts. I parked the car and sat there, watching dusk bleed into night.