Chapter Six

Liam's POV

Claire Miller, after three years of saying her name only in my own head and telling myself I would never see her face again, was back in my life, now working in my company. I never saw myself attending the reunion gala this year, when somebody mentioned in the group chat that Claire would be there. I made my decision days ago, not this year. 

Then Bernard called. "Don't tell me you're skipping it," he said. "Peter, you skip everything, you skip dinners, birthdays, and now the one night a year our old classmates remember we exist."

"I'm busy," I said, the only excuse that came to my mind at that moment.

"You're hiding." He said it kindly, which somehow made it worse. "I've been your doctor since that night. I know all your excuses by heart. Come to the gala one night. Get a life outside your office and that empty house."

"And if she's there?" I paused and asked.

"Then you'll finally get to face it instead of running,"  Bernard whispered. I told him no three times, then I let him drag me.

Bernard has been by my side through everything. We were in the same classroom in high school, and years later he was the doctor who stood over my bed after the fall and broke the news about me not walking again with his calm and careful voice. He spent three years running test after test, chasing some miracle that might put me back on my feet. 

Every month he came with his questions and his machines and his gentle, stubborn hope. He was the only person left who treated me like a man instead of a chair and a name.

We arrived late. When Bernard wheeled me through the back of the hall, the noise of the crowd rose around us, all those laughing voices from a life that felt like someone else's. I kept my head level and my eyes straight ahead, holding my face still, the way I had taught myself to hold everything still.

Then, just once, I let myself glance sideways. She was in a gold dress. Her hair was soft around her face, and when she laughed at something someone said, her whole face lit up the way it always had, the way I used to sit in class and steal looks at without her ever knowing. 

For one second I forgot the fall, forgot the chair, my mother’s grave I still visit every spring. I forgot everything except that she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and I had walked away from her without a single word.

I looked away fast; it didn't matter, it never mattered. That girl belonged to a life I buried years ago. 

Then someone called my name and asked where life had taken me. "Peter Stargard it is your turn" I gave them the short version. Work, the company, the accident I didn't describe. And then, before I could think, another thought slid into my head, a clean and cold one: tell them about Madison.

So I did. I announced the engagement to the whole room, plain and flat, like reading the news. I didn't look at Claire when I said it, but I felt her across the hall, felt the heat of her, and I knew that if she heard those words from my own mouth, she would finally, finally let go of whatever she was still holding for me.

 The room clapped and cheered someone laughed about the Quinn family. and somewhere in all that noise, I felt one small, ugly piece of me feeling satisfied. I did it, I had pushed her away in public, in front of everyone, so nothing could ever again make her think I still wanted her close.

Then it was over, and the hall emptied, and she came straight at me.

She threatened to make a scene. That stubborn, impossible girl, the same one who once stood up to three older boys in a schoolyard over me, told me she would scream and cry until I spoke to her. And to my great shame, it worked. I couldn't outlast her. I never could.

"Fine," I said. "You want the truth? Your father. Joseph Miller. He wrote a story about my mother three years ago, it said she cheated and betrayed her marriage." I kept my voice flat. "It ran everywhere, every paper, and every screen. She swore she was innocent, and no one believed her she was mocked on the street. Later, she got sick and never got better."

"Peter…"

"I buried her," I said, "while the whole city was still laughing at her name. My parents' marriage broke, my home filled with strangers. I lost every warm thing I ever had, because of a story with your father's signature on it."

Her face fell apart. Good, some part of me hissed, let her hurt she should know. But the other part, the part I kept locked away, was looking at her the whole time, and that part was breaking.

"Peter, I didn't know I promise you. I was away, I had no idea…"

"Would it have changed anything?" I asked. "Would it have brought her back?" She had no answer, there was no answer. I couldn't stand to be near her a second longer. So I put the mask back on and gave her the only truth that could keep us both safe.

"So don't," I said. "Don't feel sorry for me don't look at this chair and pity me.  From now on, you work for me. That's all. Strictly professional." Bernard appeared beside me; I let him wheel me away, out of the hall, out of the light, out of her reach.

I didn't look back, I didn't dare. Because if I looked at her one more time, that gold dress and those wet eyes, I would say something I could never take back.

***

I told Bernard to drive past my mother's grave on the way home. I do it every time life feels heavy. I sat there in the dark with the headlights off, staring at her stone. "I'm sorry," I said.

Then I looked down at my useless legs, and the thought came, quiet and cruel, the same one that comes every night. Losing her was only the second thing my family took from me.