Between Strangers

Chapter Seventeen

The day lingered like a weight against my chest. I did not want to move. I did not want to speak. Even breathing felt like it might draw too much attention, as though the walls might carry my secrets out into the world.

Liam had left the television dark. The silence pressed, thick but bearable, like a cloak around us both. I lay curled on the couch, clutching the leather case, and the sound of my own shallow breaths filled the space between us.

He did not push me to talk. He did not ask what was inside the case or why I held it as though it were the last tether keeping me alive. Instead, he sat near the window with a cup of coffee that steamed faintly in the pale light. His eyes wandered the city below, but every now and then I felt his gaze flick back to me. Watching. Measuring.

I had not asked why he let me stay. I did not dare. Kindness always came with cost, and I had learned to measure those costs too late. Still, something in me resisted believing he was kind at all. Men did not keep secrets for free.

I pulled the blanket tighter around myself and broke the silence. “They will not stop talking about me.”

His eyes moved from the skyline back to me. “No. They will not.”

“And you expect me to outlast that noise.”

“Yes.” His tone carried no hesitation.

The word stung. He believed I could endure, but he had not seen the hollow parts of me. He had not seen how thin the line was between standing and falling. “You do not know me,” I whispered.

“I know enough.” He set the coffee aside, his movements slow. “I know they are trying to paint you as broken. Which means you are not broken yet.”

My lips trembled, and I pressed them together until they stopped. I wanted to laugh, bitter and sharp, but the sound would not come. “Elizabeth has already won. You did not see her face when she signed those papers at my bedside. She looked at me like I was not even human. Like I was a stain she had scrubbed away.”

Liam leaned forward, elbows on his knees, gaze steady. “Then why are you still alive?”

The question landed like a blow. I stared at him, unable to answer.

He did not press. He only watched me, eyes unwavering, until my chest felt too tight. Finally I spoke, barely more than a whisper. “Because she wants me to watch her win.”

The silence that followed was heavier than before. He sat back, his features unreadable, and I pulled the blanket closer, wishing I had never spoken.

Minutes bled into hours. Light shifted across the floorboards, climbing from gold to gray as the day aged. I drifted in and out of shallow sleep, jerking awake each time a car horn echoed from the street below or footsteps passed in the hall. Liam stayed near the window, a figure carved from patience.

When evening pressed against the glass, he rose at last. “You need food.”

The thought alone turned my stomach. “I cannot eat.”

“You must.” He crossed to the kitchen, his movements purposeful but quiet. He pulled down a pan, set it on the stove, and the hiss of oil filled the apartment. The smell of garlic drifted through the air, warm and grounding.

I watched him from the couch, suspicion gnawing at me. He cooked like someone used to feeding himself, efficient but without flourish. No wasted movements, no need for presentation. The scent grew richer, and my stomach betrayed me with a low growl.

He set the plate before me on the small table. Pasta, simple, steam curling upward. No garnish, no decoration, just food meant to keep me alive.

I stared at it until he finally said, “Eat.”

I lifted the fork with trembling hands. The first bite burned against my raw throat, but warmth spread through me as I swallowed. Tears stung my eyes. I hated that something so small could break me open, but the ache in my chest grew sharp, and I forced another bite down before the sobs could spill.

Liam did not watch me as I ate. He returned to the window, giving me privacy in my weakness, and that restraint unsettled me even more than if he had stared.

By the time I set the fork down, the plate nearly empty, exhaustion had replaced hunger. My hands shook as I pushed it aside.

“You are not safe with me,” I said finally. “If they find me in your house, they will drag you into this. They will crush you the way they crush me.”

He turned from the window, arms crossed loosely over his chest. “I am not afraid of them.”

“You should be.” My voice cracked. “Elizabeth does not forgive. Daniel does not forgive. They destroy. It is the only thing they know how to do.”

Liam’s expression did not change. “Then let them try.”

The certainty in his voice chilled me. I could not decide if it was arrogance or knowledge. Either way, it made me fear him almost as much as I feared them.

I leaned back against the couch, clutching the case again. “Why are you helping me?”

The question hung heavy. He did not answer right away. Instead, he walked closer, stopping just far enough that I would have to reach for him if I wanted to close the space. His shadow stretched across the floor, brushing the hem of the blanket.

At last he spoke. “Because you remind me of someone I failed to save.”

The words sliced clean. My heart twisted. “Who?”

He looked away, gaze fixed on the darkening sky beyond the glass. “It does not matter.”

Silence stretched between us again, but now it felt different. He had given me something fragile, a truth with edges sharp enough to cut us both.

I lowered my eyes, unable to bear the weight of it. My grip on the case tightened until my nails ached.

When I finally looked up again, the city was glowing against the night, headlights threading through streets like veins of fire. The noise outside rose and fell in waves, indifferent to me, indifferent to all of us.

Liam sat across from me, silent, but his presence filled the room more than the city ever could.

I did not know if I could trust him. I did not know if he meant his promises or if he would vanish once Elizabeth’s storm found him. But as my body sagged beneath the weight of the day, my eyes burning with exhaustion, I realized something I had not allowed myself to believe in years.

I was not completely alone.

The thought terrified me more than the headlines. More than the poison still threading its way through my veins.

Because once you admit you are not alone, you also admit you have something to lose.

I curled tighter beneath the blanket, whispering his name into the silence as though saying it might keep him there. “Liam.”

He did not answer.

But he stayed.

And for tonight, that was enough.