“Because my best friend loves you.”
She dropped her head, the first tear falling with a soft tap on the folder in her hands. “Not enough to choose me,” she whispered.
Noah sighed, digging into his desk drawer for a box of tissues, which he dropped on the edge of his desk in front of Min. “Sometimes he’s a self-destructive bastard. That doesn’t change the way he feels about you.”
“What do I do?” she asked.
“You study. You sit for your exams. You go home and enjoy the holidays with your family.”
Min held Noah’s eyes, silently begging him to help her fix this.
He sighed. “Just don’t give up on him yet.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
Liam loaded the last banker’s box into his trunk, wincing at the crick in his neck from yet another night sleeping on the couch. He couldn’t bring himself to sleep in his bed when it still smelled of Min, and he couldn’t bear the idea of washing his sheets and losing the smell, so he’d spent the last week tossing and turning. With a muttered curse, he slammed the trunk of his car harder than necessary, concealing the neatly arranged boxes filled with the remnants of his career. There was something poetic there, probably, in the idea that so much of himself fit into cardboard boxes, that the totality of his career could be stowed in the trunk of his Audi.
“Well, you look awful.”
It took Liam a full three seconds to register that someone was talking to him. When he glanced up, he found Jeff leaning against the side of his car, his arms crossed and his mouth fixed in a frown. Liam wasn’t sure he’d ever seen his happy-go-lucky student frown.
Liam grunted in response, so Jeff pressed on. “So what’s the plan?”
“What plan?” Liam asked, his brain still stuck on a single refrain that made it difficult to follow what anyone else was saying:You lost everything.
“What comes next? When are you going to stop feeling sorry for yourself and go apologize to our girl?” Jeff asked.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not in the mood for a lecture right now,” Liam said.
Jeff shrugged, nonplussed by Liam’s stern expression. “And I wasn’t in the mood to spend the last week peeling my best friend off the bathroom floor, but here we are.”
Liam squeezed his eyes shut against the sudden pain in his chest at the idea of Min crumpled on the floor because of him.He didn’t know where they went from here. He didn’t know how to be the man she fell in love with if he wasn’t focused on the music, and he didn’t know how to keep the musicandher.I don’t deserve both,he thought.So he did nothing. And with each day that passed, it was even harder to pick up the phone.
“I keep meaning to call. But what would I even say? Sorry I fucked up both our lives? Sorry I can’t be who you thought I was?”
“You have to stop punishing her,” Jeff said.
Liam’s eyes flew to Jeff’s. “I’m not punishing her.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“She deserves better than me,” Liam mumbled.
“Yeah, she does. Especially if you’re just gonna leave her to deal with this mess on her own.”
“What are you talking about?”
Jeff folded his arms in front of his chest and narrowed his eyes, as if he was trying to determine how much Liam already knew.
“Just tell me, Jeff,” he demanded.
“Some jerk filmed the whole thing, put it up on social. It’s everywhere. We had to delete her accounts because there were so many people tagging her with these disgusting comments. The University isn’t even letting her go to class.”
“What?”That can’t be right. The dean wouldn’t allow that.
“Told her to take her exams with Van Aller when she was ready but not to show up at any more lectures this semester,” Jeff said.
Liam cursed under his breath, scrubbing his hands over his face.
