Page 114 of All Our Nevers

“Don’t backtrack now, Lia. You were letting me in. We were getting there.”

“Were we? Because from my perspective, we ran away to Paris for a week and then came back and things are even worse. You said you would help but we have no fucking plan, so I guess I have to do it by myself like always.”

Everything’s closing in. Connor sent me a letter. He knows where I live. He’s never going away, and telling Owen the truth hasn’t changed any of those things. I’m so tired and it’ll never stop and I’m trapped here, helpless.

But Owen says, “You’re wrong. You’re so wrong. There are people all around you who want to help—your friends, your family, me. You just have to let us in. Let us love you, Lia. Please.”

“Don’t fucking patronize me!”

“Then don’t push me away the moment things feel out of control!”

“Hey!” A man in a Bruins shirt pops out of the building on my right, barreling down the stairs and pushing between us. He’s facing Owen, tucking me behind a thick arm as he says, “Walk away right now or I’ll call the cops, buddy. We’re not havin’ a domestic disturbance tonight. Not on my block.”

“I wasn’t—” Owen starts to say but then an older woman is there, maybe seventy, kind eyes furrowed in concern as she pulls me aside.

She asks, “Is he bothering you, sweetie?”

The man follows. “Need me to get rid of him?”

I look across this pair of strangers as they pass judgement on us, drawing all the wrong conclusions but saving me from myself—from the toxic, volcanic pressure in my chest.

I say, “Yes, he’s bothering me.”

“Li—”

“Hey.” The man steps towards Owen. “She doesn’t want you here. You need to leave right now, buddy.”

In Owen’s eyes, I see utter devastation. Layers of it.

Owen as a child, unable to protect the people he cared most about.

Owen as a young adult, isolated and lonely, blaming himself.

And Owen today, heartbroken that someone he trusted—someone he let into the deepest parts of his heart—would turn him away like this, paint him in this horrific light. The abject fear that he’s become the very thing he hates most.

But I’m shattered too. Broken and scared and exhausted, with nothing left to give.

Owen says, “I’m sorry,” and the words are a crush of sadness, voice low and trembling, but I have nothing to say, not now. He steps backwards, watching me with horror and sorrow and shame as he stumbles towards his car.

Without another word, he climbs inside and drives away.

“You okay, sweetie?” the woman asks me.

Numb and crushed, I have no words to reply.

28

Lia

It’s been four days since our fight, and I haven’t spoken to Owen once. I don’t know what it means—a temporary silent treatment, or the end of it all.

I know I have to apologize. I do. It’s my turn. He’s been so good about apologizing first, humbling himself after every fight, even when we’d both been equally to blame. And this time it’s not equal. This time it’s me.

He was just trying to help, and I couldn’t handle it—all of the worst, most caustic parts of myself storming out at full force, fueled by exhaustion and hunger and screaming, jolting fear.

It’s an explanation, but it’s no excuse.

I wouldn’t blame him if he could never forgive me. The ruthless, callous way I stabbed into his most secret wounds, letting those strangers believe he would hurt me, then forcing him to go...