Page 55 of The Focal Point

I loved Liam, too. More than I had anyone before—it wasn’t just feelings. It was real love and all that entailed.

But what did that matter if I couldn’t forgive him? It would only hurt that much more.

Chapter 22

Liam

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THE DOOR OPENED, AND my mouth was already moving. “You gotta help me, Tom.”

“Hello to you, too,” my best friend sighed, stepping back before I could run into him in my rush to get inside his house.

I heard the door close as I made my way to the kitchen, yanked open the fridge, took out a can of the beer I knew would be there, and chugged it down.

“Dude, slow down.” Tom followed me into the kitchen more slowly, edging around me like I was a wild man, his eyebrows near his hairline.

“I’m going crazy,” I said, slamming the empty can down into the

I didn’t drink to get drunk—it wasn’t now and had never been my thing. But the muted existence it promised, at least for a little while, seemed preferable to the hot, angry whirl of emotion, thoughts, and recrimination that had barely let me sleep for days now.

“I can see that.”

Even Scout looked wary of me, eyeing me as he passed with his ears laid back.

“I mean it.” The beer was already a buzz in my head as I slumped onto one of the kitchen island’s stools. “I’ve barely been able to sleep all week. I can’t eat. I can’t concentrate. I can’t get this manic energy out.”

“Did you go to the gym at the office?” Tom asked.

“I’ve been twice every day. I’ve been swimming three times a day. Nothing’s working.”

Something caught my attention out the window—a small bird settling in one of the branches near the window. I watched it for a time, focusing on how its head swiveled and its beak opened and closed with a merry trill.

The brightness of the spring scene seemed at odds with the dark cloud that hung over me. It was too sunny, too normal, too bright, and cheerful for the way my life was crumbling.

“Liam? Hey, Liam?”

I turned to find that Tom had come closer, holding out another beer to me, which I took.

“I was actually just going to call you and ask how you were holding up.” He popped the top of his own beer and took a long drink. “But I can see you’re not holding up at all.”

“I’m not,” I groaned, one hand around the can while I buried my head in the other and tugged on my hair until the pain slowed my spiraling thoughts. “I’m falling apart, Tom.”

I had experienced loss before—terrible loss that stole my breath and turned the world shades of gray. It was the kind that made my world stop while everyone else got on with their lives. I remembered with the clarity of a movie the way the floor had dropped out from beneath me, my chest compressing until I couldn’t breathe. For weeks I wandered in a fog, moving through the motions of life without really living it, all of us siblings leaning on each other for support and trying to take care of our father.

Losing Bailey wasn’t my mother's death, but it still felt like a loss, like some approximation. I still couldn’t breathe. I still couldn’t focus. The world was still shades of gray. My world had stopped while life went blithely on.

Bailey had walked into my life. Or, rather, I had walked into hers in Tom’s office, that same room upstairs, and that had been it. I had known she was something special, and her place in my life had grown until she was a fixture. And even though I had realized I loved her and knew how strong my feelings were, the size of the void she had left stunned me.

“What am I supposed to do?” I raised my head only to let it drop back so I could stare at the ceiling.

“I don’t know if there’s anything you can do,” Tom said. When I looked back at him, he was leaning against the counter, the corners of his mouth drawn down. “I’m sorry, man. This is rough.”

I hadn’t expected Tom, the serial dater, to come up with an answer—it wasn’t why I had come here. But hearing the words brought me to a new low.

“That’s not helpful,” I growled.

Tom shook his head, crossing one leg over the other. “I’m not trying to be helpful. I’m being real with you. One, I told you so. I told you to tell her from the beginning or ask her out, and then I told you to come clean with what was going on. Two, what the hell are you going to do with the houses?”