Page 89 of The Story Between Us

She nodded.

“Five days?” He was pacing now, hands raking through his hair. “Do you have any idea how much I still have to write? Ten chapters. Over two hundred pages. I’m not superhuman.”

“But you’ve been doing so well⁠—”

“Have you lost your mind?”

The dogs whined, pressing against Livvie’s legs. She reached down automatically to comfort them, but her hands were shaking.

“If we just finish it, none of this matters⁠—”

“We?” He stopped pacing. Turned to face her. His eyes were wild, panicked, nothing like the man who’d smiled at her yesterday, who’d wiped paint from her cheek, who’d asked her to dinner. “We aren’t writing this, Livvie. The words are coming from my brain.”

Oh. Right. “I know that.”

He blew out a breath. “Do you know how big my advance was?”

She didn’t want to nod.

“A million dollars. I took the first half up front.”

She raised an eyebrow, as if this might be news to her.

“I don’t have half a million dollars, Livvie. I spent it.” His voice dropped, rough and raw. “On Emma. On her treatments. On experimental drugs that weren’t covered by insurance. On keeping her alive for six more months.”

Yep. But, “Nate⁠—”

“Six more months.” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “That’s what five hundred thousand dollars bought us. Six months of hope and hospital beds and watching her disappear anyway. And now—” He gestured at the house, the lake, the life he’d built in the wreckage. “This is all I have left. This house. This manuscript. And you’ve just told them it’s almost done. Except it’s not. And even if, by some miracle, I finish it, I would still need to edit it and rewrite it…” He turned away again, his hands in his hair. “They’re going to take everything.”

“I can help. I’ll edit it⁠—”

“You’ve destroyed my career.” The words were quiet now. Worse than yelling.

She sighed. “And probably mine too.”

He turned then, frowned. “What do you mean?”

Her mouth opened. “Just that…you know. I sorta told my boss that I could…” She swallowed. “I could get you to write it.”

He blinked at her. Then, “And you’d get what? A raise? A promotion?” She opened her mouth, but he put his hand up. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

“Nate, please—” She stepped toward him, and he stepped back, the distance between them widening. Unbridgeable. “I was trying to protect you. I was trying to buy us more time⁠—”

“Us.” He shook his head. “There is no us. There’s you, and there’s me, and you came out here hoping to use me as leverage⁠—”

“Hey. That’s not⁠—”

“For a second there,” he said, and his voice broke, just slightly, just enough for her to hear the hurt underneath the anger, “I thought you came to help.”

The words hit her, center of the sternum. She wrapped her arms around herself, willing herself not to cry. She probably flinched, however.

He turned.

Walked up the porch steps.

She didn’t run after him.

The screen door creaked open, then slapped shut behind him.