Page 108 of How To Not Need You

“Ben is a firefighter, not an artist.”

“Clearly.”

Luca folds his arms. “At least I’m doing something productive. You’re reading the inside of your eyelids.”

My voice drops. “Fuck off, Luca.”

He doesn’t flinch. “Make me.”

Harper sighs. “Both of you, stop.” She leans forward, elbows on her knees, and looks at me with the kind of directness that makes it impossible to look away. “Liv. I know what this feels like. I know exactly what it’s like to stand in a moment and see something that makes your stomach drop. But I also know what it’s like to realise, that sometimes the story you tell yourself is worse than the truth.”

“It might not be worse.”

“It might not be anything. You won’t know until you talk to him.”

Elsie’s hand squeezes my ankle. “He loves you.”

Pain speeds through me at her words. Sharp and fast enough that I almost recoil.

“Don’t.”

“He does.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know the way he looks at you.” Her voice is quiet. Certain. “I’ve seen it. We all have.”

Luca stops pacing. “He’s a good man, Liv. Annoyingly good. The kind of good that makes the rest of us look like emotional toddlers. And you’re sitting here treating him like he’s the same as every asshole who came before him.”

“He could be.”

“He’s not.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know you. And I know that if he was going to cheat, he wouldn’t do it with his ex-wife in the house he shares with his daughter. He has more creativity than that, and frankly, so do you.”

A laugh almost escapes me. Almost. I swallow it back.

Harper tries again. “Just call him. Or text him. Or let one of us tell him you’re alive.”

Elsie nods. “Please.”

Luca throws his hands up. “For the love of God, woman, put him out of his misery. The man has been walking around looking like someone killed his dog.”

“He doesn’t have a dog.”

“You know what I mean.”

I look at them. All three of them, scattered around my disaster of a living room with their wine and their brownies and their absolute refusal to let me disappear into myself. Harper with her steady logic. Elsie with her quiet warmth. Luca with his theatrical impatience that doesn’t quite hide how much he cares.

My throat tightens. I open my mouth. What comes out is quieter than anything I’ve said so far.

“Enough.”

The word seems to make them freeze. The weight of exhaustion laced through it surprises even me. I am so tired.

Tired of fighting. Tired of defending a position I’m not even sure I believe anymore. Tired of sitting in this apartment with the curtains drawn and a phone I won’t answer and a heart that feels like it’s been stepped on.