For a moment as I stepped through the door of Damien’s home I wondered what would have happened if he had lost. Would I have had to pick up the pieces? Would I have been thrust into yet another situation where I lost agency of myself for his benefit?
“Liv, we need to talk about this.”
The door shut behind him. I hadn’t spoken since we’d left the courthouse and I wasn’t about to start now. If I did, I’d say things I didn’t mean. Or worse, things I did mean.
I was so entirely grateful that Noah was still at school and didn’t have to be present for any of this.
My heels echoed through the quiet house as I rounded the corner opposite the kitchen, down into the short hallway.
“Liv,” he tried again. He followed me, step by step, his tone almost desperate despite his big win of today. “Please.”
I slipped into his office and came around his desk, wrenching the upper right drawer open. The papers felt so heavy in my hand despite being a small stack, and a second later I placed them gently on the polished wood.
“Olivia.”
Plucking his fanciest pen out of its holder, I got to work signing my name and initials on every sheet that required it. I’d studied them for long enough the day that I found them to know exactly where each one needed to go.
The empty spots next to his name made my morning sickness morph into afternoon sickness, and before he could say my name again, I slid the papers across the desk toward him.
“Sign,” I said.
His jaw wobbled as he tried to clench his teeth. “Can we please talk about this first?”
“Sign,” I repeated, and the nausea shifted into something worse, something painful, traveling up my esophagus and cracking my chest.
He hesitated.
Reluctantly, his fingers grasped the pen from where it sat atop the papers. One by one, he signed his name and initials, following the guide I’d laid out of my signatures. Over and over, Damien Blackwood littered the pages. I didn’t speak again until the last page was signed and dated.
“I spoke to Ethan before we left,” I said flatly. I couldn’t even bring myself to feel — I’d done too much of that in the last few weeks. “He’ll set the date so we can appear before the judge.”
“Please just—”
“We’re done,” I added, and oh, no, I still could feel. The words ripped a brand new hole in my chest, just beside the bigger, gaping one he’d dealt when he’d hidden this from me.
His gaze met mine in a flash. “We’re not,” he breathed.
“We are.”
“I meant every fucking word I said in court,” he pushed, setting the pen down on the open papers and standing up to his full height. “I don’t want to lose either of you.”
“You’ve already lost me, Damien.” I meant for it to be scathing, but it came out slightly broken, and I could see the crack in his features as that realization sunk in. “I think you knew that two weeks ago.”
A beat of silence passed and the glassiness of his eyes doubled. “But you stayed,” he rasped.
“For Noah. I stayed for Noah. I did this, for Noah,” I explained, my voice warbling. I’d barely given myself space to consider how leaving both of them would affect me, and I could feel the icy tendrils of dread and despair beginning to slither inside of me. “I’ll miss him. So, so fucking much, Damien. But I can’t do this with you.”
I stepped around his desk, and before I could even try to make it to the door, his hand caught me around my wrist, pulling me back, pulling me closer. “Please don’t do this,” he croaked. “He needs you. I need you. Everything I did, the lying, the hiding it from you, meeting with Ethan without your knowledge, keeping you out of the loop — I did it all for him, and it was so fucking stupid of me. I never wanted to hurt you.”
“You chose to do it that way.”
“I know.” His hand tightened around my wrist and he pulled again, trying to bring me into him, but I held my ground. “I have never regretted anything more in my Goddamn life. I care about you, Olivia. Far too much, if I’m being honest.”
“Then say it,” I demanded.
I’d heard him in court. I knew exactly where he was going before he changed course. I knew they were there, but I also knew he couldn’t bring himself to utter the words, and if he couldn’t, then it wasn’t true.
“Say it, Damien.”
His mouth popped open, his eyes flicking between mine with uncertainty. Hesitation, and then nothing.
“I understand why you did it,” I sighed, slipping my wrist out of his grasp. “But it’s done. You got what you wanted. We agreed to an expiry date, and it’s here.”
“I don’t want a fucking expiry date,” he choked. “I want you.”
“I’ll leave before Noah gets home.” I swallowed, and there it was again, that splitting, aching pain in my chest that bloomed from the thought of how Noah would handle this. Or maybe it was from him saying the thing I’d been hoping he’d say before I found the papers. Either way, it burned me, leaving little left except extinguished embers. “I’m sorry, Damien. But it’s done.”
