Clarity 3 (19 page)

“
Winter,” Liam says shakily. “I’m freaking the fuck out here. Please just say that you’re okay. Say anything.”

“Grayson just
killed himself in front of me.”

There is a pause on the line.
“Jesus, Winter,” Liam says, and his voice is hoarse. “Are you serious? What happened? Are you okay? Talk to me.”

“He hung himself.”

“God. Did he hurt you? Winter, are you safe? Where are you?”

I
drag my forehead back and forth against the steering wheel in a feeble effort to ease the pounding in my head. I still love Liam. I love him so much that it feels like it’s physically destroying my body. I can’t believe this is happening. Why is this happening to me? Why couldn’t it just be real?

“Winter? What’s going on?
” There is panic in Liam’s voice. “Please talk to me. Where are you? Where is Grayson?”

“
He asked me for forgiveness. He asked me for a kiss. Then he hung himself.”

“
He kissed you?” Liam asks, and he seems suddenly jealous and possessive. “That motherfucker. If he wasn’t dead, I’d see to it myself. Who the fuck does he think he is? How dare he touch you?”

It sounds like he cares.
He’s still pretending; I can hear it in his voice. He sounds so angry and aggressive. He sounds zealous and passionately in love with me. It’s all bogus. Maybe, after all this time, it’s become so habitual to pretend to be my boyfriend that he can do it in his sleep.

“
Winter, just tell me where you are. I’m coming to get you. Whatever’s happened, we’ll get through it together. Just tell me that you’re safe. I love you so much. Where are you? Please.”

I can hear that Liam is crying. He sounds so broken up.
Is it real? Is there a chance that even one percent of his love is genuine? And if he does have even a morsel of true attachment to me, am I actually going to hurt him by leaving? Am I hurting him right now? The idea causes a sob to rip from my chest. I hate the idea of causing him any harm. Even now. He has only been good to me. I can’t stand to hear him suffering.

After what I’ve done to Grayson, I can’t bear to cause another man any pain.

“Liam,” I whisper as my body shakes with weeping. I reach out to touch the speakers of my car, from which his voice has been emanating. I imagine that I might be touching his lips. I just want to touch his face and kiss him. I want him to make love to me and make this all go away.

“Winter, I need you. I need to see you now,” Liam begs.
“I’m sorry—I know that was cruel, what I said about Grayson. I just—I’m not myself right now and I can’t think clearly. I can’t seem to give a fuck that he’s dead. I only care about you, Winter. You mean everything to me. I’m imagining the worst right now. I’m imagining that something bad happened to you. Please. Please, just tell me that you’re okay.”

“Something bad did happen to me,” I say softly.

“Winter? Winter, I can’t hear you.” Liam exhales unevenly. “You’re scaring the shit out of me. Are you hurt? Are you injured? If you can’t speak to me clearly, I’m going to call the cops. Where are you?”

“I’m not
injured.” Taking a deep breath, I press my both of my palms against my eyes. I hold them there for a moment, hoping that the heat from my hands will somehow revive my vision. “I’m fine.”

Snowball barks softly, as if to interject in disagreement. She does not think I’m fine.

“Thank god,” Liam says with a sigh. “To be honest, I’m glad that you’re only upset over something Grayson did. For a moment there, I thought you were angry with me.”

I remove my palms from my eyes and stare down at the dashboard
in astonishment. Does he really not know?

“I’m so relieved,” Liam says. “Melanie said you stopped by the hospital and mentioned that you were having trouble with your eyes?
Why didn’t you tell me sooner? She also said you brought me a gift, and we found the box in the trash—Winter! You got me a telescope? That’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me. I called and texted, but when I couldn’t reach you, I started freaking out. I spoke to Krista and she didn’t know where you were. When I came home and saw that you and Snowball were gone, and I started imagining the worst. I thought you had been taken. Then I saw that your stuff was gone and I started thinking that you might have left me...”

“Liam. I have left you.”

There is a pause on the other end of the line. “What?” he finally asks in shock. “Why?”

“Why?”
I repeat, looking down at my dashboard with my mouth slightly ajar. I burst out laughing. “Are you serious right now?
Why
? Owen didn’t tell you?”

“
Tell me what?” he asks in a fearful voice.

“
Liam, I know. I know everything.”

There’s another silence on the other end of the line.
“Winter...”

“And yes, my vision is failing. It’s nearly gone. I can’t see anything.” I smile
sardonically through my tears. “I guess you’re a better actor than you are a doctor. I actually did believe that you gave a shit about me. I thought you loved me this whole time. You really fooled me.”

There is a long pause. Finally, I hear him take a shuddering breath.
“Winter,” he says tearfully. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. You’re my whole world. I’m sorry. I know I didn’t tell you the whole story at first—you started out being just a job, but it became real. I fell for you really hard and fast. Why does it matter now, how we met? We belong together. You know that we belong together.”

“You lied to me,” I say through gritted teeth. “You’ve been lying to me this whole time.”

I hear a loud clatter on the other end of the line, and it sounds as though Liam has smashed something. This is immediately followed by a roar as he yells my name in anger. “Winter!” he screams so loudly that it reverberates through the speakers of my car. “I fucking love you to pieces. It was so hard! It’s such a mess. I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know how—I just couldn’t risk losing you. Please believe me. Please come home. I just want to hold you. I need you. I need to know that you’re safe—and that you’re mine.”

A loud peal of thunder echoes across the mountains. Snowball whimpers and covers her eyes
with her paws. I wait for the booming to subside before I speak.

“
But I’m not yours,” I tell him softly. “Maybe it was all a game to you, but I really grew to love you, Liam. It isn’t fair.... what you did to me. I trusted you. You were the only person I trusted.”

“
I fucked up,” he says. “Please punish me all you want. Punish me forever. Just don’t leave me.”

“I have to.”

“Winter, I didn’t know where this was going when we first met. I didn’t know I was going to fall in love with you. It was supposed to be all business, but you’re not like any girl I’ve ever met. You’re special. We’ve been through so much, in such a short period of time. I’ve never been this close to anyone.”

“These are all just more lies,” I murmur to myself. When the sky is illuminated by lightning, I am grateful that I can see this. For a moment, it’s as bright as day.
I can see the curves of the landscape in the distance, and I think that if I turn on my high beams, I might actually be able to make it through the night...

“Just come home, Winter—let’s talk about this. I’ll never lie to you again. Anything you want to know, I’ll tell you.” Liam sounds frantic.
“Remember that first night, when I stopped? It was because of all this. I had this huge secret, and I wasn’t sure. I could see how much it meant to you, and I didn’t want to be with you unless it was real—unless I was ready to commit to you completely. I waited until I knew for sure. Once I was one hundred percent sure, I told you that I would stop holding back. Remember? I haven’t held back since then.”

“
You told my dad that you were going to break up with me for money.”

“Winter,” Liam says
in an agitated voice. It is strange to hear his lack of composure; he is usually so calm and self-possessed. “Your dad can go fuck himself. I would never do such a thing to you. Sorry—that was an awful thing to say. I have great respect for your old man; he was just desperate to be close to you again, at any cost. I think I would have probably done the same thing. You have no idea how much he loves you. I wish my dad ever cared that much. The only reason there is a cure for LCA is because your dad loved you; he’s spent years convincing influential people in the pharmaceutical companies that curing this form of blindness could be profitable. They would have tossed the drug aside and focused on more popular diseases. But your dad has been spearheading the research here, and even traveling to Europe to supervise clinical trials there...”

“After my surgery,” I mumble in realization. “You we
re talking to him on the phone.”

“Yes,” Liam says. “
Winter, he did all this to try and bring you home. He did all this to try to give you a better life; the life he always wanted for you.”

“I guess every father dreams of their daughter getting fucked by a doctor,” I say
scornfully. “Or was that part of the deal? Maybe he just wanted you to fuck me—”

A loud wave of th
under begins to boom and echo across the mountains, and it is a few seconds before I can finish my sentence. “—over?”

“Winter...” Liam pauses and waits. “
Jesus fuck, Winter. I just realized that there is thunder where you are, and there isn’t any here. You’re really far away, aren’t you? Where the hell you?”

“I’m long gone,” I tell him softly
as I put my hand on the gearshift. “You’ll never see me again.”

“
You can’t be driving right now if you’re having problems with your eyes,” Liam says with concern. “Especially not in the rain.”

I sigh as I stare out of the car windows at the obscured path before me.  “I can’t see the road
. It’s so dark.”

“
Tell me where you are,” he demands. “Don’t move. I’m coming to get you.”

“
Liam. Did I ever tell you that my mom died in a car crash?” I cock my head to the side thoughtfully. “Maybe it would be poetic if I died in the same way. I wonder how my dad would feel about that? It’d be difficult to control me then.”

“You need to stop talking like this. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.
”

I gaze down the mountainside, and all I see is freedom. “You couldn’t control me anymore, either. Control me in every way.”

“Listen, Winter. I didn’t mean those things. Can you just forgive me so we can move past this?”

I start laughing
lightly. “The last time I forgave a man, he hung himself a few minutes later. So I think it’s safe to say that I’m never going to forgive you.”

“Stop comparing me to
that sack of shit,” Liam says angrily. “I only lied to you, Winter. Really small lies. I concealed some information. You’re not allowed to do this. You can’t act like what we have isn’t real—our whole relationship isn’t invalidated by a few lies.”

“Our whole relationship has been built on lies,”
I point out.

Liam groans loudly. “
Jesus, you’re acting like I’m the one who fucking raped you. Just because you have been victimized by one cuntbag doesn’t mean that all men are like him. Stop confusing me with Grayson. I’m not him.”

My eyebrows lift in surprise.

“I have been really good to you,” he says. “I have been trying my best. Can’t I make one mistake?”

“
One
mistake? Fuck you, Liam. What you’ve done is far worse than anything Grayson ever did to me. He was sick, or disturbed, or messed up in some way. He couldn’t control himself. But you. You are a sensible, intelligent man. You did this intentionally. It wasn’t a fleeting moment where things got out of hand—it was every minute of every day, for months. It wasn’t one thing; it was
everything.
”

“
I never hurt you, physically or emotionally. I took care of you...”

“Oh, that’s right. You babysat me. And you did a damn good job of it.
”

“Jesus,” Liam says with a groan. “S
ometimes you can be so oversensitive!”

“
Don’t worry. You don’t have to be careful anymore.” I turn the key to start my car again. “I’m already in a different state, hundreds of miles away. I’m not your problem anymore.”

“Winter, please. This is only our first fight, and we can get past it. Please don’t do anything reckless.
Are you heading back to New Hampshire?”

I narrow my eyes. “Yes,” I
say softly, lying to him for the first time. “I’m going home.”

“
I’m coming after you,” Liam says adamantly. “I know I screwed up, but I’m not letting you go without fighting for us. I’m not losing you.”

“You can save yourself the trouble,” I tell him. “
You don’t need to act like you give a damn anymore. Please leave me alone.” When I realize that these are the words that I wrote on the inside of his book when we first met, I feel my tears begin again. It feels like that was years ago, in another lifetime. “Just leave me alone,” I tell him brokenly. I flip my high beams on and put my car into gear, driving aggressively back onto the road.