Page 139 of How To Not Need You

“Not really.”

I pick another bit of paint from the step. “I was fucking terrified.”

The words are out before I can dress them up as something else. Jake goes quiet, doesn’t rush me or push for more. Damn me for surrounding myself with emotionally literate assholes.

“When she opened that door” I shake my head. “I wasn't here anymore.”

“Where were you?”

I swallow. “I was twenty-two again.”

Jake doesn't ask what I mean. He knows enough, the history this would have stirred up for me. I stare down at the tiny piece of paint stuck beneath my thumbnail.

“It was instant. One second I was standing there wondering why the hell someone was inside your house, and then she opened the door in a towel and…” I shrug. “That was it.”

Back there.

Back to being the idiot who trusted someone.

Back to wondering how long everyone else had known.

Back to picking through every conversation and every late night and every stupid little thing I'd dismissed, looking for all the places I should've seen it.

Except this time there weren't any.

That's the part I couldn't make sense of.

Jake hadn't changed. He hadn't pulled away. He hadn't started hiding his phone or cancelling plans or giving me shitty explanations that didn't quite add up.

He'd given me a fucking key. Less than twelve hours earlier, I'd stood in his kitchen and put it on my keyring while he watched. And somehow one towel had been enough to make every bit of that disappear.

“I hated you,” I say. Jake's head jolts sharply at that. “For about thirty seconds.”

“Only thirty?”

“Don't push it.”

His mouth twitches, but mine doesn't this time.

“Then I got in the car and I wanted you to call.” I can’t look at him whilst I force the words out.

Being this vulnerable feels like shredding something inside of me.

“I wanted my phone to ring and for it to be you. I wanted you to tell me there was some completely boring explanation for why Megan was standing in your house in a towel.”

I let out a laugh that isn't particularly funny. “Which, apparently, there fucking was.”

“Liv.”

“And I hated myself for wanting that.”

His forehead creases.

“Why?”

I finally look at him. “Because I still wanted to believe you.”

That’s the part I've been avoiding for three days.