Chapter 5
I stood.
“Fine.”
I walked toward the door.
Behind me, Liam said, “I was looking for something.”
I stopped.
“What?”
“Proof.”
I turned.
“Of what?”
His face was pale in the dim light.
“That I didn’t cause the crash.”
My heartbeat slowed.
“What do you mean?”
“I told you I don’t remember.”
“You also told me you were driving.”
“I was.”
He looked at his hands.
“I remember leaving the lake.
I remember Elena complaining because I had taken a work call during dinner.
I remember Sophie asleep in the back.”
His eyes closed.
“Then nothing until the hospital.”
“What did police say?”
“That I lost control.”
“Why?”
“Speed.”
“Were you speeding?”
“I don’t know.”
“Were you drinking?”
“No.”
“Phone?”
“I wasn’t on it.”
“Mechanical failure?”
“None found.”
I moved closer.
“So why do you think you didn’t cause it?”
He looked at me.
“Because Elena sent Leo a message twelve minutes before the crash.”
My skin prickled.
“What did it say?”
Liam’s voice became quiet.
“She said someone had been following us since we left the lake.”
The storm seemed louder.
I reminded myself of everything I had promised the audience this story would be.
Grounded.
Plausible.
No melodrama.
So I asked the most practical question.
“Did police investigate?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“No evidence.”
“Then what proof were you looking for when you got hurt?”
He hesitated.
“An old storage building outside Joliet.”
“What was there?”
“I thought someone connected to the vehicle might have kept records.”
“What kind of records?”
“Repair logs.
Parts.
Anything that could tell me whether the inspection after the crash missed something.”
“And did you find them?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“The floor gave way.”
I stared at his leg.
“You fell?”
“About twelve feet.”
“That caused all this?”
“My leg hit steel.
My abdomen met something equally unpleasant.”
“That explains why no one will tell me how you were injured.”
“I didn’t want questions.”
“Because you knew what you were doing was reckless.”
“Yes.”
At least he could admit it.
I sat again.
“Does Leo know?”
“Yes.”
“What about Sophie’s aunt?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because after three years she deserves peace.”
“And you?”
He gave me a tired smile.
“I’m not particularly good at peace.”
The next morning, I opened the curtains.
Not the blinds.
Only the heavy outer curtains, revealing the pale wood slats behind them.
Liam watched me.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing forbidden.”
“You’re irritating.”
“Also not forbidden.”
A thin line of sunlight appeared along the floor where the blinds didn’t completely meet the frame.
Liam stared at it.
I pretended not to notice.
The following morning, I adjusted one slat.
Half an inch.
Sunlight touched the edge of the carpet.
Liam said nothing.
The day after that, he asked, “Do you enjoy testing boundaries?”
“Professionally.”
“You should have become a lawyer.”
“Too many lawyers.”
On Thursday, I opened one blind two inches.
Sunlight fell across the bottom of the bed.
Liam looked at it for almost a minute.
Then he closed his eyes.
I expected him to tell me to shut it.
He didn’t.
“Too much?”
I asked.
“No.”
So I left it.
That afternoon, Rosa came in with clean towels.
She stopped when she saw the sunlight.
Her hand rose to her mouth.
Liam noticed.
“Don’t.”
Rosa nodded quickly.
But when she passed me, she squeezed my hand.
Friday morning, Liam said, “Open it.”
I looked at him.
“The blind?”
“One.”
“All the way?”
His eyes remained fixed on the window.
“Yes.”
I crossed the room.
My hand closed around the cord again.
One week earlier, that gesture had terrified him.
Now he watched.
I pulled.
The blind rose slowly.
Morning sunlight entered the room.
It reached the carpet first.
Then the bed.
Then Liam.
He shut his eyes.
For a few seconds, his face tightened as if bracing for impact.
Nothing happened.
No ghosts entered.
No punishment came.
There was only sunlight.
Ordinary.
Warm.
Bright.
I stood beside the window.
Beyond it stretched acres of green lawn, trees, and a distant silver lake.
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
Liam opened his eyes.
He looked outside.
His expression broke my heart.
Not because he cried.
He didn’t.
Because he looked surprised.
As though the world had continued being beautiful without his permission.
“How long?”
I asked quietly.
“Three years.”
“You haven’t sat in sunlight for three years?”
“No.”
“Why?”
He watched the trees move.
“The day Elena died was the brightest day I can remember.”
I understood.
“So you made the world dark.”
“Something like that.”
I leaned against the windowsill.
“You know the sun wasn’t responsible.”
“That sounds stupid when you say it.”
“It was stupid before I said it.”
He looked at me.
I smiled.
After a moment, he smiled too.
Then someone knocked.
Leo entered.
He stopped dead.
Sunlight poured across the room.
For once in his life, Leo Mercer’s calm disappeared completely.
“Oh,” he whispered.
Liam raised an eyebrow.
“Compelling speech.”
Leo looked at me.
Then at Liam.
“You opened them.”
“He did.”
Liam corrected me.
“She opened them.”
“You asked.”
“I was temporarily confused.”
Leo laughed.
Not the restrained almost-laugh I had heard before.
A real one.
Then his eyes shone.
He turned away quickly.
That should have been the happiest moment of my week.
It almost was.
Until Leo’s phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His expression slowly changed.
“What?”
Liam asked.
Leo didn’t respond.
“Leo.”
He ended the call.
“There’s something you need to see.”
Twenty minutes later, Leo returned carrying a thin brown envelope.
He placed it on Liam’s bed.
“No return address.”
“What is it?”
I asked.
“Delivered to the gate this morning.”
Liam opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
His face went pale.
“What?”
I asked.
He handed it to me.
The image showed a little girl leaving a school.
Ten years old, maybe.
Dark hair.
Yellow backpack.
I recognized her immediately even though three years had passed.
Sophie.
On the back, someone had written a date.
Yesterday’s.
And beneath it:
SHE KEEPS ASKING WHY YOU NEVER ANSWERED HER LETTERS.
I looked at Liam.
He stared at the message.
“What letters?”
I asked.
He didn’t move.
“Liam?”
His voice was almost inaudible.
“Sophie has never written to me.”
Leo looked at him.
Then slowly shook his head.
“Yes,” Leo said.
“She has.”
The room went still.
Liam looked up.
“What?”
Leo’s face had lost all color.
“I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
Leo swallowed.
“She’s been writing to you for almost two years.”
Liam stared at him.
“I never received a single letter.”
No one spoke.
May you like
Then Liam looked toward the sunlight flooding across his bed, and for the first time since I had met him, the man who seemed prepared for every kind of pain looked completely unprepared for the possibility that the person he believed he had lost…
might have been trying to reach him all along.
