When Sebastian opened the door, I couldn’t look him in the eyes. I saw the first twitch of his smile, but I glanced away and stepped past him into his house.

“Hey,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

I took a few more steps, trying to keep distance between us. If he held me—if he so much as touched me—I’d lose my resolve. I wouldn’t be strong enough to do what I knew had to be done.

“I need to talk to you,” I said.

“Sure,” he said. “We’ve got the place to ourselves. I don’t know where Charlie went. Is he with Olivia?”

Oh my god, he didn’t know. “I guess so.”

“Brooke, you’re really freaking me out right now,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“I hit Olivia.”

He didn’t say anything. I glanced back over my shoulder, terrified of what I’d see.

His eyes were intense, piercing through me. “What happened?”

“She came home angry at me for missing work,” I said. “We got in an argument and I hit her.”

“Holy shit,” he said. “When?”

“A little while ago,” I said. “She left. I assume she’s with Charlie now. Hopefully.”

“You guys argued about work?” he asked. “How did that turn into…”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He took a step toward me, tentative like he was afraid of scaring me away. “Actually, it kind of does.”

“I got angry, and I slapped her,” I said. “That’s what happened.”

“You can tell me the whole story,” he said. “I’m not going to flip out on you.”

“I told you, it doesn’t matter,” I said.

“Okay,” he said. “Here’s what we’ll do. Give her time to calm down. I’m sure Charlie’s working on that. She’ll sleep here tonight, and we can all get together in the morning. We’ll figure this out.”

“No, we won’t,” I said. “There’s nothing to figure out.”

“So, you’re just going to throw away your friendship with her?” he asked. “Over one fight?”

“Not because of one fight,” I said. “Because all I’ve ever done is fuck things up for her. She had this nice family, living in a nice house, and then I showed up. She had to share everything with me, whether she liked it or not. Her room. Her parents. Her brother.”

“I don’t think it was like that,” he said. “You and Olivia were good friends back then, weren’t you?”

“Everything fell apart when he died,” I said. “And maybe she was right. Maybe it was my fault.”

“Whoa,” he said, holding up a hand. “Stop right there. Is that what she said? Did Olivia tell you Liam’s death was your fault?”

“It was, in a way,” I said. “If he had never met me, he wouldn’t have been on the road that day.”

“Brooke, you can’t think like that,” he said.

“I put his family through hell,” I said. “I was too weak to handle his death. So I just said fuck it. And then they kept trying to help me, Seb. They kept fucking trying. And for what?”

“For you,” he said. “They kept trying because they cared about you.”

I shook my head and my breath came in shaky gasps. “They shouldn’t have. They should have sent me back home the night my mother left. Or called social services. They never should have let me in their lives.”

“Brooke, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“This is what happens with me,” I said. “Don’t you see it? I’m a mess. That’s all I’ll ever be. It’s going to keep happening, over and over. It doesn’t matter if I do okay for a while. I can’t sustain it. She couldn’t, and I can’t either.”

“She?” he asked. “Are you talking about your mom? Brooke, you’re not your mother.”

“No,” I said. “I’m not her. But I’m made of the same stuff. For a while I thought maybe I wasn’t. I didn’t get pregnant when I was a teenager, or get addicted to drugs. But the details don’t matter. Just like her, sooner or later, I hurt the people I love. I fuck things up. I get my shit all over their lives. I can’t do that anymore.”

“So you’re going to blow off Olivia?” he asked.

“I’m not talking about Olivia.”

His face hardened and he crossed his arms over his wide chest. He stood with his feet shoulder width apart, a huge immovable wall of man, glowering at me. His eyebrows drew down and the veins in his muscular arms stood out.

“I know what you’re doing,” he said.

“Sebastian, you have to understand.” My throat felt thick. “My mother’s greatest act of love was to leave me. She did it to give me a chance. It’s not her fault it didn’t work. She had her own demons to fight, and they killed her. She left someone behind who was gutted and broken, because he couldn’t save her. You can’t save me, either. And I love you too much to let you torture yourself trying.”

He didn’t respond. Just stared at me, arms crossed.

“I’m sorry,” I said. God, this hurt so much. “You need to go do all those things you want to do. Go finish school. Get your architecture degree. Live your dreams.”

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

I blinked at him. “What? I don’t know.”

“Are you going to go to work?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked. “I’m telling you I can’t be with you, and you’re worried about my fucking job?”

“I’m wondering how badly you’re planning to self-destruct,” he said. “I see what you’re doing right now, Brooke. If this is what you think you need, then fine. Walk away. But I see through your bullshit.”

“This isn’t bullshit,” I said, my voice rising. “I don’t know why you want to be with someone like me anyway. Look at your family, where you grew up. Do you think I fit in that world? You know where I come from, Seb? Houses filled with cigarette smoke. Weed. Fucking piles of beer cans, or little pieces of foil with burn marks lying around. I grew up with a mom who’d hit me for looking at her wrong. Who was so skinny, she looked like she never ate. We were so poor, one year my only Christmas present was a half-used coloring book and a ballpoint pen from our landlord.”

“None of that is your fault,” he said. “None of that is you.”

“No?” I asked. “I had a fiancé and a family who loved me. And sure, for a while, I lived like a normal girl. I even went to college. But after a while? I went right back to what I really was. The drunk girl in a fucking bar, hanging on a guy who’d give me a black eye.”

He shook his head. “We both know that isn’t who you are.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” I said. “That’s exactly who I am. It’s where I go back to, every time. Nice, normal people try to help me, and all I do is leave more damage in my wake.”

“Brooke—”

“No,” I said. “I’m not going to ruin your second chance at life. That heart inside of you deserves better. Liam did, and you do too.”

He blocked my path to the door, so I veered around him, keeping my head down. I couldn’t look at his face. I didn’t want to hurt him, but that was inevitable. At least this way it would be over and he could move on with his life. That was what I wanted for him. To live. To take that second chance he’d been given and run with it. Not spend it pointlessly trying to fix someone like me.

I slammed the door behind me. Sebastian didn’t follow.

I walked home in the cold, my breath misting out in a cloud. I tried to imagine what my mom had felt, the night I’d gone to the Harper’s for good. What had she been thinking when she’d walked back inside that house? When she’d driven away, leaving me behind? I’d always thought she must have been relieved. I’d been a burden she’d been stuck with. A consequence for not being careful.

Liam had said she’d left me because she’d loved me. I’d never really believed that until now. Until I was faced with the same choice.

But if she’d felt relief that night—even relief that her daughter was in better hands—I didn’t feel the same. I’d hoped I would feel lighter, knowing I’d done the right thing. But all I felt was the oppressive weight of loneliness. The ache in my chest spread wide, consuming me. I was so hollow. So empty.

Sebastian had put my heart back inside of me, and for a while, it had beat in time with his. But I’d left it with him. He could keep it. I didn’t need it anymore.