Something in his face loosens, not enough to soften or to save our undoing, but it’s there.A flicker.An admission he won’t let himself voice out loud.
Hope and dread tangle together in my chest, and I can’t separate them fast enough.
Then his gaze drifts past me to the desk, to the laptop still glowing on the screen.“You still wrote it.Whatever your reasons, you still put it on the page.”
My pulse kicks hard.“Maddox?—”
“That’s the betrayal.”A hard glint moves through his eyes.“Not me failing to trust you.You doing exactly what I was afraid you’d do.”
Crossing the room, I pull the printed pages from beneath the notepad on the desk.The paper crackles in my grip as I turn back to face him.
“Ignore the markups.”I thrust them toward his chest.“That is not the version I’m sending.”I gesture sharply to the laptop, its glow accusatory now, harsh and exposed in the dim room.“This one is.”
He doesn’t take the pages, barely looks at them, before his gaze cuts to the screen then back to me.“That doesn’t prove anything.”His words land hard—not only disbelief, something closer to dismissal.“For all I know, you wrote this before Erica said anything to you.”
Something in me snaps clean through.I can’t keep up with all the punches he’s throwing, as if none of our time together bore understanding and trust.
I slap the article against his chest—once, sharp, paper against bone—and as if by reflex, his hand flattens over the pages and holds them there.
“You know what.”My voice shakes now, the anger burning all the way through.“I may be a lot of things, Maddox, but I’m not a liar.I have never lied to you.”
Neither of us moves for a long moment.
Finally, he lets the pages drift from his fingers onto the floor.Whatever fight is left in him drains all at once, leaving something hollow in its place.His features are void of any emotion, and he walks away without another word.
I stand in the space he left behind, staring at the door as a cold emptiness overwhelms me.My anger bleeds from me fast, leaving nothing behind it—no tears, no pain, just a hole so wide it swallows everything else whole.
My knees buckle, and I slide down the side of the desk until I’m on the floor.The carpet is cold beneath me even through my clothes, and I don’t know how long I sit there staring at the article curled near my knee.
Eventually, the numbness shifts—not into tears, not into doubt, but into something harder and more certain than either.I get to my feet with the realization that there’s nothing left to wait for and nothing left to hope for.
I cross to the closet, pull out my suitcase, and fling it open across the bed.I throw things in without folding or care.Then at the desk, I sit in front of my laptop and open my email.
Toby, I’m uploading everything to the drive now.All the articles, all the art.The assignment is done.Grace
I hit send before I can think about it and upload the files one by one, watching each progress bar crawl to completion like a door pulling shut.When the last one finishes, I go to a travel site.
There is nothing available out of Helena today.I could go to the airport on standby, but tomorrow morning, there’s a flight routing through Denver that gets me where I’m going by evening.I book it before I can talk myself out of it.
Then I call Buffy.
She picks up on the third ring, voice warm and immediate.“Grace?”
“I’m on speaker.”I shut the laptop and slip it into my carry-on.“I booked a flight.”
“Is everything okay?”
“It will be.”I keep my voice even, steady, something I’m practicing in real time.“I can’t get out tonight.I’ll be there tomorrow with a layover in Denver, but I’ll make dinner.”
Her happiness comes through the line, warm and spilling over.“You’re coming to New York?”Then she tempers, just slightly.“What happened?”
“The assignment’s finished.”I try to infuse joy into my voice even with my chest cracked wide open.“Christmas is a little over a week away, and I want to spend it with my favorite people.That’s all.”
“Grace—”
“I’m okay.I promise.”
“Okay.”She doesn’t sound convinced, but she lets me have it.“Then I’ll make something good for dinner.Your favorite, unless you want to go out.”