Page 46 of He Loves Me Knot
He was silent for a moment, the gut punch of those memories coiling through him. He didn’t enjoy thinking or talking about it.
“And then she cheated on you?” Liddy asked. Her wide blue eyes were sympathetic, her voice gentle.
He held her gaze briefly. “Yes. You can imagine, there was—a bit of an argument that followed. And then, once she’d left, I hauled everything that reminded me of her, of my days as a footballer, down to the street and threw it in a bin. Then I lit it all on fire for good measure.”
Liddy grimaced. “So the arson and disorderly conduct?—”
“I deserved it. I did it. Lost my temper. And in a city like London, when someone sees you dousing a bin with petrol and lighting it on fire in the middle of the night from a flat that’s close to their house—after hearing shouts of obscenities—well, it all got blown out of proportion.”
“But the Camdens didn’t care because they knew about the breakup.”
“The Camdens were friends of mine and knew I’d been struggling in the wake of my injury. They didn’t know about the breakup. They knew about the loss of football. I never told Quinn or any of them about what happened with Sophia. I was too humiliated by the whole thing.”
Liddy chewed on her lip. “If you’re trying to make me feel guilty for trying to get you fired?—”
“On the contrary. I’m not. The fact is, the Camdens gave me a chance. Maybe I didn’t deserve it. I just wanted you to know the other side of the story.”
Of course, he wasn’t really sure why he wanted her to know. He couldn’t redeem himself entirely by telling her. But . . .maybe she won’t think the worst of me.
The last day felt like a week in some ways.I don’t know why it matters. But it does.
Liddy wrinkled her nose, then looked back out the window. She rolled it up a second later, sitting straighter. “Thank you for telling me.”
“I know it’s not an excuse for what I did. I was able to get out of jail time, but it left a mark on my record. I have to live with people believing I have an inherently violent side. When really, I was broken and tried to burn the memories of what I had lost.”
“Bent, not broken.”
He gave her a curious look. “What?”
Liddy pulled her thick braid over her shoulder and loosened it. “It’s a saying we have in the scoliosis community. We’re ‘bent, not broken.’ You weren’t broken, Callum. Just a little bent out of place with what happened. Maybe you turned around and put all that energy into becoming a workaholic bossy pants, but you did it with excellence. You’re not broken.”
Her kindness hit him deep in his chest, a strange feeling twisting in his lungs.
She’s so beautiful. Inside and out.
Why had he refused to see that about her?
“You know, you don’t appear to be bent or broken.”
One might say you’re nearly perfect.
She gave a wan smile. “That’s due to a lifetime of painful braces and now titanium rods in my back. I should have gotten the surgery earlier, but it was expensive, and we didn’t have a lot of money—plus I was scared. I kept hoping that if I tightened those braces enough, my spine would be straighter, and I could look like everyone else.”
“And the braces didn’t help?”
She shook her head, then pulled off the bandanna, shaking her hair out. “They helped but not enough. And they were painful. God, I was always in pain. Getting the surgery was the best thing that ever happened to me.” Sadness lingered in her eyes.
Something about the way she’d said it made him want to reach for her hand.
His mouth twisted. “I hate that expression. Bent, not broken. It feels like . . . less. And you’re not less, Liddy. If anything, I’m learning how muchmoreyou’ve been than I even realized.”
As the words left his mouth, he shook his head with a smirk. “Sorry. I’m sure that sounded idiotic. It sounded better in my head.”
She shared a smile with him. “If you think this is going to soften any revenge plan I may have against you, Callum Scott, you’ll have to do better than that.” Her wink at the end brought a smile to Callum’s face. A quick one, as he couldn’t give too much away.
“I’ll do my best.” But he was charmed. He relaxed back into his seat, feeling strangely confused. Each of their conversations seemed to open a door that couldn’t be closed. Like they’d crossed some line of comradeship, and now they couldn’t go back.
But do I even want to go back?