During the second week, HR gets involved. They are extremely puzzled. How is it that one of their top performers has fucked up so badly?We have resources,they soothe,for whatever it is that you’re going through.But I already burned through my two allotted mental health days back in early February and used more than double my sick time. I think about calling a friend to come over, but I don’t know who I would call, and I know even less about what I would say.I can’t do it anymore!I imagine announcing.Every time I try to turn on my laptop I feel so panicked that my muscles lock up and I forget how to breathe.Liam’s all the way in Texas, and calling my parents is out of the question. All of my other friends are co-workers, and “friends” is probably too generous of a term for them anyway. Lunches and happy hours spent bitching about work doesn’t leave a lot of room for real friendship to grow.
“At the end of the third week,” I finish eventually, “I wasallowed to resign. ‘We don’t see you growing with our team,’ they said. I could tell they felt bad about it all, enough that they didn’t fire me outright in a way that would have gone on my record. But in the end I was still encouraged to leave.”
Liam is quiet for a moment. “Did something happen to make you disconnect from it all so suddenly?” he asks.
“Not at all.” That was the worst part. There was no event that I could map my feelings back to, no tragedy to justify the way I broke down. “One day, it just…got to me. One day, it was just too much.”
I press my knuckles to my eyes, attempting to stem the flow of tears. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I haven’t told anyone, and I’ve barely admitted it to myself. I—I feel like I’ve taken advantage of you this whole time, Liam, when it’s always been my fault that I’m even in this position. It’s not fair that I—”
“Sadie, shut up.”
It’s like a slap in the face. My jaw falls open and I gape at him, stunned. “What?”
“Shut up.” Liam’s grinning. He shrugs dramatically. “So you messed up.”
“Badly.”
He waves one hand flippantly. “Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe you regret how you left, and maybe it wasn’t the most graceful exit, but—do you regret leaving?”
I hate how easy a question it is to answer. “No.”
“Do you think I’m a bad person because I didn’t move to New York with you? Because I chickened out? Does it make me a failure?”
“God, of course not, Liam.”
He looks at me meaningfully. “Sadie, listen. Whatever the world throws at you or whatever choices or mistakes you make on your own, I’ll always be here for you.” He leans to brace his elbows onhis knees. “You could have told me the truth from the beginning, and it wouldn’t have changed a thing. You would still be welcome for as long as you like.”
And just like that, the knot in my chest loosens, and I pull Liam into a rough hug. My voice is muffled against his shoulder. “I love you so much.”
Liam wraps his arms around me, and we pull each other close in a Howard sandwich. “Love you, too. Stay forever. I mean it.”
I laugh and wipe at my eyes. “That’s what makes this so complicated,” I say thickly. Maybe part of me even wants to take him up on his offer. “I don’t know what to do.”
“At the end of the day, there’s no pressure either way,” Liam says slowly. “So why not just see how things go?”
Even as I nod, I can’t help but smile. “You sound like Noah.”
He blinks in surprise. “You told him about this?”
“No, it was—” I have to pause to clear my suddenly dry throat. “We were talking about something else.”
Liam’s not letting me get away with that. He leans backward, regarding me down the bridge of his nose as his mouth curls into a teasing smile. “You’ve been spending a lot of time together.” Not a question.
“We wrote a story this week. About the D&D game.” It’s carefully laid distraction bait, personalized specially for Liam.
He bites, eyes narrowing. “A story?”
“He called it roleplaying.”
Liam’s eyebrows climb to hover over the lenses of his rimless glasses. “Oho, okay. Whoa. What sort of roleplay? The handsome scoundrel and the celibate priestess?”
I snort. “Jaylie’s notthatsort of priestess—”
Liam’s brows rise even higher. “Not celibate? So then it was definitely a spicy role—”
“No!” I snap, laughing. “It wasn’tthatsort of roleplay.”
“Not yet, anyway,” he says under his breath, snickering. “Betteryou write that part privately with him than subject my game table to witnessing it.”
