Page 132 of Keeping Score

It was as good a life as any. I had friends back in Michigan. I had family. I could find purpose. And most of all, I wouldn’t be reminded every single day of Maggie fucking Brynn. The almost love of my life.

Because I had to believe she couldn’t be the actual love of my life, because that would be depressing as hell. You were supposed to end up with the love of your life. Not have a brief stint with them in your twenties. Right?

I killed the engine when I pulled into Liam’s driveway, using the spare key he’d given me to let myself in as quietly as I could. At nearly 12:45 a.m., I was expecting the house to be blanketed in darkness when I walked in. Not the glow of the television coming from the living room that I’d taken up residency in as of lately.

And I certainly wasn’t expecting to see the couch almost entirely occupied.

“Well, this is cozy,” I said in a whisper to Liam, who was the only one of the three still awake.

Cassie’s head was in his lap as he played with her hair absentmindedly, and Maggie—God, Maggie was beautiful as ever—looking the most relaxed I’d seen her in weeks as she slept soundly, her body curled underneath a throw blanket.

I stared at her, probably with more creepy longing than an ex-boyfriend was entitled to. Damn, was it weird as hell to miss watching someone sleep?

“They fell asleep a half hour ago watching a movie,” Liam said. “I haven’t gotten around to waking them up yet.”

Speaking of sleep, my body was too exhausted to stand up for another minute, so I let myself slip down onto the couch next to Maggie.

“What movie?” I asked, to make conversation.

“The Notebook.”

Liam huffed a laugh.

“Oof,” I winced. “They Notebooked you?”

“It wasn’t so bad,” Liam shrugged. “But it was sort of depressing as hell.”

“Tell me about it. I’ve watched that with Mags like a dozen times.”

That’s what worried me. It was her go-to film when she was at her lowest of lows. But during all those times, I had never been the reason for it. It gave me a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

One look down at Maggie, and I could tell she was in one of her deepest sleeps. I knew that girl better than I knew anyone else, and over the years I’d seen her when she hit lows like this. It always worried me. She worked so many hours, tried so hard in every aspect of her life. I couldn’t imagine the strain that it put on her mind. She was probably exhausted every moment of the day. And I knew that the last few weeks had taken their toll on her, too.

With my arms stretched across the back of the sofa, I tilted my head back and let out a groan of frustration, letting the pent-up energy leave my body all at once.

“Should I even ask how it went today?” Liam asked, keeping his voice low.

Maggie slept like the dead, but I wasn’t sure how light of a sleeper Cassie was, so I matched his volume when I responded.

“Shit.”

“Michigan’s shit? Or the day was shit?”

“Both. Everything’s shit. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do.”

“What do you want to do?” he asked.

“What I want is irrelevant because it exists on an alternate plane of existence where none of this ever happened in the first place.”

“I’m sorry,” Liam said honestly. “You’re right. It’s a shitty situation either way. How did it feel to be back there, though? Is it something you could live with?”

I blew out a breath.

“I mean, honestly?” I asked. “Yeah. It did. That’s why I feel so torn right now. Half of me was thinking I’d go there, think, this fucking blows, and know immediately that I couldn’t move back there. But it didn’t.”

“It didn’t?”

“No. It felt normal. Not right, I guess, but familiar. Like it could be right again someday. I could make it my new normal.” I felt like I was rambling, but I didn’t care. I needed to bounce my ideas off of someone, and I knew Liam was the last person in the world to tell me what I wanted to hear. I knew I could count on him to give his full, uncensored opinion.