Collided: Dirty Air (Book 2)(91)
“We both know feelings aren’t your thing. Not to mention we won’t see each other after next week. I’m going back home and you’re going somewhere.”
“Feelings aren’t my thing?” Liam says the words with disbelief.
I stare at my hands to avoid his hurt gaze. He makes me weak yet strong because I need to do this for him and his future. “I love you. I have for months but you’ve been too blind to see it, unable to acknowledge me and my feelings. To see me.” My eyes meet his. “I can’t do this to myself anymore. The season is almost over, the list is finished, so we’re done. I’m sorry I broke your rule, but we can’t be friends anymore. So, let’s cut our losses before things get complicated. Before things happen that we both can’t take back, no matter how much we may want to.” My voice chokes on the last words, my airflow constricted.
“Like this conversation?”
I suck in a breath. The woundedness in his voice makes me want to stop. But he can’t give up his career for me—for this weird blend of friendship, sex, and one-sided emotions. My heart thrums against my chest like it wants to tell me it still beats strong for Liam.
Sorry, heart, I apologize in advance for the explosion.
I stand, brushing my shaky palms across the leggings I put on to avoid the desert chill. My legs wobble before I gain control.
He gets up too, closing the distance between us, staring me down. “I don’t know why you’re ending our friendship. Just get over your feelings and let’s go back to normal.”
Tears prick at the corner of my eyes. “There’s no going back. I can’t expect you to understand, seeing as you’ve never been in a relationship with someone…let alone in love. You have no idea what it takes. Let’s be real—you can’t even get over your past, let alone look toward your future. We both know I’m not part of it.” My vile words disgust me.
His eyebrows scrunch together and his eyes become glassy. I hate myself. I hate myself so fucking much I want to scream at him and myself all at the same time. But I don’t. I take a few steps back, my toes curling under the sand, grounding me from floating off into a mental space filled with pain and contempt.
“I can’t believe you’re really going to end our friendship over something temporary.”
My lungs burn from the hot air and imminent tears. “Love shouldn’t be temporary. At least not to me. That’s exactly why our little imaginary life needs to come to an end. Today. Now. I don’t want to love someone who views everything as fleeting.” I walk toward the truck. My hand grips the handle, the door creaking open before Liam slams it shut.
He turns me and pushes me against the cool metal. His hand gently—ever so fucking gently it hurts my heart—tips my head up to look him in the eyes.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” His lips brush against mine, leaving behind a soft kiss. It’s comical how the same lips that helped seal my fate still make my insides heat. Just another screwed-up part of Liam and me.
I let out a bitter laugh. “You know, I’m a fool. Thinking you could love someone besides yourself. For believing we could hook up and stay friends while neither one of us gets hurt in the process. I’m an idiot.”
“Then stop making things weird. We promised not to fall for one another,” he growls.
“No, you promised. And I’m not making things weird, I’m making them honest. Can you tell me you love me? That all the words you whisper in my ear at night mean something more? Go ahead, admit how you feel.”
Silence greets me, the dull throb in my chest increasing as Liam stands there, his wild eyes roaming over my face. I prepped myself for this moment all night long, knowing he would never confess to something he can’t recognize.
To be honest, no preparation could’ve helped me handle this.
“Don’t do this to us and our arrangement,” he rasps.
“That’s your problem. For someone so keen on living life to the fullest, you sure trick everyone, including yourself. You throw my rules back in my face when you’re the most rigid one of us all, holding on to lies you tell yourself to protect you from the unknown. Funny how you taught me the most important lesson of all. There are some things you can’t plan for, no matter how hard you try.”
“But we’re friends. You can’t leave and forget about us.”
My eyes narrow. “Yeah, Liam, well this friendship sucks right now.”
He takes a deep breath, stepping away from me and turning his back. “I can’t give you anything more than what we have. I travel as my job for fuck’s sake. You’re going to go back home, and I’ll keep racing. It’s not the right moment. Maybe if it were under different circumstances, at another time.”
I drop my head against the car door and laugh, the noise grating against my ears. If heartbreak had a sound, that would be it. “Laughable how you told me that almost four years ago when you met me. Yet here we are, years later, with you following the same pathetic lines.”
“Please, Sophie. I really like you. Don’t ruin something between us for something like love.” His eyes plead with mine.
“What does that even mean? There is nothing wrong with love.” It takes everything in me to not yell.
Fuck Peter and Rick. Screw Formula 1 and the sucky men who bully women into submission through manipulation and money. I’m so done with it all. Like Dorothy, I want to click my red Nikes together and get the hell home.