Your Fault (Culpable Book 2)

I looked closely at the cup in my hands. The steam twisted upward and warmed my face. It was starting to get cold—summer was behind us, and as I watched clouds form over my hot chocolate, I struggled to grasp what Michael was trying to get me to see. Talking to him was helping me, or so I thought, but every word that came out of my mouth made me more and more confused about my relationship with Nicholas.

“I’ve always been scared of the dark,” I told him. “I’ve always had the feeling I was underwater, sinking, unable to keep myself afloat. When I met Nick, that was the first time I could breathe, could make it back to the surface. How can that be a bad thing? Is it really possible there’s something wrong with it?”

Michael got up and walked over to the sofa where I was sitting, observing me closely.

“You have to learn to swim on your own, Noah. Nicholas can’t always be your life preserver. Either you learn to swim, or the least thing that comes along might make you drown.”

Six days had passed, six long days in which we hadn’t spoken a word to each other. At first, Nick had tried to get in touch. I’d been very close to forgetting about the need for distance and begging him to come see me at my dorm, to hold me in his arms…

“You’re doing a great job, Noah, you’re listening to me, you’re learning to survive without him, and only then, when you learn to walk alone, will you be able to do it with someone else.”

I took a deep breath. We always ended up talking about Nick, when what I wanted was for him to help me with my fears, my nightmares…

I stood, setting the hot chocolate down on the table and walking to the window. It was almost nighttime outside. I saw a group of students leaving their evening classes.

“I just want to be…normal,” I confessed, not wanting to turn around or see his reaction to my words.

But just then, he grabbed my arm and turned me around, and his eyes were searching for mine.

“Noah, you are normal. You’ve just been in situations that are far from normal, okay? You’re mixing up your fears and insecurities with your love life with Nicholas, and that’s why I’m trying to make you see that this relationship isn’t the right one for you.”

He let me go, and I sat on the sofa.

“I don’t want to talk about Nick anymore.”

Michael sighed and sat back in front of me to look down for a few seconds at his notes. “Let’s talk about how the past couple of nights have been. Did you try turning your lights off?”

I nodded. I hadn’t gotten much out of it, though. My nightmares were still there, and I still felt incapable of turning off my lights for a whole night and sleeping in the dark.

“Your fear is directly related to what happened with your father. You yourself told me that before he attacked you, you used to shut the door to your room and sit there in the dark, and you felt safe. In a way, your father flipped all that around. That’s why it affects you so much. The very thing that protected you has become your worst nightmare.”

I hated remembering that night, hated feeling his hands on my skin again, his fingers pulling at my ankle and immobilizing me against the mattress. I closed my eyes and clenched my fists over my knees.

“The person who was meant to protect you betrayed you, an adult, someone who knew what they were doing. You were a defenseless little girl. You were alone, Noah, no one helped you, and you did what you had to do to escape. You were brave. You didn’t hesitate. You fought for yourself when no one else could.”

I opened my eyes, thinking of my mother. Of how she’d tried to fight back, but nothing good came of it. She only managed to make things worse. Watching her, I learned that sometimes it was better to stay quiet, to just let him shout at us… My father always told me he was doing it for her sake, but I was different—he’d never laid his hands on me because I was a good girl.

“He loved me. He didn’t ever want to hurt me…”

On the morning of the seventh day, I woke with a strange feeling in my stomach. That was the last day we were supposed to be apart, and I didn’t know if I was ready. All the cells in my body wanted to see him, but that separation was also helping me reconsider many things. I decided to go to his office to see whether we’d been apart long enough.

I got nervous as I set foot inside Leister Enterprises. As I stepped out of the elevator, a middle-aged woman pointed me to Nick’s office. I had never been there, and I felt as small as an ant. Everything was gleaming, including the glass walls. In the middle, past reception was an enormous vestibule with white sofas on a dark black carpet. Gray, black, and white…why didn’t that surprise me?

Then I saw him.

His office had glass walls. He wasn’t alone. I felt uncomfortable as I saw Sophia sitting on his table. Her cheekbones rose as she laughed and chatted, making broad movements with her hands. Nick looked impatient, but at the same time entertained, and was clearly trying to keep himself from laughing as she spoke.

I walked over to the door, and he saw me. As he got up, Sophia turned, and the smile vanished from her face as he greeted me, opening up with the simple word “Noah.”

I didn’t really know what to say. All my insecurities, that dreadful jealousy, took back over. I couldn’t help it. She was perfect…perfect for him.

“Hello, Noah. Nice to see you again,” she said, grinning.

I tried to smile back.

“Would you mind giving us the office for a minute, Soph?” Nick asked.

Soph.

She nodded and walked out.

As we walked over to his desk, Nick grabbed a piece of paper and stuffed it into a drawer. Then he hit a button, and the walls started to darken. In fifteen seconds, I could no longer see anything outside those four walls.

Then his hands were on me, the heat of his body engulfed me, and he pulled back on my ponytail and pressed his lips into mine. It wasn’t a deep kiss, and soon he had pushed me back a few inches to let his eyes rove my body, my face, my trembling hands.

“I missed you, Freckles,” he said with a hard-to-decipher expression on his face.

I felt like I was drowning, and suddenly, all I wanted was to get out of there and to hear Michael again telling me I was strong enough to fight against anything, that I needed to confront my fears, that I was strong, that I was smart, that no one and nothing could knock me down… All I’d needed was to see him and her together, and my self-esteem had collapsed through the floor.

“What’s that piece of paper you just put in the drawer?” I asked, to distract myself more than for any other reason. I watched him turn suddenly tense.

“Nothing, just work stuff,” he said. “Noah, please tell me this stupid break is over because I’m about to lose my mind. You haven’t answered my calls, you’ve been ignoring my messages…”

“I needed time to think,” I said, and my voice sounded hard and distant.

Frowning, Nick asked, “Noah, what’s going on?”

“I need more time.”

He had been caressing me, but then he stopped, and as he did, I felt very small beside him. He looked down at me and said, “No.”

“Nicholas, I…”

“I haven’t seen you for seven days, I’ve given you time to think, even though I don’t know what the hell it is you’re supposed to have been thinking about…”

He walked toward the window behind his desk. Before he could say more, the door opened behind me, and Sophia walked in.

All she needed was one look to realize things weren’t going well.

Nicholas walked toward her, turned back to me, said, “Wait here,” and walked out.

Sophia and I looked at each other in an uncomfortable silence. As she walked over to her desk and pulled out her chair, she said, “Sit down if you want. Can I make you a coffee or something?”

I said no and remained nailed to the spot.

“Noah…I think I know why you’re here… You need to realize, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I’d give anything for that job. It’s not like New York is on the other side of the world, lots of people have long-distance relationships, and it would just be—”

“Wait, what?”

My heart started galloping, and I was afraid it would burst out of my chest.

“What did you say?” I asked, walking toward her.

She repeated the same words that had just emerged from her mouth, and they echoed in my head like some bizarre chant.

Opportunity. New York. Long-distance relationship…

Sophia looked at Nick’s desk and then at me, and her eyes opened wide as her cheeks flushed scarlet.

“I…I thought that Nick…”

“What opportunity are you talking about?”

Sophia shook her head. “You’ll have to ask him, Noah. I shouldn’t have said anything. I just thought…I thought he’d told you, especially since they’re putting so much pressure on him to decide.”

“Nicholas hasn’t told me anything, but since you’ve started, you might as well finish. What the hell is going on?”

I knew I was on the verge of exploding, and I preferred not to do it in front of her. I needed to leave, but I couldn’t do it without finding out what she was talking about.

“A major law firm in New York has offered him a position for two years. Winning the Rogers case brought a lot of attention to us from important people. I’d like to say it was all me, but we couldn’t have done it without Nick.”

I didn’t even know they’d won the case or that Nicholas was interested in working in New York. I sure as hell didn’t know anything about him going away for two years…

I needed to go. I needed to go before Nicholas came back.

“Tell Nicholas…tell him I had to go, that I wasn’t feeling well…”

Before I could walk out, Sophia grabbed my arm and looked at me through those chestnut-brown eyes surrounded by long lashes. Her heels made her taller than me, and I didn’t like that. I didn’t like it at all.

“I know you don’t want him to go…but you need to support him now, Noah.”

In a rage, I jerked away from her, saying, “Don’t you dare tell me what I should or shouldn’t do with my boyfriend.”

In two minutes, I had ridden the elevator downstairs and walked out.

Two years? He was thinking of going away and leaving me here for two years? Why did she know this and I didn’t?

You need to support him now, Noah.

Why didn’t Nick trust me? Why couldn’t we tell each other everything without being scared of what the other thought?

I sped out of the parking lot, blinking to try and keep my tears from blurring my view of the road.