Chapter 217
Chapter 217
Sadie's POV
Three Years Later
I woke up to rain.
Not the soft, hesitant drizzle of Lincoln Heights mornings, but the relentless, gray curtain that seemed to hang permanently over London. Three years. Three years of this rain, this cold, this carefully constructed distance from everything that mattered.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. Brooklyn's name lit up the screen. I let it go to voicemail.
She'd been trying for weeks. So had Maya. Even Zoe, who usually respected boundaries better than anyone. But I couldn't answer. Couldn't explain why I'd changed my number, my email, every single point of contact except for one.
Liam.
My stepbrother. The only thread still connecting me to that life.
The irony wasn't lost on me. Liam, who'd introduced me to Jake. Liam, whose house I'd lived in. Liam, who had no idea what he'd done by bringing us together.
I rolled over, pulling Jake's old hoodie tighter around me. The scent had faded years ago, replaced by London damp and my own desperate attempts to preserve something that was already gone. Pathetic. I knew it was pathetic.
But I couldn't throw it away.
My laptop sat open on the desk, cursor blinking in a half-finished essay on Victorian literature. The irony of studying British authors while running from an American boy wasn't lost on me either. Professor Hart had praised my analysis of unrequited love in Wuthering Heights last week. If she only knew.
Outside my window, students hurried across the quad, umbrellas colliding. University College London sprawled around me, ancient and indifferent. I'd buried myself here. Twelve-hour library sessions. Extra seminars. Anything to keep my brain too occupied to wander back across the Atlantic.
It worked. Mostly.
Until Christmas.
Until Valentine's Day.
Until Liam texted to say he and Richard were flying in next week.
I sat up, shoving the laptop aside. The essay could wait. Everything could wait. That's what I'd been doing for three years—waiting for this feeling to fade, for the tightness in my chest to ease, for the dreams to stop.
They hadn't.
My phone buzzed again. This time, I looked.
Liam: Landing Thursday. Dad wants to take you to dinner. Somewhere fancy. You know how he is.
I typed back quickly: Sounds good. Miss you guys.
True enough. I did miss them. Richard had been nothing but kind, even when I'd insisted on staying in London year-round instead of coming home for summers. Even when Mom had remarried him and moved to his estate, and I'd chosen a dorm room an ocean away.
Another text appeared before I could set the phone down.
Liam: Jake's been asking about you again.
My heart stopped.
Three years. Three years of radio silence, and Liam still dropped his name like it was casual. Like it didn't make my hands shake.
I didn't respond.
Couldn't.
Instead, I got up and walked to the window, pressing my forehead against the cold glass. The rain blurred everything outside into watercolor shapes. Somewhere out there, in another country, another life, Jake Montgomery was asking about me.
Wondering where I was.
Still looking.
The thought should have made me happy. Should have felt like vindication, like proof that what we'd had was real.
Instead, it felt like a knife twisting deeper.
Because Liam didn't know. Nobody knew. The real reason I'd left wasn't heartbreak or fear or even the class divide everyone assumed had finally crushed me.
It was protection.
His protection.
My phone buzzed a third time.
Liam: You still there? You ok?
I forced my fingers to move.
Me: Yeah. Just tired. Long day.
Liam: Get some rest. See you Thursday. And Sadie?
Me: Yeah?
Liam: He really misses you. I know you don't want to hear it, but he does.
I turned the phone face-down and walked away.
---
The next few days blurred together. Classes. Library. The small flat Mom had rented near Bloomsbury. I moved through them mechanically, a routine so practiced it required no thought.
Tuesday afternoon, I sat in Professor Hart's seminar on the Brontës, taking notes I'd never read again. She was talking about Catherine and Heathcliff, about destructive love and impossible choices.
"The tragedy," Professor Hart said, pacing in front of the blackboard, "is not that they can't be together. It's that Catherine chooses to pretend she doesn't love him. She marries Edgar Linton, convinces herself she's made the right choice, and destroys them both in the process."
A girl in the front row raised her hand. "But didn't she do it to protect Heathcliff? To give him a better life?"
Professor Hart smiled, sad and knowing. "She told herself that. But was it protection? Or was it cowardice?"
The words hit like a slap.
I stared down at my notebook, at the line I'd just written: Sometimes love means walking away.
My hand was shaking.
"Miss Brooks?"
I looked up. Professor Hart was watching me, concern creasing her forehead.
"Are you alright? You've gone quite pale."
"I'm fine." The lie came easily. "Just a headache."
She nodded, but her gaze lingered. "Take care of yourself. You've been working too hard."
I gathered my things and left before she could say anything else.
Outside, the rain had picked up. I didn't have an umbrella—never did anymore. Something about walking in the rain felt right. Felt like penance.
By the time I reached the flat, I was soaked through.
Mom was in the kitchen, humming to herself as she unpacked groceries. She'd adapted to London better than I had. Loved the theater, the museums, the little cafés tucked into side streets.
"Sadie, sweetheart, you're drenched!" She grabbed a towel, wrapping it around my shoulders. "What happened to your coat?"
"Forgot it."
She sighed, the way she always did when I was being difficult. "Go shower. I'll make tea."
I obeyed, letting the hot water wash away the cold. But it couldn't wash away the thoughts. The memories.
Jake's voice, rough with sleep: Stay.
His hands, gentle despite their strength: I've got you.
His smile, rare and devastating: You're the first real thing I've felt in a long time.
I pressed my forehead against the tile and let the water drown out the sound of my own crying.