Page 166 of The Clinch
I pull the ring off with fingers that have gone cold and clumsy. It catches once on my knuckle, and the stupid intimacy of that nearly undoes me. Then it slides free.
His attention lands on the ring and doesn’t leave.
“Don’t do this.”
“I have to.”
“Liz.”
“I have to.” My voice shakes now, but it holds. “Because if I stay, I’ll lose myself again. I don’t want to feel trapped inside my own life.”
I hold the ring out.
For one terrible second, I think he won’t take it. Then he reaches for it, fingers so steady it makes my chest ache.
The metal disappears into his palm.
“I’m going back to my apartment.”
His answer comes at once. “Don’t.”
Every nerve in me recoils.
Leo shuts his eyes for a beat, catching himself. When he speaks again, his voice is rougher. “Drake knows where you live.”
“Then I’ll deal with that.”
“Liz.”
“It’s my life. My decision.” I force each word out slowly. “I need my own walls around me. I need space. I need to know the next thing that happens in my life happens because I chose it.”
Every instinct in him is right there in the room now. I can feel it. The part that wants to overrule this. The part that wants to argue facts, risk, timing, every practical reason that would make staying sound smart and leaving sound reckless.
He says none of them.
That hurts more than a fight would.
“Okay,” he says at last.
The word nearly takes my knees out. I don’t trust myself to speak. I turn and walk toward the bedroom before I can break.
He says my name behind me. I stop, but I don’t turn around.
“If he threatens you again,” he says, voice low and wrecked now, “you call me first.”
I close my eyes.
Then I walk into the bedroom and pull my weekender from the top shelf of the closet.
I stand there, staring at the bed—my side, his side, my charger on the nightstand, his watch on the dresser. The sight of it hits low and brutal.
I set the bag on the bench and unzip it.
Keep moving.
I throw in a few items—clothes, toiletries, laptop, the anatomy atlas from the desk.
Footsteps behind me.
