Hate Me Like You Love Me (Serena and Caleb) novel Chapter 74

Caleb’s POV

Some goodbyes aren’t endings—they’re the moment you realize the other person doesn’t need you anymore, and that’s exactly how it should be.

I meet Rachel at the same coffee shop where we first reconnected weeks ago.

Same corner booth, same quiet atmosphere, same barista who pretends not to recognize us from all the whispered conversations we’ve had in this corner.

But everything is different now.

The urgency that hung over our previous meetings is gone. Lucas is dealt with, the party is over, the immediate danger has passed.

What’s left is just two people with history, sitting across from each other with coffee growing cold between them.

“You look better.” Rachel studies my face with clinical precision. “The bruises are healing.”

“Slower than I’d like.” I touch the fading purple near my eyebrow. “But yeah. Getting there.”

“And Serena?”

“She’s…” I search for the right word. “Processing. We all are.”

Rachel nods, wrapping her hands around her mug. She didn’t ask me here just to exchange pleasantries. I can see it in the way she’s holding herself—there’s something she needs to say.

“I have news.” She leans forward slightly. “Jessica, the girl from Whitmore, she’s willing to testify formally. On the record, in court, whatever it takes.”

“That’s… huge.”

“It gets better.”

A spark of satisfaction lights her green eyes.

“Since the party, others have started coming forward. Word spread through whisper networks, through friends of friends, through women who recognized Lucas’s pattern in the accounts circulating online.”

She pauses. “The legal case against him is growing stronger than anyone expected.”

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. “How many?”

“Three more, so far. All with similar stories. All willing to talk to attorneys.” Rachel’s smile is sharp, triumphant. “The Bennett lawyers are going to have a hard time burying this one.”

“And you?” I ask. “Where does this leave you?”

“Involved.” She says it without hesitation. “Not as a victim waiting for justice to happen to me, but as someone actively building the case. Coordinating witnesses. Working with the legal team.”

Her chin lifts. “I’m not walking away from this, Caleb. I’m walking through it.”

I stare at her—this woman I dated in high school, the one Lucas shattered so completely I thought she’d never recover. She’s rebuilt herself into someone formidable. Someone who doesn’t need saving.

“That’s… incredible, Rachel. Really.”

“It’s necessary.” She shrugs. “For every girl who stays silent about what he did, another one follows. Someone has to break the cycle. It might as well be me.”

“You’re not doing it alone, though. You have support.”

“I know.” Her expression softens. “But that’s not why I asked you here.”

I wait, sensing the shift in the conversation.

Rachel takes a slow breath, organizing her thoughts. When she speaks again, her voice is quieter, more personal.

“I wanted to tell you something. Something you need to hear.”

“Okay.”

“Stop carrying guilt about us.” The words land with gentle force. “About what happened. About how things ended.”

“Rachel…”

“I mean it.”

She holds up a hand to stop my protest.

“I know you, Caleb. I know you’ve been blaming yourself for years—for not protecting me better, for not stopping Lucas sooner, for the way our relationship fell apart in the wreckage of what he did.”

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