I Swear I Still Hate Him (Atlas Lawson) novel Chapter 189

Chapter 189

Emery’s POV

I didn’t know how long I’d been standing there.

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Long enough for the night air to raise goosebumps along my bae arms. Long enough for the pool lights to blur at the edges every time I blinked too slow. I was down to nothing but my bra and panties, the cool tiles of the penthouse deck pressing up through the soles of my feet, and my heart was going absolutly haywire in my chest, loud and unsteady, like it couldn’t quite decide whether to keep going.

The voices had already started. Low at first, like static in the back of my head, but I knew how fast they could get loud.

You’re not enough.

I was the one who’d suggested the pool. That had been me, standing in Atlas’s suite, wanting so badly to be brave, telling myself that if I loved this man the way I knew I did, he deserved to see all of me. Not just the polished version I’d spent ten years carefully putting forward. The real one. The one with the jagged edges I didn’t know how to smooth out anymore.

You’re broken.

My fingers curled at my

I made myself look up.

sides.

Atlas was standing a few feet away, still fully dressed, watching me with his hands loose at his sides and his expression doing that thing it always did…open, careful, giving me every inch of room I needed without stepping back an inch himself. His eyes were filled with so much quiet concern it made my throat a he. He wasn’t pushing. Wasn’t talking. He was just there, solid and steady, waiting on me the way you wait for something ou’re not willing to give up on.

You don’t belong here anymore. And now Atlas is gonna see just how useless you are.

I shut my eyes.

Took one slow breath through my nose, held it, let it go.

Then I reached down and unclipped my prosthetic,

The moment it was off, something in my chest shifted, that familiar mix of exposure and relief and grief that I’d never quite figured out how to name. I set it down without looking at it, squared my jaw, and dove in.

The water swallowed me whole,

And just like every single time before, the voices came rushing

right behind me.

Not enough, Broken. Useless…

Then everything went wrong all at once.

It was fast, that was the thing nobody told you about panic, how fast it moved. One second, I was beneath the surface and the next my body had forgotten everything it used to know. My arm weren’t cutting through the water the way they should have. My legs…my leg…wasn’t cooperating. I was going down instead of up, the water pressing in from every direction like something with weight and intention, and my heart was slamming against my ribs so hard I felt it in

my

skull.

I’m trying. I’in trying. I’m…

The splash came from above me.

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11:54 Wed, Apr 8 DM

Chapter 189

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And then there were hands strong, certain, finding mine in the dark water without hesitation, and we were moving up.

We broke the surface together.

I gulped air like I’d forgotten what it tasted like. My whole body was shaking by the time Atlas helped me to the edge, and I couldn’t look at him right away…couldn’t do anything but press my forehead against the cool tile and try to remember how to breathe like a normal person.

When I finally turned, he was already out of the pool.

He was soaked straight through button-down shirt plastered to his chest, dress slacks ruined, water streaming off him like he’d walked through a rainstorm, and he wasn’t looking at any of it. He was looking at me. Eyes wide, chest heaving, the expression on his face somewhere between terrified and wrecked.

“Em,” he said. Just that. Just my name, soft as anything.

And that was all it took.

“That’s…” My voice broke on the first try. I pressed my lips together, jaw tight, tried again. “That’s why I can’t go back to swimming, Atlas. I’m…” The words scraped their way out of my throat and the tears came right with them, hot and relentless, and for once I didn’t shove them back down. I was too tired. God I was so tired of fighting them. “I’m broken.”

Something moved across his face….pain, fast and unguarded, and then he closed the distance between us and pulled me in.

His arms wrapped around me completely, soaking wet and warm, and I buried my face against his chest and just fell apart. Ugly, heaving sobs that shook my whole body, the kind I hadn’t let myself have in a long… long time because they felt too much like admitting something I wasn’t ready to say out loud. But here, in his arms, with his hand pressing gently at the back of my head and his chin resting against my hair…somehow it didn’t feel like defeat.

It just felt like exhaling.

****

When I finally went quiet, he didn’t rush me.

He eased back slowly, hands moving to my arms to steady me, and guided me to one of the lounge chairs at the edge of the deck. He disappeared for a moment and came back with a large owel, shaking it open and wrapping it around my shoulders with both hands, careful and deliberate, like I was something worth handling gently.

We sat.

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The city hummed somewhere far below us, all lit up and indifferent, and the pool was glassy and still now like nothing had happened in it at all. I pulled the towel tighter around myself and stared at the water, and Atlas sat beside me with his ruined clothes and said nothing.

The silence wasn’t uncomfortable. It was the kind that meant he was choosing his words.

Finally, he said, “How long?”

His voice was low. Measured. Like he already knew the answer was going to cost him something.

I pressed my lips together. Looked down at my lap, at the place where my left leg ended, and felt the familiar hollow pang

that never fully went away, no matter how many months passed

“After the accident,” I said quietly. “After I lost my…” I stopped. Sallowed around the tightness in my throat. “My leg.” 1 finished the sentence like I was setting something heavy down.

Atlas nodded slowly. His jaw was working, that muscle ticking near his temple the way it did when he was holding himself together by sheer willpower.

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Chapter 189

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I hated seeing it. Hated that I’d put that look on his face.

“You must be freezing.” I let out a small, unsteady laugh and glanced at his wrist. “And I’m sorry about your watch. Isn’t that the one you…”

“I don’t give a damn about a watch, Em.”

His voice wasn’t sharp. It was just honest in a way that left no room for argument.

I forced a smile anyway. Felt it fall short of my eyes the second i landed and hated myself a little for that too. I wish it reached. God, I wish it did.

The quiet stretched again.

Then Atlas said, “Thank you.”

I looked up fast, brows pulling together. “For what?”

He turned toward me. Reached out and tucked a damp strand of hair away from my face, fingers brushing my cheek with the kind of gentleness that made my chest feel too small to hold everything in it.

“For telling me,” he said. “For letting me see this.”

My throat tightened.

He held my gaze, steady and unhurried. “I wish you’d told me sooner.” His voice dropped a little, rough at the edges now, the emotion he’d been keeping in check starting to show through the seams. “So, I could’ve looked you in the eyes a long time ago and said…” He paused. “Emery Collins, you are not broken.”

I froze and watched as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. I watched him unlock it, something shifting in his expression, not nervous exactly, more like careful. Like he was handling something old and fragile that mattered more than he wanted to let on.

“I’ve been working on this since high school.” He held it out to me. “I was gonna show you. I had it all planned out and then…” He stopped. The unspoken ending of that sentence hung between us like smoke. Then you left. “I never got the chance.”

I looked at his face for a second before I looked at the phone.

Then I took it from him. Gently, the way you take something you can already tell means everything.

It was a video.

My thumb hovered over the play button. My chest was already doing something strange…

tight and anticipatory, like my

body knew before my brain caught up, I pressed play.

And I stopped breathing.

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