I Swear I Still Hate Him (Atlas Lawson) novel Chapter 190

Chapter 190

Emery’s POV

The footage was old. Grainy, the way home videos always were, colors slightly washed out, the edges soft. But I knew that pool immediately. I knew those bleachers, that smell of chlorine that used to live permanently in my hair, the particular echo of that natatorium that I hadn’t heard in years.

And I knew her.

My mom stood at the edge of the pool deck in a yellow sundress her hair pulled back, laughing at something off camera with her whole face the way she always did, nothing held back, nothing halfway. She was so alive in it. So completely, painfully alive.

And there I was beside her. Tiny. Maybe seven, eight years old. Ponytail askew, goggles pushed up on my forehead, grinning so wide it took up half my face.

My voice came through the speaker, high and certain and so sure of herself it made my heart cave in.

“I’m gonna win a gold medal at the Olympics, Mummy. Watch.”

I pressed my free hand flat against my mouth.

Mom crouched down to my level on screen, cupped my face in both of her hands, and looked at me like I was the most obvious truth she’d ever seen.

“Yes you are, baby. You are absolutely going to do that.” She smiled. “You’re a star. And what do stars do?”

Little me didn’t even hesitate.

“They shine.”

And then I was running for the edge of the pool, arms out, launching myself into the water with absolutely zero fear…the kind of fearless you can only be when you’re eight years old and the world hasn’t handed you anything to be afraid of yet. The splash exploded upward and from somewhere off camera my dad let out a whoop so loud the audio crackled.

A sob clawed its way up my throat. I locked my jaw and forced it back down.

The video kept going.

My first medal middle school, the ribbon still oversized around my little neck, both my parents flanking me with grins so wide they looked like they might split open from pride. Dad had his arm thrown around Mom’s shoulders and she was crying and laughing at the same time, dabbing at her eyes with the back of her wrist, and my dad kept saying that’s my girl, that’s my baby girl…

High school. The times getting faster. The meets getting bigger. ad in the stands in every single frame I could find him in. on his feet, looking like the proudest man alive…And then dad again but this time older the camera aimed at him on what looked like a back porch at dusk.

“I am so proud of that kid,” he said, and his voice cracked right down the middle of it. “So damn proud. And her mom…” He stopped. Cleared his throat, “Her mom would be too. She’d be lillering from whatever bleachers they’ve got up there, you can count on that.”

I was full-on crying now, Silently, tears running straight off my jaw, not even trying to stop them.

And then….

The footage cut.

1/4

O

11:54 Wed, Apr 8

Chapter 190

►M.

77%

55 vouchers

A bedroom. Messy desk in the background, a poster on the wall recognized. And then a face filled the frame and my breath seized completely.

Atlas. Younger….twenty maybe, jaw not quite as sharp, hair a little longer…but him. Unmistakably him. He was holding the camera too close, slightly off-center, and he was looking straight into the lens like he was looking straight at me.

“You’re amazing, Em.” He huffed a small, self-conscious laugh. “I hope you know that.” A pause. He glanced away for half a second, something moving across his face. Then he looked back. “And I…”

He stopped himself.

Laughed again, quieter.

Then said it anyway.

“I love you.”

He seemed to surprise even himself. He let out a short, disbelieving chuckle, then squared up to the camera like a decision had been made and said it again, louder, clearer, no take-backs.

“I love you, Emery Collins.”

The screen went black.

****

The phone sat in my hand and I couldn’t move.

The tears were coming in full force now, streaming down my face, my chin trembling in I couldn’t control. My chest

way felt cracked wide open in the best and worst way all at once, like something that had been sealed shut for a very long time had just come loose.

a

Slowly, I turned and looked at him.

Atlas was watching me. Quiet. Still. That same expression he’d had all night, open and steady and completely unafraid of whatever he found on my face.

The corner of his mouth lifted. Just barely,

“See?” he whispered. “You are not broken, Em.”

I let out a shaky breath, eyes still wet, and I almost left it there. Almost just nodded and let the moment fold itself up neatly. But something in me was still pulling, still snagging on the edge of what he’d said like it couldn’t fully land.

“Then what is it?” My voice came out smaller than I meant it to. Because it feels real, Atlas. Every single time I stand at that pool it feels like the most real thing in the world.”

He was quiet for a second.

Then… “Can I ask you something?”

I nodded.

“Tonight, in that water. His eyes searched mine, careful and steady. “What was actually pulling you down?”

“The panic.” I said it immediately. “I couldn’t move right. I lost my balance and…”

“Was it though?” he said gently.

2/4

111

O

<

11:54 Wed, Apr 8

Chapter 190

I stopped.

M

He didn’t push. Just let the question sit between us and breathe.

3、 77%

55 vouchers

I opened my mouth. Closed it again. My brows pulled together as something uncomfortable started shifting around in my chest, the kind of shift that happens when someone says something you’re not ready to hear but some quiet part of you already knows is true.

“The water didn’t change, Em.” His voice was soft, almost careful, like he knew exactly how close to a nerve he was getting. “You’ve been in that water a thousand times. You know that water” He paused. “But you walked up to that pool tonight already convinced of how it was going to end.”

My jaw tightened.

“You dove in carrying it with you,” he continued. “That voice. Broken. Useless. Not enough. You brought all of that in with you like…” he searched for it, “…like an anchor. And then you san And then the voice said see, I told you. And now it’s got proof.” He held my gaze. “You see what I’m saying?”

My chin trembled. I looked away toward the water, blinking hard

“Fear is a real good liar, Em.” His voice dropped lower, rougher. “It dresses itself up like the truth. Wears it so well you forget it doesn’t actually belong to you. You’ve been calling yourself broken for so long it started feeling like a fact.” He reached out and turned my face gently back toward his with two fingers under my chin. “But it’s not a fact. It’s fear. And those two things feel identical from the inside…I get that. But they are not the same thing.”

I stared at him.

The tears were back but different this time…not the wrecked, heaving kind from earlier. Quieter. The kind that come when something true hits somewhere deep.

“Broken means it’s done,” he said. “It means there’s nothing left to work with. But fear…” the corner of his mouth lifted just slightly, “…fear means there’s something on the other side of it worth protecting. Something you’re not ready to lose.”

My breath came out uneven.

“You still love it.” His eyes held mine, certain. “Swimming. I can see it every time it comes up. You don’t look like someone who lost something they didn’t care about. You look like someone who’s been standing outside a door too scared to open it.” I let out a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob pressing my fingers against my lips.

“I don’t know how to open it,” I admitted. The words came out ray and honest and a little broken-sounding, and I didn’t even try to clean them up. “I’ve tried, Atlas. I stand there and I tr and the second I hit that water my brain just…”

“I know.” He said it quietly. “But you know what

I shook my head.

you

did tonight?

“You dove in anyway.” He held my gaze. “Scared out of your min, those voices going full volume…and you dove in anyway. That’s not what broken looks like, Em. That’s what brave looks life.”

The tears spilled over.

I didn’t wipe them this time. I just let them fall, sitting with what he’d said, turning it over slowly like something I was afraid to hold too tight in case it dissolved.

He reached out and brushed a tear from my cheek with his thub, unhurried.

“You don’t have to fix it tonight,” he said. “You don’t have to fix it at once. You just have to stop picking up that anchor every time you walk to the water.”

3/4

III

11:54 Wed, Apr 8 *

Chapter 190

M

X-774

EX 55 vouch

I looked at him for a long moment.

This man. This ridiculous, soaking wet, watch-ruined man who had jumped into a pool without blinking and was now sitting here in the dark dismantling every lie I’d built my last ten years on top of.

I exhaled, long and slow, something releasing in my chest that I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding

“Okay,” I whispered.

Not I’m fixed…Not I believe you completely. Just okay. A door cracking open. An anchor set down for the night.

It was enough.

His forehead came to rest against mine, and neither of us said anything else for a while.

We didn’t have to.

4/4

良

AD

Comment

Send gift

No Ads