I put my tea on the nearby table, passing the lapdesk over to his side, and relax back into his arms. Confident he can’t see my face, I tilt my gaze to my twinkle lights and postcards, giving the blissed-out expression warring for real estate safe harbor. Butterflies swirl and swarm in my abdomen, and for once, it doesn’t scare me. It emboldens me.
I’m not misreading this. I can’t be.
“Liam?”
“Mm?” he hums.
“Why have you been sending me these postcards?”
He tenses, and a light chuckle rattles his chest. “You figured that out, huh?”
“I had my suspicions, but that pun in the kitchen showed your hand, yes.”
“I hope that doesn’t ruin them for you,” he says with a sigh.
Two weeks ago, maybe the revelation that theyours affectionatelysignature featured at the end of each postcard belonged to Liam would have freaked me out a great deal. But today, all it does is warm my insides with an incandescent light, providing me with something that feels dangerously like hope. It’s the hope that propels me to ask him a leading question. “No, it doesn’t ruin them, but I’d love to know why you’ve been sending them.” I shift a little closer to him.
He swallows before scratching the scruff on his cheek with his free hand. “I don’t know. I was at a bar with Eli one day when you called. You were crying, and I could hear how homesick you were. Eli tried to get you to look on the brighter side of your decision and list some positives about Paris, and your immediate response was, ‘Well, I mean, anything’s better than having to deal with Liam Kelly on a regular basis, so at least there’s that.’ And all I could think about was how miserable I must have made it for you here if you sounded so unhappy and still thought you were better off than when you were with me.
“The words you threw at me at the bar had stuck with me, but I saw then how selfish I must have been if I didn’t notice how miserable you were, or what you were going through. And then I thought about how I had broken my promise to Nana to take care of you.”
“Liam, you were five.” I fight the pull to capture his face with my hands and tell him to forget I ever said any of that. I wouldn’t remember which call he was referring to, except Eli forced me to physically write down my reasons for being in Paris, and it sits in the top drawer of my desk to this day.
And it’s true:Liam isn’t heredoes feature prominently on the list.
Sometimes when I don’t know why I’m here, I pull it out and remind myself about all the reasons I adore Paris. The glamor. The history. The ocean away from my mother.
But I also know why I made that phone call that day. Michel and I had just broken up. I was overwhelmed with the reality of my body not performing well in a relationship when Caleb started dating Holly and posting pictures of his double dates with Clare. It was an avalanche of things I couldn’t do, and I crumbled under its weight.
He clears his throat. “I was twelve the second time I made the promise, not that that’s much older. But I did such a shitty job, anyway. So I don’t know, I didn’t expect the postcards to go so long, or that you had them—like this—but Eli said they made you smile, so I figured I’d go along with it until they didn’t.”
“They really did help,” I whisper. Those postcards got me through some dark moments in the last few years. Through hopeless flares, leaving my job, anniversaries of Nana’s death, and fights with my mom. I’d always return to them for comfort and a nice warm pun-hug.
“I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to thank you for them.” Maybe Maria was right about it all. Maybe there’s a story behind the ball, and maybe I’ll ask him—someday, when my brain isn’t fading to dreamland. My eyes flicker, heavy with sleep.
“You don’t owe me anything. They’re just a part of the Grovel-for-Evie’s-Friendship apology tour.”
My heart skitters against my ribs.Friend.An uglier word has never hit my ears.
“Is that what you want? After this? To be friends?” I turn into his shoulder, finding his lips resting an inch away.
He tucks his lip between his teeth, and the column of his throat bobs with a swallow. “If that was something you wanted.”
I blink. Friends don’t usually suck other friends’ faces, yet I want to do that with Liam, desperately. I open my mouth, feeling brave, feeling like maybe I could tell him I want something more thanfriend. But all I get out is “No” before an encore of twists and stabs punctuates the dull pain that’s been present under the protection of the heating pad. “Oh, fucking hell.” I crunch, grabbing my abdomen and slinking down in the bed to laying position.
A contraction rips through. False labor pains are a cruel joke, but they’re happening far too regularly lately.
I’m tired, too tired of this portable torture chamber for a body, and I start sobbing. It’s all I’ve thought about lately; it’s even consuming my daydreams, and I’m just done.
I curl further into the fetal position, pressing the heating pad to my stomach. Cold sweat beads on my forehead from the pain. Nausea intensifies, and my heart races at a dangerous level. I beg internally for a relief I know will only come when it’s good and ready.Shit.I shake, stretching out my legs and writhing because, at this point, I’m disconnected from my actions, desperately finding any way to lie that will relieve this even just a bit. Seconds that feel like an eternity pass, and the pain only deepens, curling me further into a ball. “I can’t do this anymore,” I whisper.
Liam rubs circles on my back. “I’ve got you. Deep breaths.”
Another throbbing contraction rips through the already intense cramping. “I can’t keep doing this.”
The stabbing continues. I jump and shift, praying for mercy. Something, anything, soon. Hopefully the pain meds will kick in quicker than usual because I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I’m drawing on negative.
Liam doesn’t say anything more while I sob and writhe. He just keeps a grounding touch on me as the pain fades, ever so slightly, until it’s still present, but something I’m equipped to manage, and I relax a fraction.
