He looks over, eyebrow quirked. “You asked me that same question a long time ago.”
I nod, remembering. “And you said yes.”
He looks out at the view, sighing deeply. He’s quiet for several long moments.
“My senior year of college was… honestly, it was a hellscape.” He clears his throat, rubs at the back of his neck. “You were gone and—and I was still recovering from surgery. I tried practicing with the team, but we all quickly realized I couldn’t play. I still can’t even move that arm in a full circle without my shoulder spasming.”
I remember watching for him in the few televised games that season, feeling pang after pang of disappointment that I never caught sight of him. It was a horrible season with a tragic team record. Liam wasn’t just a great pitcher; he had the highest runs from the prior season too.
“I was… clinically depressed. My grades were mediocre. I’d picked marketing as a major, but I didn’t give a fuck about marketing. I ostracized myself from the guys. Tried to sleep around, hated it.” He shakes his head. “I was definitelynothappy.”
A tear springs into the corner of my eye, and for only about the millionth time, I wonder how we could’ve handled it better.
We were both so young. Still are.
Liam swipes at a tear on his own cheek, avoiding my eyes. “And I found out—I fucking found out that my mom used my sister’s wedding fund to pay for my surgery, and”—he closes his eyes, tilts his head toward the sky—“we’d already been distant, my family and me. Ever since my dad died. But after I sucked up all that money—when I was the one who was supposed to be earning it—the distance grew over like a scab and now it just…is. It just is. They’re in Savannah. They have new family units. Children and husbands and houses. And I’m here, and Dad is nowhere, and it just is.”
I push my forehead against his shoulder, trying not to cry. It feels inappropriate when I’m part of the reason he was so miserable.
I didn’t cause his injury, and I don’t think I could have prevented his estrangement from his family. But I probably could’ve made it all way less shitty if only I hadn’t forced our estrangement too.
“I’m so sorry, Liam. I’m so, so sorry.”
He looks at me longingly, then picks me up underneath my knees and deposits me between his. My back rests against his chest and his arms wrap around me. We look out at the view together, and I wonder if he did this so I can’t look at his wet eyes anymore.
“I know it’s not like this for some people,” he says, voice shaky. “But for me… I went my whole life thinkingthis is it. This is the thing.Ever since I was a kid, I knew it was going to be baseball. Not even necessarily because I was the best—even though Iwasgood—but because it just felt so right. In my bones. I would have been a player, I would have been a coach, a manager, a scout, anything. But those jobs are hard to come by, and when I graduated, I still had nothing. Nothing,” he says again.
“I couldn’t bear going home and facing my family without a job lined up, especially after Kayla’s fiancé had drunkenly rage texted me about the wedding funds. So instead, I drove to Nashville that May with a few of the guys who were heading there for a concert. I had this insane idea”—he laughs tersely—“that I was going to bump into you there. Which didn’t happen. But at that concert, they were advertising the need for stagehands.”
His thumbs coast over my outer thighs. “I remembered what you said to me about finding a way to work at concerts. And even though you weren’t there that night, youwere, Paige. I went back the next morning and got the job on the spot.”
He’s quiet, so I say, “And the rest is history?”
Liam nods, rocking both of our heads. “I figured it out. How to be happy. But first, I had to unlearn the one falsehood I’d always lived by.”
My voice is soft. “What was it?”
He pauses. “That there’s only one life path for each person. But that’s not true. There are hundreds, maybe thousands. I could’ve not gotten that stagehand job and found something else. I could’ve applied for a marketing position with the Braves when I saw one open, but I’d just gotten a promotion with Live Nation, so I didn’t. I could’ve never gotten reinjured and still not have been drafted. I could have an off-season job and be a minor-league player. There’s no right answer, and that’s just life, isn’t it?”
“Very philosophical of you,” I say.
Liam laughs, his throat clearer now. “Anyway. I’m okay, and not at all mad at my life, and there are still things I’m working on, but I’m in a much better place.”
I clear my own throat. “I know it isn’t the same. But that year was hard for me too. I thought of you, missed you, all the time.”
“Retrospectively,” Liam says, “I amsoglad you were far away from me then. I was letting my grief compound and hit me from all sides in the most destructive manner possible. And the scary part is, I think that still would’ve been the case if you’d stayed in Knoxville or in my life at all. The one bright spot I had was thinking about you at Belmont. But I’m sorry to hear it was hard for you too.”
Liam’s grip on me tightens. I feel his heart thumping into my back.
“It was the scariest, most challenging thing I’ve ever done,” I whisper, my voice beginning to shake again. And yes, it’s easier to cry when he’s not looking. “Even reading a syllabus almost sent me into a panic attack. There was so much group participation involved. Feedback loops. Collaboration. Cowriting. I would wake up at least once a month and be absolutely certain that was the day I was going to drop out.”
I stall, and eventually Liam says, “But then?”
A breath shudders out of me. “But then I would put one footin front of the other. And march myself to class. I’d white-knuckle it through performances, stomach the critique, build castles out of the praise. I studied the curriculum. I worked so fucking hard. And I just kept doing that over and over until it got easier.”
His nose catches behind my ear. “Would it piss you off if I told you I’m so proud of you?”
I shake my head, my earlobe grazing across his cheek. “No. I wanted you to be proud of me. It’s part of what kept me going back.”
