“That’s because I didn’t tell you,” he says.
“Why not?”
He shrugs and looks back out across the water. He’s having trouble meeting my gaze while we’re talking about this, and I realize it’s because it’s hard for him. “Embarrassed, I guess.”
“Why? Lots of people see therapists.”
“I don’t know. It just seems like kind of a weird thing to do. I’m a grown man, I shouldn’t be seeing a therapist.”
I grin. “It’s not weird. And don’t worry, you’re not a grown man.”
He laughs and turns back to the game, putting an O in one of the top squares. His O isn’t closed at the top, and something about it seems almost metaphorical.
“So, um, why are you seeing a therapist?”
“Just, you know, stuff with my dad.”
I take the stick and draw another X. “Is he going with you?”
“What do you think?”
I nod. There’s no way Liam’s dad is going with him to therapy. Liam doesn’t talk about his dad much—his parents divorced when he was thirteen, and I think Liam feels abandoned by him, even though from what he’s told me, he was better off with his dad out of the house. His dad never hit him—at least, not that Liam told me—but he was extremely verbally abusive to both him and his mom.
Liam still has a relationship with his dad, though—he sees him every other weekend. His dad doesn’t care about things like Liam’s music, or the fact that Liam was all-state in lacrosse without even really trying. Mr. Marsh thinks all that stuff is a waste of time. He’s always trying to take Liam hunting or sailing, things Liam has no interest in.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask carefully.
Liam takes the stick and draws an O in the middle left square on our board, winning the game. He draws a line down over the Os, signifying his win, then scratches out another empty board and hands me the stick.
“I’m just struggling a little,” he says. “It’s nothing horrible or anything. It’s just all the normal conflicted feelings. Like how can I still want to please him when he’s been nothing but an asshole to me? And how come I feel guilty if I don’t want to see him, like it’s my fault and I’m not being a good son?”
“Probably because he lays a guilt trip on you.” The one time I ever met Liam’s dad, he showed up at one of Liam’s lacrosse games at the beginning of the second half and expected Liam to leave with him. When Liam said no, that he had plans with the rest of the team to go to lunch afterward, his dad called him an ungrateful little punk and stomped off the field. Everyone heard it, and it was really embarrassing for Liam.
“Yeah. And I know that. So then why do I care?”
“Because he’s your dad.”
“Still.”
“Yeah.” I think about it while I draw a soft, smooth X into the middle square. “I guess that’s what Annabelle is going to help you figure out.”
“Yup.” He sighs. “Anyway. So that’s who Annabelle is.”
“Well, I’m glad you told me.”
“Really?” he asks. “You’re not mad that I’ve been keeping it a secret?”
I shake my head. “Sometimes it’s okay to keep things to yourself until you figure out how you feel about them.”
“Thanks.” He draws another O on the board, the same kind that’s not closed on top, but he doesn’t seem to be paying attention to the game anymore. So when he hands the stick back to me, I set it down on the sand. The tide is moving farther out, and the waves aren’t hitting my toes now, so I scooch a little farther down the sand to get my feet back into the water.
Liam abandons our game and comes to sit next to me. There’s a boat out in the distance, with someone parasailing off the back, and we sit there watching for a while as the red-and-white-striped parachute flutters through the air and the sunlight glints off the ocean, making the water look almost silver.
“You okay?” I ask after a second. “You’re being quiet.”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” But he doesn’t sound fine. He’s back in that same position again, his hand on his chin, his thumb moving over his lower lip, back and forth, back and forth.
“Are you sure? Are you upset because Izzy went through your phone?”
“No. I mean, yeah, I’m upset about that. It wasn’t right for her to do it, but she . . . I don’t want to make excuses for her, but part of me can’t really blame her. I haven’t been myself around her lately, and so it’s only natural she would go looking for reasons.”
“Was it because of Annabelle?” I ask. “That you were being weird around Izzy?” Although now that I’m thinking about it, that really wouldn’t make any sense. Why would the fact that Liam was seeing a therapist make him act weird around Izzy? Unless for some reason he was bringing up his relationship with Izzy in therapy, and something Annabelle said made him feel strange about him and Izzy. But Liam said he was in therapy because of his dad. So why would he be talking to Annabelle about Izzy?
“No, it’s not because of Annabelle.” He shakes his head, and then very slowly, he turns toward me. His eyes lock onto mine, and there’s something in them I’ve never seen before. Confusion. Not that I’ve never seen Liam look confused before—when he’s working on a new song, when I’m trying to explain to him why I like a certain book, that way, when we get a new set of problems in precalc—but this confusion is different. It’s . . . I don’t know. Deeper is the only way I can describe it.
A little thrill skitters up my spine.
“Then why?” I ask.
“Don’t you think it’s weird that I’m here talking to you?”
I frown. “Is this one of those existential questions?” Every so often Liam will bust out with some crazy life riddle, like how it’s impossible for God to exist, because if God’s omnipotent, then he should be able to create something more powerful than himself, which actually wouldn’t make him omnipotent after all. He usually gets me all caught up in debating him, and we can sometimes end up talking about the same thing for hours.
“No.” He shakes his head, and his gaze is still locked onto mine. “I mean don’t you think it’s weird that I’m here talking to you and not Izzy?”
I shrug. “Not really. I mean, you and Izzy are in a fight.” And you broke up. Except I don’t say that last part out loud, because I don’t want to hear him say they haven’t. Especially now that I know Annabelle’s not some vixen-y mistress.
“Right. So wouldn’t it have made more sense for me to go to Izzy’s room and wait for her? So we could talk, so I could explain things to her?”
“Maybe you just needed some time to think about what you wanted to tell her,” I say, my pulse pounding. But my voice sounds small, like I’m talking from far away.
“I didn’t. When I left that table, I wanted to get back to the hotel so I could see you, so I could explain things to you. I didn’t want you to think I was a cheater or a liar.”
“We’re best friends. It makes sense.” My voice still has that faraway quality to it, and now on top of that, I can hear the sound of my own heart beating, the blood rushing through my body. I feel like something is happening, something out of my control. It’s like someone’s been slowly moving tiny little rocks away from a huge boulder and now finally, the boulder is starting to tumble down the mountain and there’s no way to stop it.
“It makes sense that I would get into a huge fight with my girlfriend, and all I would be able to think about is how I didn’t want you to think I was a liar?” Liam asks softly.
Before graduation, I will . . . tell the truth.
He’s looking right at me.
He’s looking right at me, and the waves are coming in and we’re in this beautiful place, on a beach for God’s sakes, and it’s just me and him and I remember how it felt just a minute ago when we were playing tic-tac-toe, passing that stick back and forth, his hand against mine.
This is it.
There’s never going to be a better moment.
Ever.
/>
“Liam,” I say. His name suddenly sounds foreign on my tongue, the way it does when you say a word over and over again until it ends up sounding like nonsense. “Liam,” I try again, but it still sounds weird. I clear my throat.
“Yeah?” he says.
“I need . . .” I was going to say I need to tell you something, but that seems too dramatic, so I start over. “Liam.” I take a deep breath. “I like you.”
That’s what I say. I like you. The moment is perfect and beautiful and I’ve rehearsed it a million times in my mind, how I would say all these amazing things about him and our friendship and how I’ve felt this way for a long time and how I’ve been dying to tell him but I’ve been too afraid. But in the moment, in this amazing perfect beautiful moment, I don’t say any of that. I just say “I like you.”
“You like me?” he says. And it’s in that moment that I hear it in his voice. He’s confused, the way you would be when someone just blurts something out like that. But there’s something else, just a tiny little twinge of something, something I wouldn’t have probably even noticed except for the fact that I know him so well. Panic.
Which makes me feel panicked. Suddenly, I want to take it back. I want to blow it off and tell him I mean as a friend, of course, that even though he’s been seeing a therapist, that I still like him, that nothing’s changed, that we’re still best friends. But it’s too late. He knows me just as well as I know him. He would realize exactly what I was doing.
“Yes,” I say, and my voice sounds surprisingly firm. “I like you. As more than a friend. I have for a while, actually.” The words are tumbling out, and I force myself to keep talking, because I can feel the moment subtly shifting from amazing and perfect and beautiful to awkward and horrible and filled with regret. “And obviously this doesn’t have to change anything, you know, between us, we can still, ah, be friends and everything. It’s not like I’m going to be weird around you now. It’s just that you shared something with me that you hadn’t wanted to talk about, and so I felt like I had to share something with you. Well, not had to share it, I mean, I wanted to share it, so—”
“Aven,” he says, cutting me off. And now there’s something else in his voice. Something even worse than panic. Sympathy. “I’m . . . I mean, I’m really flattered you would say that. And I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong idea just now, talking about how I came to your hotel room instead of Izzy’s.”
“You didn’t,” I say, but it’s a lie. Of course he gave me the wrong idea by saying that he came to my room instead of Izzy’s! Why would Liam bring that up unless he was trying to let me know he likes me better than her? And if he likes me better than her, shouldn’t that mean he likes me as more than a friend? Since Izzy was (is?) his girlfriend?
“What I meant was that it’s pretty telling that I didn’t want to talk to Izzy at all, that maybe it meant things with her really have run their course.”
“Well, obviously, since you just broke up with her,” I say, irritated.
He shakes his head and goes to reach for my hand. “Aven . . .”
But I don’t want to hear it. I know what he’s going to say. That he cares about me so much, that this doesn’t change anything, that we can still be as close as we always have been. He’ll say all those things, and maybe we will still hang out and talk just as much, but things will be different.
They just will.
Our friendship is completely and totally changed now—every time he flirts with a girl, every time he hooks up with someone, he’s going to be worried about my reaction. Every time something totally innocent happens like those crab fights on the beach, he’ll be wondering if he’s giving me the wrong idea or sending mixed messages. He’ll always be worried about how I feel.
And the thing is, he’s right to be.
I don’t want to be around when he meets some new girl, one he likes better than Izzy, one who wants to read the same books as him and listen to his music and stay up all night talking, one who connects with him in the same way I do. I don’t want to have to see the way he’ll inevitably look at me whenever he’s around that girl, with a mix of pity and sympathy.
I should have never told him.
I was building up this big reveal in my head, imagining what would happen after I told him the truth, but really, the moment is what I was holding on to. I needed that moment, needed the possibility of it being amazing and perfect the way I wanted it to be. I built it up so much that as soon as we were out here, and there was sun and palm trees and ocean and hands brushing, I thought that meant something.
But the truth is, if you like someone, and that person likes you back, you don’t need some big moment. It just happens.
And I’m mad at myself for not realizing that before I went and ruined everything.
And I’m mad at Liam for trying to pretend everything can just go back to being the same.
I stand up and brush the sand off my shorts.
“Where are you going?” Liam asks. “We need to talk about this.”
“No, we don’t. It’s fine. Remember? You said nothing had to change.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Then why do we have to talk about it?” I glance over my shoulder down the beach, like I’m looking for someone or on my way somewhere, like suddenly I have places to be. I’m trying to be nonchalant, but of course it’s not going to work. Liam knows me way too well for that.
“Aven,” Liam says. “We should talk about it. I think you—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say. “I’ve done enough talking about it.”
“We haven’t even talked about it for one second!”
“What’s the point?” I say bitterly. “So you can say more bullshit things to me about how nothing’s going to change, how everything can be exactly the way it’s always been?”
“That’s not bullshit.” He stands up and goes to put his arms around me, but I push him away.
“Don’t,” I say. “Just . . . please . . . don’t.”
“Okay.” He seems a little shocked by my reaction, and he holds his hands up in surrender. “But please, Aven, don’t leave. You’re crying.”
I realize he’s right. I’m crying. I don’t know when I started, but I am. Tears have filled my eyes, and a salty trail is sliding down one of my cheeks.
I don’t want him to see me crying.
I don’t want him to know I like him.
But it’s too late.
I turn around and run.
NINE
BY THE TIME I GET BACK TO MY HOTEL ROOM, my whole body is shaking with sobs. I can’t stop. I’ve cried over Liam before—in ninth grade when he asked Kendri Robb to the freshman dance, when it became obvious he was getting serious with Izzy, when he wrote this really amazing song that was so powerful I couldn’t help but be moved to tears—but it was nothing like this.
This is real crying.
The kind of crying that leaves you feeling tired and headachy, the kind of crying you can’t stop or hide, the kind of crying you only do when it’s caused by something real, not just your ego or a temporary hurt. This kind of crying means you risked something, you took a chance and lost something important, something you have no chance of getting back.
But even this kind of crying has to end, and after half an hour or so, I don’t have any tears left. There’s a headache brewing at the back of my eyes, pricking me and threatening to turn into something major.
I go into the bathroom and spot Quinn’s travel bag sitting on the sink. I paw through it until I find a tiny bottle of Advil near the bottom. I pound two pills, and then catch sight of my reflection in the mirror. I look crazed. My eyes are puffy and bloodshot, my face is splotchy, and my hair is stringy. Why would my hair be stringy from crying?
I splash water on my face and try to figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do now. This vacation has been a total disaster. I haven’t even gotten to do one fun thing. No boat rides. No parasailing. No bonfires on the beach. T
he one time I got to swim in the ocean was because someone knocked me into the water during a crab fight.
I think about taking a shower, but the whole thing just seems like way too much effort. So instead I throw myself back down on my bed and pull the covers over my head. Maybe I’ll just stay here all day. Why not? I have nowhere to be and nothing to do.
I’ll just sleep. I wish I had some of those Xanax pills everyone’s always taking to help them relax. I think those two friends of Quinn’s, Celia and Paige, have a hookup. Maybe I should ask them for a couple of pills. Why not? I deserve to be able to relax a little.
I squeeze my eyes shut and will myself to sleep.
After about ten minutes of tossing and turning, there’s a knock on the door.
Liam.
It has to be.
He’s come to see if I’m okay, if I’m so heartbroken over him that I’m lying in bed crying. Ha! I mean, I am. But there’s no way I’m going to let him know that.
“Go away!” I yell without moving the covers off my head. I’m not sure if the person outside can hear me, but they knock again.
And then, a female voice. “Aven? Are you in there?”
Oh.
It’s Izzy. Great. Just great. I really do not want to talk to her. What if she asks why my face looks like a swollen tomato? I realize I should have just pretended I wasn’t here. But now I’ve answered her, and so she knows I’m in the room. Ugh. I can’t even hide from my friends right.
Whatever.
I get out of bed and head over to the door.
I fling it open.
“Wow,” Izzy says when she sees me. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Allergies.”
“Allergies?” She frowns. “You don’t have allergies.”
“Yes, I do. To the Gulf Coast air.”
“The Gulf Coast air?”
“Yeah. You know, the red tide? It’s kicking up, and it got my nasal passages inflamed.” We learned all about red tide a few months ago, as part of our “senior experience” class on the biosphere of the Gulf Coast. It was the school’s way of making at least something about this trip educational. There was a big kerfuffle at the beginning of the year between a bunch of parents—half of them wanted our trip to have mandatory activities, like trips to the historical society and ocean walks followed by written reports. And the other group wanted it to be purely recreational, since we’d all worked so hard for the past four years.