Considering I had made no progress whatsoever on the screenplay, I’d decided to make the most of the four months left on the lease of my apartment in Rome and then make it back to the States in time for Christmas. But in early December, another phone call from Fi led to another change of plans. Actually, it led to a change of everything.
Greetings. Small talk. Comfortable rhythms. A lifetime of inside jokes.
It was all wonderfully normal for a few minutes, and then she said, “Hey, can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“What do you think of Liam?”
The question seemed so absurd and impossible to answer at long-distance rates that at first I didn’t know what to do except make jokes. “Liam who? Gallagher? Yeah, I don’t know . . . Oasis is okay, but I honestly don’t know which one is Liam and which one is Noel.”
She chuckled. “I’m serious, Liv.”
Our first transcontinental phone call had run so long that we’d both vowed to give up coffee for a month to help pay for it. (I failed spectacularly, but I was in Italy and I’m only human.) We had spoken on Skype a few times since then, but never about Liam, apart from the initial confirmation that he was, indeed, still checking on my apartment. When he saw the international number on the caller ID, he’d picked it up. When I hung up, he’d taken a chance that Fiona still had the same cell phone number I’d once given to him as an emergency contact. Within about three minutes, he had gotten in touch with Fi, she had gotten in touch with Brandon, and my phone had rung in Italy for the first time. Apart from that explanation, there had been no other mention of Liam—and for that, my still confused heart was grateful.
“You know what I think about Liam.” Who was I kidding? Even I didn’t know what I thought about Liam. “He’s a fantastic guy. Brilliant, kind, funny . . .” My voice trailed off, but the echo of regret filled the silence.
“He is funny, isn’t he?” Fi asked. “I sure didn’t think so when I first met him.”
I swallowed down the bitter taste forming in the back of my throat. “Oh, so . . . you’ve talked to him? Recently, I mean? I mean, since you’ve been back or . . .”
“Well, you know he called me when you called your apartment . . .”
“Yeah . . .”
“Obviously we only talked for a few seconds then. But, well, he’d asked me to call him after I talked to you. He just wanted to make sure you were okay, I think. So I did. And then, yeah . . . We’ve talked some since then.”
I had no idea what I was feeling. It was sort of like I was experiencing all the emotions. Every last one of them. I was worried about what either one of them might have revealed about me to the other; I was jealous that Fi had gotten to talk to Liam, and jealous that Liam had gotten to talk to Fiona without having to even pretend to drink less cappuccino for a month; I was tickled pink that they’d managed to carry on a conversation with each other, as they never had when Liam and I were dating; I missed them both so much.
“That’s great, Fi. I’m glad you two were able to connect a little. The truth is I didn’t exactly leave in the best way. With Liam, I mean. I think it’s good that—”
“Yeah, Livi, he told me.” I heard her take a deep breath.
I hadn’t called him before I left. I hadn’t taken him up on his offer to help me pack. I hadn’t asked him if he would give me a ride to the airport. I hadn’t even met him for dinner on Monday evening the night before I was supposed to leave, despite the fact that I hadn’t missed a Monday dinner with Liam in months. By Monday I was already gone, having given in to my desire to be a complete coward. I left a day early, just because I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing that despair in his eyes again. Especially once I understood what caused it.
I didn’t think about what came next. I couldn’t allow myself to, I guess. I just left. I figured he’d still water my plants for a while out of a sense of responsibility and obligation, and then after a few weeks, he’d stop. I figured he’d try to call my parents to get in touch with me, but they were under strict orders to (1) not give Liam my contact information, and (2) get in touch with me the instant he called. Then I would decide what to do. By then, maybe I would be ready to stop being a coward.
Liam never called. But why would he? Apparently he’d had Fiona to talk to.
“Oh. He did?” The sunlight reflecting off of the white walls of my little apartment was blinding all of a sudden. I closed the shutters and welcomed the return of the darkness. “Look, I’m not proud of the way I handled any of that, but I was in a bad place. I’m sure he told you all about the breakup with Malcolm—”
“No, he didn’t,” she interjected. “Not much, anyway. Just that the two of you were planning to go to Italy together, and then he let you keep the trip when you broke up—but you told me that much the first time we talked.”
“Look, it’s fine if he told you what a mess I was. I get it. I’m going to tell you the whole story eventually anyway. I just kind of lost control—because of Malcolm, I mean.”
“He didn’t tell me anything about that, Liv. Honestly. He said it wasn’t his story to tell.”
“But the way I left . . .”
She sighed. “Yeah. Your story overlapped with his there, I guess.”
I lay back on my bed and rested my arm over my eyes to further block out the little bit of sunlight slipping through the wooden slats of the shutters. “Well, I’m glad he was able to talk to you about it. Are you . . . I mean . . . Are you friends now?”
“We are.”
My breath caught in my throat. Her confirmation was so instant. So absolute.
“That’s great.”
“And, well . . . the thing is, Livi . . . I think I really like him.”
Fiona and I had never been interested in the same man. Not once. Well, with the possible exception of Matt Damon. But even then, Fiona loved The Bourne Identity while I was more of a Talented Mr. Ripley kinda gal. Those two Matt Damons do not count as the same man.
“You . . . you like Liam? As a friend, you mean? Or, like . . . as more than a friend?”
Having never been interested in the same man, or even the same boy, I suppose we had been able to skip over this sort of conversation in junior high and ever since. It felt awfully out of place in our thirties.
For the first time I noticed the slight tremble in her rambling voice. “I think as more than a friend. But that’s why I called. I mean, nothing’s happened. Nothing. We’ve just become friends, and that’s all it ever has to be. I just . . . I guess I just wanted to see what you think. And, obviously, nothing has to happen, Livi. I know this is weird, even thinking about going out with your ex. But, I mean, you guys broke up, what? Like, four years ago? But I also know you got closer while I was gone. If you hadn’t said that you were better as friends . . . I mean, that’s what you said, right? But if it’s just too weird, I completely understand. Seriously. Just say the word, and I won’t give it another thought.”
Fiona and Liam?
Nothing about that idea made sense to me. Nothing at all. Apart from the fact that they were my two favorite people in the whole wide world, and no other woman I had ever met was good enough for Liam, and no other man on the planet could probably ever be good enough for Fiona. He was exactly the type of man I’d always hoped she’d find. She was precisely the amazing kind of woman he deserved. They were both geniuses—though very different brands of geniuses. She would help him relax. He could help keep her grounded. They’d look amazing together—that was undeniable. Their children would be beautiful, perfect little brainiacs with a lot of ambition and a keen fashion sense.
But I was getting ahead of myself. There was one major flaw in the eternal bliss I was mapping out for them—and the Miserable & Heartbroken Spinsters Hall of Fame induction ceremony I was preparing for myself.
“No, of course I wouldn’t mind, Fi. Except I’m not sure if he’s interested in dating right now.”
I hadn’t spoken to him in ten months, so I hope
d she didn’t press my authority on that opinion. Especially since the only authority I could claim was the realization, the last time we talked, that he was still in love with me—and, nearly a year since in Italy, hoping and fearing equally that he loved me still.
Her nervous laughter seemed out of place. But then, didn’t everything? “I think he’s interested. He’s been asking me for weeks, and I’ve been putting him off. I knew I had to talk to you first, but it seemed so complicated, and I didn’t even think it was worth it. But then . . . I just got off the phone with him, Livi. Right before I called you. And . . .”
My arm over my eyes wasn’t enough of a dam to keep the tears contained. “And what, Fi?”
I heard the smile in her voice as she said, “As soon as I hung up, I missed him.”
* * *
Now here I was, two months later—tipsy and afraid. Placing the blame on an unexpected rush of productive creativity, I’d extended my return flight one last time. But now they were just thirty-six gates, a security checkpoint, an escalator, two moving sidewalks, and another escalator away. And I couldn’t handle it.
I looked down at my phone as it rang again, and this time I had consumed enough tequila to forget I wasn’t supposed to answer it.
“Hello?” I answered innocently, having lost track of the fact that I was in hiding.
“Liv, where are you? Are you okay?”
“Hey, Fi Fi. No worries!” I slurred. “I just stopped for a refreshment.”
“Did you just call me Fi Fi?” She paused, and then I heard her take a deep breath before she whispered, “Are you drunk?”
“Yes!” I laughed. “I most certainly am. Are you?”
“Livi, where are you?”
I told her, the best I could, comforted by the knowledge that I was in a sanctuary reserved only for ticketed passengers with their passports. And then we talked for quite a while. She didn’t plead with me to make my way to baggage claim, and she didn’t even ask me what was wrong. In retrospect, I should have known that was weird. But I had just enough alcohol in me to make me think, This is nice.
“Olivia.”
I heard my name from a couple of feet behind me, and I turned around, still not suspecting a thing. And there he was.
“Oh, Liam. Hello,” I said with a calm that could only be attributable to tequila and denial. “Fi, you’ll never guess who’s here.”
“I’ll see you soon, Livi. I love you.” She hung up, and I was left with him. And the calm and the denial—and the tequila—faded a bit too quickly for my taste.
“May I sit down?” he asked as he gestured to the chair across the table from me.
“Hang on. How are you here?”
“Just on my way to—” He paused as he glanced down at the boarding pass in his hands. “Bandaranaike International Airport, apparently.” I didn’t say a word, but I looked at him with questions in my eyes, and he answered my unspoken inquiries. “It was the least expensive international flight of the day.”
“Sorry,” I said softly. “I’ll pay you back.”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“What are the odds you had your passport on you?”
“It was in my briefcase in the car. Fiona made me go get it about forty minutes ago, just in case. I think she was genuinely convinced you were being detained by the Fendi police.”
“Can I get you another one? Or something for you, sir?” Josh, my margarita dealer, appeared beside the table.
“How many have you had?” Liam asked as he sat across from me, having given up on me ever giving him permission.
“Um . . . this next one would be . . . what, Josh? My second?” There had been a brief moment not all that long ago that I’d been convinced Josh and I were going to get married someday. I’m not sure which one of us broke it off.
“The next one would be your fourth,” Josh answered, and I remembered why we ended things. We were never on the same page about anything.
Liam’s eyes flew open but he recovered quickly. He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and handed a credit card to Josh. “I think we’re good. Thanks.”
“Thanks, Josh!” I called out as he walked out of my life for possibly the last time.
A twitch overtook the corners of Liam’s mouth. “His name tag said ‘Kenny.’”
I shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. He lets me call him Josh. It’s fine.”
It was quiet for a long time, and when I finally got up the nerve to look up at him to see why, I wished I hadn’t. The corners of his mouth were still upturned, but his eyes—those breathtakingly complex eyes that seemed to have locked with mine from the moment I raised my head—were sad. I suddenly felt frighteningly and uncomfortably sober. Sadly, sadly sober. (But not so sober as to avoid a brief mental diversion as I convinced myself that if I were ever to form a rock band, I would name it Sadly Sober.)
“I’m sorry I left like that, Liam. Without saying goodbye or anything. I am. I just . . . I just couldn’t deal with it. I didn’t know how to deal with it. And it seemed like the easiest thing to just . . . not deal with it. Sorry.”
“I’m not going to act like I wasn’t hurt. I was. And then I was angry—for quite a while, actually. And then I just got, well, sad. It made me so sad to think that you didn’t have enough faith in our friendship to know that it could withstand you telling me you didn’t feel the same way about me that I felt about you.”
I was so confused, but if he was saying what I thought he was saying, I knew it was time to set the record straight. “Liam—”
“No, let me finish.” He placed his hand on mine, and I felt a shiver down my spine as I realized it was the first time I’d had anything more than incidental physical contact with another human being in a year. Liam had served as the bookends of those cold, desolate twelve months. “You see, one day I got out of bed, and I had this new sense of clarity about it all. If the roles were reversed, what would I have done? I had put you in such an awkward position. There you were, days from the end of a serious relationship, and I made it about us. About me. I wasn’t much of a friend to you in that moment. Everything I said was true—I couldn’t stand the thought of being your rebound, and I couldn’t stand the thought of losing you again. I don’t regret that. But you needed a friend, and instead I added my unresolved feelings for you to the pile you were sorting through. That wasn’t fair to you. If I were you, I might have done the same thing you did.”
“Run away to Italy without so much as a goodbye? Hide for a year? Completely discard one of the most important relationships, one of the most important people—” No. I refused to cry. I choked it all down and wished for a do-over. Somehow I just needed a do-over. “You never would have done what I did,” I said softly. “You’re better than that.”
“No, I’m not better than that. I’m probably just not spontaneous enough for that.” He laughed sadly. “I did let your plants die, though. During the angry period.”
Everything in me wanted to tell him how wonderful he was. How sorry I was—not just for going to Italy the way I did or for letting a year pass without a peep, but for everything. For not being a better friend. For not being a better girlfriend. For not seeing how much he loved me when I was his. For not realizing how lucky I was when he was mine. And I almost—almost—had enough tequila in me to say it all. But he wasn’t mine anymore. He was Fiona’s.
We sat there in silence for several seconds. His hand had broken away from mine, and my eyes had broken away from his—it was too painful—and now I stared only at the melting ice of my mango margarita.
“I’m glad you have Fiona.”
“Olivia,” he began. “When Fiona came back, we bonded over—”
“Over me, and your mutual sense of abandonment,” I said with a bitter laugh, adding only slight embellishment to the truth, I figured. “I get it, Liam. Really. I’m happy for you both.”
Alcohol still coursing through my veins, I began weighing my options. As if I hadn’t o
bsessed over every single ounce of option since December. I’d even weighed it all in milligrams while in Rome, just to make sure the metric system didn’t reveal a better solution. I could either pretend I was over him, pretend I hadn’t spent the last year thinking of nothing but him and what an idiot I’d been, and maybe—just maybe—I could keep him in my life. Or I could lay it all on the line right now and tell him how I felt. Tell him that letting him get away was the biggest mistake I’d ever made. And then I could see if he would choose me. If he didn’t, I’d never be comfortable in his presence again, of course. And whether he chose me or not, I’d undoubtedly lose Fi, once and for all.
Unless, of course, she was so impressed with me for acting like a leading lady for the first time in my life that her pride outweighed the betrayal. I’d been watching Grey’s Anatomy, if for no other reason than to spot Fiona’s name in the end credits each week, and the show had taught me a thing or two about great dramatic “Pick me!” monologues. I mean, if I pulled it off, that would have to earn me some forgiveness points, right?
Except he wouldn’t pick you. And you’ll have lost them both for no reason whatsoever.
That was the problem. There was absolutely no precedence for a Joan Cusack begging a man to choose her and him responding by sweeping her into his arms and declaring his eternal devotion to her.
“Olivia, I can’t believe . . . I mean, you know I’m not usually the type to get caught up . . .”
I looked up at him and saw that he was fidgeting nervously—running his hands through his hair, squirming in his seat, biting his lip.
Hang on! Was he going to deliver the speech?
“What? Caught up in what?”
Plot Twist Page 7
