by Dani Irons
So I bought some condoms and headed over to his house. He let me in. We had decent sex, but he seemed tired and put out, then asked me to leave again. “I don’t want to leave you until we fix this,” I told him.
He pulled away from me on the bed. “There’s nothing to fix. We’re fine,” he said. “I just need you to leave.”
I let a single tear fall down my face and onto James’ sheet that used to smell of his Axe body wash and now smelled like B.O. “We’re not fine. And I love you. Let’s fix this.”
I could see in his eyes that he was withdrawing from me, like he’d built a steel cage around his heart. I couldn’t find a way in. “Please,” he said, exasperated. “Please just leave.”
So I left.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Now
Wyatt and Chloe are standing outside by Wyatt’s truck when I walk out of my house, car key, ID and a cute sundress on my person. Wyatt sports a hesitant smile and Chloe a sympathetic frown. Their expressions make me feel like I’m suffering from leprosy or something.
When Wyatt came back into his room yesterday, we were all business. There were no more accidental touches. No more almost-kisses. If anything, he was professional—a colleague—and I wondered why this had to be so awkward. I was the one who was about to make the first move. He’s my boyfriend. I’m his girlfriend. We’d had claims on each other for five years. If anything, he should have been all over me. I should’ve been fighting him off with a stick.
We registered a website creatively called Christakos Creatives and made a plan to go downtown in a couple of days to take pictures of some of the work the company has done. We agreed having tons of visuals would up business. Then we talked about my memory some more and if I thought I’d ever get it back. “I think I need to go to L.A. soon,” I’d told him, “to see if that helps.”
Then he said he’d take me, and Chloe could come with if I wanted. I did, if only to be a buffer for the tension between Wyatt and me.
“Did your mom give you a hard time about the trip?” Chloe asks. She’s in a cute turquoise skirt and white high-necked tank top with ruffles at her throat.
“Hard time? That’s an understatement,” I say. “She kept me up late, asking about my feelings and if I’m going to be safe. I’m still not sure if she meant the drive or with Wyatt.” I laugh, but I also feel the heat of a blush on my face.
“It’s weird she’s so overprotective now,” Chloe says. “She didn’t used to be. In high school, both your mom and dad gave you a long leash.”
“Really?” I say, laughing. “I would have loved to see that.”
“The change is probably because of your accident,” Wyatt points out. “Maybe she feels guilty.”
And now so do I. Even though I’m an adult and shouldn’t care if my mother is worried about me leaving town with my friends, I feel bad that she could ever feel guilty over something that was completely out of her control. I’m still unsure of how I acted before my accident—even though I keep getting the vibe I was a brat—but I can make the decision to be, if anything, a nicer person in general.
We pile into Wyatt’s truck. There’s very little room. I have to straddle the gearshift and there’s no way to avoid Wyatt’s touch. His right side and my left side are squished together and he has to rest his right arm over my leg to change gears. My broken arm doesn’t make things any better, but Wyatt’s careful not to bump it.
“Did you tell your parents about the website yet?” he asks. “I was filling Chloe in and she kind of agrees it was a bad idea.”
“No. I figured me leaving was enough of a stressor for them. I wouldn’t want to drop the bomb of the website and leave them to figure it out by themselves.”
“Makes sense.” Wyatt switches gears and brings his arm back to his lap. “Would you like me to be with you when you tell them? Maybe I can show them how stuff works? Or you could blame the whole thing on me. Tell them I forced the idea on you.”
“Not like they would believe you.” Chloe says. “No one can force Liv to do anything she doesn’t want to.”
They both laugh and I can’t ignore the fact that they are sharing an inside joke at my expense. I smile it off, though, staring through the windshield for the rest of the trip.
When we pull out on Highway 101, I make Wyatt and Chloe tell me stories about when we were all younger, but I stop them after only a couple because it’s more of the same: I acted spoiled, mean and better than everyone else. Especially toward Wyatt. I wish Old Liv wasn’t so hard for me to like.
We stop in Oxnard—which is about halfway between L.A. and Santa Barbara—at a convenience store for gas. When we take off again and Wyatt tries to pull his hand away after changing gears, I grab it. I have so much to make up to him. I can start by showing him that I’m beginning to have feelings. My chest tightens and all the butterflies that have sprung from their cocoons in my stomach fly up to my throat.
He gives me a sideways glance and a smile and then squeezes my bare knee. I’m glad I made the choice to wear a sundress today. His touch feels amazing, natural. When he doesn’t move his hand until we stop again, I feel victorious.
Before we arrive in the actual city of Los Angeles, we’re hit with a gorgeous view of the skyscrapers against a powder blue sky. When Wyatt takes the exit, he has trouble navigating, but Chloe helps him stay in the correct lane, take the right turns, all while I’m quiet and observant.
I expected to feel overwhelmed by being in L.A. again, but I don’t. I’m more in awe. The place is huge, but it doesn’t have that sterile, inhuman feel I figured a big city would have. Tons of people clog the streets, a lot of them in suits. The traffic is bumper to bumper and it’s visibly stressing Wyatt out. I place my hand on his knee and that seems to help. He doesn’t take his eyes off the road, though. “You okay?” I ask. “Want Chloe to drive?”
“I’m fine,” he says. “I just kind of hate this place.”
“I wonder what the population is here,” I say, estimating how many people could be in each of the towering buildings to me right and left.
Chloe answers. “I think it’s a few million.”
“Whoa. Santa Barbara is a rural country town compared to this,” I say. There must be a building for every person in L.A.’s population. Well, probably not, but that’s how it seems.
It takes twenty minutes to get downtown, circle around to find the right block and park. We all sit in silence while Wyatt takes a moment to consume deep breaths.
“Maybe Chloe should have driven,” I say.
Wyatt slowly nods.
“Well, now what?”
“You sure you want to do this?” Chloe asks me, turning in her seat so she can see my expression.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m fine. I doubt it’ll be as bad as everyone is making it out to be. Whatever emotions I have about the accident are gone with my memory.”
Chloe gives me that sympathetic frown again.
We get out of the truck and I take it all in. We’re in a “downtown” type of neighborhood on a busy street. Most of it looks like a normal business strip, except for the bright pink building on my left and the bright blue building to my right.
“Is this it?” I ask.
Chloe links elbows with me and tugs me to the side of the pink building. “This is Pink Dollars,” she says with large eyes. “And that,” she points to a spot in the middle of the road, “is where you were hit.”
I see no evidence that something even happened here. I’m not sure what I expected—it’s not like I thought there’d be chunks of my skin in the street or anything, but I don’t know. I pictured it differently. But it looks normal. Unfazed. Life for everyone else had to keep going, so it did.
We walk around—me, checking the sidewalks and ditches for cell phones, even though I don’t expect to find mine here.
Mom tried to call it with no luck. It went straight to voicemail. Wyatt and Chloe follow behind, whispering. Them talking without letting me in on their conversation is pecking at my nerves.
I figured I would feel one of two emotions when I finally saw my near-death scene. Either I would feel some kind of sadness or I would feel nothing at all. But that isn’t the sentiment that flows through me. I feel ripped off, like everyone should be driving around this exact spot in respect. That my near death should be memorialized with a plaque or statue or something. I mean, I don’t really feel this way. Of course I don’t deserve that kind of recognition. I was just some drunk girl.
“What’s wrong?” Wyatt asks, coming up behind me. I only realize that I’m staring out to the street, watching car after car pass by, with what must be a frozen look of bewilderment on my face.
“Nothing. I just...” I point to the club. “I want to go inside here.”
Wyatt takes a few steps back toward the front door. He pulls at the handle. “Closed.” He peers down at the times written in white stickers on the door. “It’ll open at seven.”
“What time is it now?” Chloe asks, even though she’s pulling out her phone to look.
“1:42,” Wyatt says, looking at his own phone. “What do you want to do until then?” he asks me.
“I’m sure we can find something to do,” I say.
“Like what?” Chloe asks.
My body speaks for me. My ribs and arm ache. I haven’t gotten this much exercise since...well, I have no idea. But I hurt. “Would it be weird to get a hotel? I might need to lay down a while. And then maybe we could go out to eat after.”
Chloe smirks and Wyatt looks horrified. At least, that’s what I think his wide eyes and open mouth mean.
“Um...I guess that would be weird,” I say. “Maybe we could go to a restaurant or something and get a booth and—”
“No,” Wyatt interrupts. “No. That wouldn’t be weird at all. We should do that. If you want to do that, we should. Yes. Whatever you need.”
Maybe horrified was the wrong word. Now he looks, I don’t know...eager. The butterflies claw through my skin and burst out of my every pore.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Freshman Year at UCLA
James avoided my stare in Math 101. After the night that I’d slept with him and he kicked me out, I called him at least once a night until last week, when I was too busy moving into my dorm, getting books, figuring out financial aid and wondering if my meal plan was going to be enough food. I’d simply either forgotten or been too tired to call him. Or maybe it was something else: that I was ready to accept the fact that I should start letting him go.
But looking at him in math destroyed me. It felt like someone stabbed me in the gut with a rusty blade. I gripped my brand new pencil too tightly and it broke. He belongs to me, I thought, so why can’t I have him?
He wore a tight, blue T-shirt with the Superman symbol on the front and his hair was cut short so that you couldn’t see his waves. It broke my heart seeing this, like his hair had been amputated. I bit down on the eraser of my broken pencil, trying to concentrate on the professor. He kept babbling about expectations and absences and I couldn’t focus on something so trivial when the man I loved was just a few rows away. Ignoring me. I wanted to walk over and grab his arm. Lead him out of class and force him to talk to me.
Maybe he just wanted freedom in college. Maybe he didn’t love me anymore. All I could think about was how we used to be inseparable. We rarely did anything unless we were doing it together. He’d had my heart since elementary school and, according to him, I’d had his since the sixth-grade dance. How could he let all of that go? How could he act like none of that meant anything to him now? Without him, I didn’t make sense. We’d always been a team. If I didn’t get him back, all of that time and heartbreak was for nothing. A fist squeezed at my heart as I turned my gaze to the opposite wall.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Now
We get a room with two beds in case we want to stay the night, and I figure I’ll share a bed with Chloe. I don’t voice this because I can’t see myself sharing a bed with a boy who I don’t remember even kissing. Even if I am beginning to have feelings. It wouldn’t be horrible or anything, just awkward. No way would I be able to sleep.
When we get settled into the room, I lie down on one of the beds and my sore body thanks me. I’m not exactly sleepy, but the fact that my body relaxes so much into the mattress makes me yawn.
Wyatt fiddles with the coffee maker, the air conditioner, the TV, the iron, and then goes into the bathroom and turns on the hair dryer. Chloe stands awkwardly between the two beds, hugging herself. I want to tell her to sit down, to relax, but I wouldn’t mind if both of them decided to go get lunch while I rested. “Do you know a good place to get some food?” I ask Chloe, hinting. “I’m pretty hungry. Maybe you two could—”
“Yes!” she says, too loudly for the room. She winks at me. “I will go and do that. I will find a great place for food and I’ll come back in, what...two hours?”
I narrow my eyes and sit up. “What?”
“Yes, yes, that’s a great idea. I’ll be right back. Well, not right back. But back soon. Expediently. You know, later rather than sooner.” She lowers her voice to a whisper only I can hear. She points at her wrist. “Two hours okay? Is it enough?”
“What—?”
But then Wyatt’s finished inspecting the bathroom.
She nods. “Okay, then. See ya!” And she’s out the door before I can put up a fight.
Wyatt and I look at each other. Look away. We look at each other again. I giggle and can’t stop. It’s not like we haven’t been alone before, but something about Chloe leaving us alone in a hotel room two hours away from home is awkwardly hilarious. It’s weird that I wanted him to leave just seconds before so I could get some rest, but now my body is on high alert and vibrating with energy.
I’m so nervous I can’t look at him for too long but, simultaneously, want to keep looking at him. To keep him looking at me. He licks his lips and something deep down tells me that’s what he does when he’s nervous. So we’re both nervous, that’s okay. I rub my slick palms on my dress.
“Sit down, Wyatt,” I say with the most nonchalant laugh I can muster. He sits, but on the bed opposite me. “Stop making this weird.”
“Sorry.” He takes a deep breath. “It’s just...I don’t know how to act right now. I want to be around you, but you seem to be going back and forth about me still. I don’t want to rush you into being together. I don’t want you to feel obligated and I definitely don’t want to feel like you’re doing something because you think you have to.”
“First of all, I don’t think I usually do things that I don’t want to do, especially if I feel obligated to do them. The more everyone talks about me, the more I believe that I only do things that I want to do. Do you honestly believe that ‘Liv’—” I do air quotes around my nickname, “—goes above and beyond to please others?”
“That’s just it,” he says with a heavy stare.
“What?”
“You...you aren’t ‘Liv’ right now, haven’t been since your accident. You’re...different. Kinder. Friendly. Really fun to be around.”
I anticipate his words to be like a punch to the gut, but I was kind of expecting them. “I wasn’t those things before?”
“Not...completely. You had your moments, but a lot of time you...” he pauses, gauges my reaction. “Had to be the center of attention. Now, you seem to care about people. You make it a point to talk to them. You’re not acting like you’re the only one affected by your accident. You seem to get that we’re all dealing with stuff, too.”
“Well, of course you are!”
He leans forward, now only a few inches away. “But, if you were the same per
son, you wouldn’t have noticed that. It makes me...makes me want to tell you that—” He cuts himself off. I wait for a long moment, then two. He still doesn’t finish his thought. Instead, he stares at the brown-and-black-flecked carpet.
“What do you want to tell me?”
He shakes his head.
“Please tell me.” I clasp my hands together, feeling an impatient need waft over me.
He gives me no response. I don’t even think he blinks.
I don’t want, now of all times, my bitchy voice to come tumbling out. I bite as hard as I can on my tongue to keep it in check.
Wyatt senses the air in the room change, I guess, because his head pops up, he looks at me, at my reaction to not getting what I want. Something changes in his eyes, like he was about to decide something and now he’s changed his mind again. Gone back to his original plan. “It was nothing, really. Don’t worry about it. It was definitely nothing to get upset about.”
I still want him to tell me—maybe it was something important and he isn’t sure I’m ready for it, so I try to change his mood back. I reach out and rub a knuckle lightly over his forearm. His skin is warm and soft. He watches my movements, but doesn’t look me in the eye.
Then I get up to sit next to him. I run my finger down to his wrist and wrap my hand around his. “There was more I wanted to tell you. Remember when I said ‘first of all’? Well, there’s a second of all.”
“What is it?” His voice is as weak as a feather.
I swallow down the nervousness. “My feelings are growing for you.” I start to put my head on his shoulder, but he moves away from me, standing up.
His movement jostles me roughly and instantly I feel rejected. Have his feelings changed toward me? How can he go from telling me how much I’ve changed to not wanting me to be close? “What is it?”
“You’re different.” He starts to pace around the room. “I guess I’m just having a hard time finding my role in all this. I thought it was one thing, but since you’re so different, I don’t know if I can...” he drifts off, continuing to pace. His expression is tortured.
