Chapter 26 All I Heard
All I Heard
Liam
The rink doors swung shut behind me. The cold bit at my ears. I yanked my hoodie over my head, my breath already clouding in front of me.
Go home. Just go home.
Home. Where she’s sitting in her room, scrolling through apartment listings. Apartments that don’t have me in them. I slowed at the curb, glanced down the block, and turned the other way. Toward the market.
Risotto. Lemon and asparagus. Something new. If she sat at the counter again, arms crossed, throwing out opinions while I stirred, maybe it’d feel like us again.
OK, Callahan. Get it together. Dinner can’t just be dinner. She has to know.
The automatic doors whooshed open, and I grabbed a cart. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. I pushed down the produce aisle, straight toward the bundles of asparagus stacked in neat rows.
I picked one up, checked the stems. Too thick. Grabbed another. My jaw worked as I muttered, low enough that no one could hear. “Just ask if she’s found a place yet.”
Do I even want to know the answer?
Does she even know that I know?
My grip tightened, and the bundle snapped slightly in my hand. I dropped it into the cart. The thud made the shopper next to me glance over. I shoved the cart forward, heat crawling at the back of my neck. I arrived at the pyramid of lemons. Big, solid ones. I pressed my thumb into the skin.
"I just don’t want her to leave.” I stopped dead. My head snapped up, eyes scanning the empty aisle behind me, then flicking to the old man weighing apples at the far end. Had he heard? He didn't look up. I snatched two lemons and tossed them into the cart.
The cart rattled as I stopped in front of the rice. There it was. The blue box of Arborio rice. I grabbed the box as I dragged in a breath, puffing my cheeks out, and let it out in a long stream, “What am I going to say to her?”
“We should keep doing dinners,” I muttered under my breath. “Even after you move.”
I winced.
That sounds like I'm asking for a cooking buddy.
My grip on the box tightened before I dropped it into the cart.
Dinners weren’t the point. The point was her leaning against my kitchen counter, arms crossed, not backing down an inch as she defended her microwaved quinoa. “Efficiency is the ultimate seasoning.” The first time she ever made me laugh. I smiled.
The point was her asking about using the balcony. I’d been ready to give up the space for her, to make sure she felt at home. But she’d asked permission. She didn’t just assume. She’d given me the choice.
The point was her instinct to nurture, not just her nieces, but the love between her brother and his wife. She gave them the gift of a night off without them even having to ask. Behind all the wit and efficiency was a person who instinctively took care of the people she loved.
That’s what I didn’t want to lose. Her.
The checkout line was a special kind of torture. Short, but moving with glacial slowness. I placed the lemons, the asparagus, the blue box of rice on the conveyor belt. It jerked forward.
I don’t want to go back to before you.
That doesn’t sound right either. My right hand locked onto the cart handle. The world narrowed to the hum of the freezer doors. The cashier’s voice asking for a club card sounded like it was coming from underwater.
I dug for my wallet, fingers clumsy, a receipt spilling out and fluttering to the floor. The guy behind me sighed. I bent to grab it, the heat at the back of my neck rising.
The cashier pushed the bag toward me. I hooked it with one hand and got out quick, the cool air outside snapping against my hot face.
Walking home, the straps dug into my palms, bumping my leg with every step. I wasn’t any closer to knowing what to say. I kept turning the words over, same half-starts circling in my head, none of them right.
I stopped at my apartment door. My hand froze halfway to the lock. Rehearsal was over. I took a deep breath.
I don’t want to lose this.
My jaw tightened.
I closed my eyes. Deeper. Go deeper.
I don’t want to lose us.
I opened my eyes
This was it.
I pushed the door open.
And stopped.
Flattened moving boxes. Stacked neatly by the wall.
My mind blanked. My body didn't. The same cold void that had opened in my chest the day they told me about Nora opened wide again. Different reason. Same ache.
A cold wave washed over me, from my scalp down to my feet. My hand stayed locked on the doorknob.
I didn't move. I couldn't. I just stared, seeing two losses superimposed on that cheap cardboard. The grocery bag slipped from my fingers and hit the floor with a dull thud.
The rehearsed lines were gone. There was only the silence, and the proof that it was ending. Again.
And then I saw her.
Through the sliding glass door, silhouetted against the fading city light. She was sitting in the chair. Her chair. The one I’d bought for her after she’d asked about the balcony, imagining mornings with coffee, her sitting right there, with me.
Claire was curled in her chair, her knees pulled to her chest. The evening breeze lifted a few strands of her hair across her cheek, but she didn’t brush them away.
She just watched the city, her hand resting absently on her knee, her expression soft and miles away.
The last of the sun caught in her hair, turning it to gold.
A dull ache spread through my chest. It was the perfect image of her, backlit by the sun, hair moving in the wind. The last perfect moment before it all ended. The sight hit me like a punch to the gut.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t let this be the end. Not without a fight.
I forced my hand to let go of the doorknob. My feet carried me forward, across the room, toward the glass. Toward her.
The slider groaned softly as I opened it. Claire turned, a slight jump in her shoulders betraying her surprise.
“Oh! You’re home.” She recovered quickly, gesturing to the chair she was sitting on. “I, uh… This second chair just appeared? I don’t know when it was delivered.”
Her words came out in a rushed, flustered tumble. I leaned against the doorframe, my hands finding their way into my pockets.
I stepped onto the balcony.
“I ordered it,” I said quietly. “For you. When you first moved in.”
Her breath caught, just a tiny, sharp inhale. Her eyes, which had been wide with surprise, now softened, searching my face. Her shoulders dropped. After a heartbeat, she gestured to the empty chair beside her.
I hesitated for a beat, my gaze dropping from her to the chair. My hand closed around the frame of the chair and pulled it closer to her, positioning it so we were directly face-to-face. Then I sat down. I met her gaze. “I’m sorry it took so long to come.”
We just stared at each other. Neither of us moved. Neither of us spoke. My gaze cut away from hers, to the boxes stacked by the wall. Proof. My hand gripped the armrest as I gestured roughly in their direction.
“You’re leaving.”
Not the words I practiced. Just the cold, hard facts. A sick, hollow feeling spread under my ribs. I was already missing her. And it was my own fault.
I hadn’t told her anything.
I never told her that the best part of my morning was that first glimpse of her, sleepy, barefoot, in desperate search of coffee.
I never told her how much more I enjoyed cooking now that I had someone to share a meal with. Even if that someone rolled her eyes at my fresh basil obsession.
I never told her I found her microwave efficiency theory endearing.
I didn’t say any of it.
Because I was scared.
To feel again.
To care.
To lose.
And now I was watching the best thing that’s happened to me in ten years pack her bags.
She winced. Her gaze dropped to her hands. Her fingers were nervously picking at a loose thread on the cuff of her sleeve.
“It’s… it’s not like that,” she started, her voice shaky. “The boxes are just… just me being ready. For when I find the right place.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was looking. It’s just…”
She stopped. She drew a breath to speak, then released it in a soft sigh.
“Liam, you’ve been so generous. Letting me stay here. And you were so thoughtful. You bought four kinds of milk because you didn’t know which one I used.
You share your space with me, you never complain. You let me use your balcony, even though I know it’s your private spot.
You’ve put up with me microwaving my sad dinners right next to your… your beautiful risottos.
You’ve just been…
so good to me. Thank you. For all of it.”
She was saying thank you. All I heard was goodbye.