44. Liam
44
LIAM
“ I f this is your version of love, I don’t want it.”
I press play on the voicemail again. By now, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve listened to it. The first time I was so consumed with fear and regret, all I could focus on was that she was alive. She was okay. Physically, she was going to be fine. Eventually, sometime after the third or fourth listen, her actual words seemed to register.
“I thought you saw me. I thought this was real.”
It only took me five minutes to pack all my stuff and run out of my dad’s apartment. Getting back to the city took a bit longer, but I was rushing through Penn Station like my life depended on it. The train ride from Philadelphia was only about an hour, but I must have listened to Whitney’s message at least twenty times.
There’s just one sentence that I can’t seem to get out of my head.
“I was going to say it back.”
She was going to say it back.
My heart leaps in my chest, a confusing mixture of hope and guilt swirling through me. The thought of hearing those words from Whitney’s mouth after thinking that she wanted me out of her life fills me with a hopeful warmth. I’m scared to let myself latch onto that feeling, so instead, as I sit on our stoop and rub my hands together, I focus on the guilt.
I press play on the voicemail again, my head in my hands.
“I never want to see you again.”
The sound of her heartbroken voice sends a wave of nausea through me. Closing my eyes, I can almost picture her angry, tearstained face. My strong, beautiful girl was crying because of me. Because I failed her. Because I let my insecurities take over and imagined the worst. Because I believed Caroline.
What kind of mother does this to her own daughter? How the hell did she get Whitney’s ring? Anger pulses through my chest. If I ever see Whitney’s mother again…
I’m an idiot. I should have trusted Whitney. I should have given her a chance to explain. Instead, I ran from my problems like I always do. Here I thought I’d finally made some strides in figuring my life out, but yet again I fucked things up. When she needed me be to be there for her, I left her.
I glance down the sidewalk, searching for Whitney. I’ve been sitting here for hours, and she still hasn’t come home. It’s getting late, and I need to figure out where I’m going to sleep tonight. Feeling desperate, I scroll through my texts to find Abbi’s number. I’m sure she’s about to tear into me, but I’m feeling pretty masochistic right now. It rings for so long I’m sure it’s going to go to voicemail, but then she picks up.
“What the hell do you want?” Abbi barks out.
“I just want to talk to her. Can you please tell her to come home?”
“Oh, now you want to talk to her? Last I heard, you were ditching her without a word.”
“Listen, Abbi, I know you probably hate me — and trust me, I hate myself a lot right now too — but can you please, please, just ask her to come home? I need to talk to her.”
“I don’t owe you anything. Eat shit, asshole.”
She hangs up on me without another word.
That went well.
Just as I decide that I’ll give it another hour before packing up, raindrops start to fall. I take a deep breath, willing the tight feeling in my chest to subside. I close my eyes, letting the rain pour over me. I don’t know how long passes, but when I open my eyes, Whitney is standing in front of me, her wet hair matted against her head.
I blink, sure that I must be imagining her, but then her expression seems to shift as she glances away from me. Her arms are crossed, and her shoulders are hiked up to her ears.
“What do you want?” she asks, her voice hard and cold. The sound of it is all wrong.
“Whit,” I manage, my voice a rasp. Pushing myself off the ground, I stumble towards her, but she steps back, keeping distance between us. I swallow, trying to find my footing. “I got your message,” I announce like an idiot.
She says nothing.
“Are you… can we go inside?” I ask, gesturing to the apartment. “You’re getting soaked.”
“No,” she says, refusing to meet my gaze.
I shake my head. “I fucked up. Caroline told me that divorce is what you wanted, and?—”
“She what? ”
I draw my head back. Guilt swarms through me again, not only because I believed Caroline, but because Whitney still doesn’t realize the extent of her mother’s interference. I wish I didn’t have to be the one to tell her, but we need to clear up this miscommunication. “What did Caroline say to you?” I ask her.
She shifts her weight and crosses her arms. “She gave me the papers that you’d signed and told me that you thought a clean break was easiest. That it was… better this way.” Her voice cracks on the last word, and my heart drops to my stomach at the sound.
I shake my head. “I didn’t say that. I’d never say that.”
“It had your signature?—”
“Caroline had your ring, and you promised me you’d never take it off. She knew I’d told you I loved you and that you hadn’t said it back. I thought… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have believed her. I know that.”
She shakes her head, disbelief coloring her features. “Wow. I can’t believe she… ” She turns away from me, wiping at her eyes, and I take a step towards her, wanting nothing more than to take her in my arms and comfort her. “She gets the inheritance money if we get a divorce.”
Of course she had some ulterior motive. It’s all starting to make sense now.
I run my hand through my hair in frustration, tugging at the strands. “Okay,” I exhale. “We’ll figure this out, baby.”
Her gaze snaps to mine, anger still clouding her features. “You signed those papers, Liam. You can’t just take that back.”
“You are my wife ? — ”
“Not anymore,” she cuts me off, her chest rising and falling with angry breaths. My stomach bottoms out at her suggestion, a rush of panic hitting me.
“You signed them?” I ask, praying she hasn’t. Something flickers in her eyes as she glances away from me. Clinging onto that hesitation, I take another half-step towards her. “Please say you haven’t. Please say it’s not too late. Let me fix this.”
“How long did it take you to completely cut me out of your life? To throw away everything we had? Thirty minutes? Ten? Five? It was so easy for you to believe my mom?—”
“ Nothing about that was easy. I thought?—”
She throws her hands in the air. “You thought wrong! You don’t trust me. Maybe you never have. That’s what this is about.”
I’m losing my grip on this conversation. I don’t know what I can say to get her to forgive me. Guilt and dread fog my mind, making it impossible to think.
“You know how I feel about my mom. You believe her over everything we had together? You trusted her word enough to just toss me aside?”
“You believed her, too. You thought the same as me?—”
“Because you signed them, Liam.”
“I’m sorry.” I take a step towards her and lift my hand to her chin, tilting her eyes to meet mine. “I should have trusted you. I let my insecurities and fears control my actions, and when I was hurting, I protected myself the best way I knew how. It was selfish and stupid, and I regret it more than anything. Running from what scares me is all I know how to do, but I don’t want to run from you, Whitney. You’re my home.”
She shakes her head and pushes my hand away. I’m completely helpless as I watch her eyes well with tears.
“You should go,” she chokes out.
“I love you,” I whisper, my voice raw. “You are the most important thing in my life. Please tell me what to do. I’ll do anything.”
My hand trembles with the need to reach out and touch her, to wipe away her tears and wrap her in my arms and tell her that everything is going to be okay, but I feel like I’m on the edge of a cliff, about to free-fall. Nowhere to land. No safety net.
“It’s too late,” she says eventually, her voice shaky.
An image of her standing barefoot in the kitchen flashes through my mind. The early morning light bathing her in a golden glow, my oversized t-shirt hanging off her thin frame. An ordinary moment made special simply by her being a part of it.
I shake my head, refusing to recognize what she’s saying. Because it can’t be too late. It can’t be.
“No,” I argue, my voice trembling.
“Please go,” she whispers. “Please.”
Something about the raw desperation in her plea sends a jolt through me, my spine straightening. I refuse to accept that we are over, but I have to respect her request and try again another time. Maybe once she’s slept on it, she’ll feel differently.
Swallowing my protests, I take a deep breath. “Okay,” I say reluctantly. “I’ll go, but this conversation isn’t over. We can’t just let her get away with this, Whitney.”
Her eyes flare with anger, and I can’t tell if it’s for me or Caroline. “You made sure it was over the second you signed those papers.”
There’s nothing I can say. I feel like I’m grasping at straws trying to describe my rash decision, how the sickening pain of what I perceived as a rejection overruled any sense of logic and security. How the minute I saw her ring it felt like the world collapsed beneath me, and now I’m terrified I’ll never find my way to solid ground. Not without her. Not without my anchor.
“I love you,” I repeat, because there’s nothing else I can say. “I don’t want a divorce. I want to be with you, and I should have never given up on that. If you give me another chance, I will spend every day for the rest of my life proving to you how much I love you. I promise you that, Whitney.”
She doesn’t respond, and I can’t tell whether my words have landed at all.
“I’ll go now.” I wrap my arm around her shoulder, pressing a quick kiss to her forehead. I’m surprised she lets me, and just the brief feeling of her in my arms seems to settle me. Hanging my head, I grab my bags and ramble down the sidewalk, walking away from the woman I love.