37. LIAM
37
LIAM
Three Summers Ago
Everything feels right having Emerson in London. A little too right.
I hadn’t realized how much I missed her or loved her . We practically attacked each other—okay, I practically attacked her in the airport once she made it through customs. I didn’t waste any time once she was in my arms and kissed her.
I couldn’t resist it.
At first, when she didn’t kiss me back, I thought I had made a mistake and read her wrong. Then she kissed me back, parting her lips for me, taking our kiss deeper and more desperate. Maybe she loves me, too.
Her side of the bed is cold when I wake this morning, but an aroma of coffee fills the air. She must be in the kitchen.
Emerson made herself comfortable—an understatement. She acts as if she hasn’t been here for only three full days but rather that this is our life every morning. I climb out of bed, slip on the sweatpants she ripped off last night, and go downstairs to the living room.
My flat is perfect. Two floors, bedrooms upstairs, an open floor plan on the first floor connecting the living and kitchen space, and a downstairs bedroom that I use as a home office. Modern but traditional for Grosvenor Square. I’ve been living here for about a year.
From the bottom of the stairs, I catch a glimpse of Emerson dancing, wearing the old-school over-the-head headphones that I will never understand why she loves. She’s in a tiny white tank, the brown of her perky nipples noticeable, and a pair of knit pajama shorts.
Quietly, I slide into the kitchen. I lean against the benchtop and watch Emerson.
She’s so beautiful.
Enthralled by the woman dancing around my kitchen—for which she still has zero coordination—a giant smile can’t help but form on my face.
Emerson’s made herself a home in my apartment, just as she’s made a home in my heart.
She grabs a mug from the cabinet and pours a cup of coffee. Then grabs another cup from the cabinet and sets it on the counter next to my coffee maker. The entire time, her hips are still moving from left to right.
I release a deep chuckle that catches her attention. She turns around and faces me, her lips lifting into a smile. She takes a sip of coffee and lets out an ‘ahh.’
Emerson starts approaching me, shaking her hips, and asks, “You like what you see? There’s more to these moves.”
Then winks at me.
“Oh, I know there is.”
She passes me; I reach out to stop her, drawing her to me. I lean down to kiss her forehead and then again a little lower, this time kissing her lips and dragging her bottom lip out from where she is biting it. She tastes like coffee. If this is how I could caffeinate myself, I’d never stop.
Emerson’s eyes look up at me through her long lashes.
“I take that as a yes?” she teases me.
Pulling away, she returns to the coffee pot and fills the mug that she sat out. Pushes it to me across the counter.
“You know I like what I see, always.” Always have, always will. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about. ”
Emerson waves me over behind her to the couch. We plop down. She leans forward and grabs the chunky knit blanket off the ground, pulling it over her as she curls into me.
“What did you want to talk about?”
I nervously take a sip of my coffee. Setting it down on the table, I open my mouth to speak, but the words I want to say aren’t the ones that come out.
“Last day you get to claim all of me; I have to work tomorrow.” I chicken out. “What’s left on the list to do?”
While Emerson was adamant about not being a tourist during her visit, she certainly has compiled a list of the most popular things to see. It’s as if she found the top ten touristy things to do, even though she won’t admit it. We’ve tackled most of them, but it hasn’t left us with time for the non-touristy things, which I’m okay with. It’s been sort of nice. I can’t remember when I last visited Buckingham Palace or sat and people watched at Big Ben. Emerson enjoyed seeing me as a tourist too. I told her she could do them this week when I was at work; she laughed it off. Unfortunately, this included an I love London t-shirt and top hat with England’s flag on it. We streamed the Friends ’ episode when they went to London that night. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her laugh so much when comparing a photo of me to Joey.
Luckily, Emerson doesn’t leave until next Saturday. Booking her tickets gave me control of her stay; greedily, I planned it this way. I planned for her to have a long weekend teaser to be the tourist, for her to be with me while I was working, and for my work week to be light so that I could complete my list of places to see with her. I hope that if I show her my world, she might want to be a part of it forever.
“Remember that day in Paris when we flipped a coin to make decisions?” She peers over her mug, trying to hide the pink blush that’s taking over her cheeks.
“Abso-fucking-lutely,” I tell her. It’s one of my favorite nights ever .
“What if that’s what we do? See where the day. . . takes us.”
***
Our most recent toss landed in my favor. I chose The National Gallery, an art museum. It was not the pick I would have gone with, but a storm had taken over the city, and I wasn’t ready to head back to my flat. The gray skies should have been warning enough this morning when we left. Earlier in the day, we could dart between places, avoiding the light rainstorm. It would be impossible now that the skies have fully opened up.
There was also a storm brewing in Emerson; I could sense it. When we arrived at the museum, her eyes became cloudy. Her face became stoic, and I couldn’t read it—I could always read her, even over video chats.
We explored hand in hand, but she felt far away, her touch non-existent.
“I’m glad you’re here.” I look down at her, giving her a warm smile, hoping to fill her with a bit of sunshine.
She doesn’t speak. She returns my smile with a half-smile.
“Everything okay, States?”
She nods. Slipping her hand from mine, she draws it to her front. Crossing her arms in front of her.
“Mind if I walk by myself?” She asks me, but she doesn’t need permission.
“Sure—”
Before I finish my thought, she’s gone. I watch her walk away into a wing dedicated to the Renaissance period.
I give it fifteen minutes before I follow the direction she went in. She wasn’t there. I make my way around the museum until I find her standing in a room all by herself, staring up at a painting, Bathers at Asnieres by George Seurat .
I come up beside her. She doesn’t acknowledge me physically, but I know she knows I’m standing there.
“This makes me think about us that afternoon in Paris,” she says.
“Bathers reminds you of that?”
“No. Sitting by the water, telling you about my parents.” I watch her eyes flick over toward me and back to the painting. “What do you think these people are talking about? Do you think they are washing away their past in the water? Contemplating the decisions they and others have made that impacted their lives?”
“It’s possible,” I tell her, looking at the photo, really looking at it. “Him, right there.” I point to the male sitting on the banks of the water, contemplation painted on his face. Stoic, frozen as a status, similar to Emerson right now. “It reminds me of you right now. What are you contemplating?”
“Do you think we are being cruel to ourselves. . . to each other?”
Emerson continues staring at the painting.
“Cruel?”
From the corner of my eyes, I can see her breathing pick up. She closes her eyes as if the words she’s looking for are on the backside of her eyelids or she is giving herself an internal pep talk.
“Emerson, what do you—”
She cuts me off, “pretending that this week or two in the summer is enough?”
“It has to be,” I say too quickly. I don’t know why. This morning, I almost told her how I felt. I know it doesn’t have to be this way, but this is what we wanted, right? No. I want her. I love her.
“Does it? Don’t you ever wonder what it would be like if we—”
“If we were together? All the time. But this—this dynamic between us it works, yeah? You in Chicago, me here.”
What the hell, mate? I’m cursing myself internally.
“I. . . I know, but I don’t know if it’s working for me anymore.”
Wait. Is Emerson ending this? I’m second-guessing everything.
“Is that why you wanted to come to London? Do you want to friend break up with me?”
“No! Oh, Liam, no.” Her head snaps in my direction and I turn my entire body to face her. She’s shaking her head. “I think what I’m trying to say unpoetically is that it’s becoming a lot harder only to see you once a year, to only have you through a phone. I want y—to know you.”
“Come off it,” I tell her off because that statement is ridiculous. “You do know me.”
She almost said ‘you.’ Emerson was trying to tell me she wanted me, but instead, she said, Know me . She knows everything about me. I’ve never been one to keep secrets with those I care about. Whatever, whenever something has happened since the day I met her, I’ve told her. She gets every part of me, whether she realizes it or not.
“Do I?” she asks.
“What’s my favorite color?” I quiz her.
Emerson rolls her eyes at me. “Green.”
“Correct. What’s my favorite smell?”
“Macadamia nuts. Which I still find odd.”
“Correct. What’s my favorite hobby?” My smile gets bigger with each question.
“Running. . . or reading. That’s not a fair question. None of these count. Anyone could guess these.”
“No, they couldn’t because if they asked me about my favorite things, they would need to know you. To know me, truly, is to know that you are my favorite thing in this world. My whole world is you.”
Emerson stutters. She takes a deep inhale. “Your whole world?”
“My whole world, States.”
“That doesn’t mean I know you, though.” This woman.
“How could you not know me when I know everything about you so deeply that it became a part of who I am?”
Her breath catches like I’ve sucked all the life out of her. In ways, I wish I could because that would mean her life is in me, giving me life.
“Then why do we live in this bubble?!” Her shoulders drop. “Why do we let ourselves survive off the summer. . . because that’s how I’m holding on. It’s my life support. These fleeting moments of summer we get together.”
“Because—”
“I’m not done. It hurts. Being with you these days hurts me because I know I don’t get to have you the moment I board a plane, leaving us behind in this bubble—this stupid summertime friends bubble of ours.”
This moment is equivalent to when my favorite football team scored a goal in stoppage time to win the Premier League four years ago. Everything Emerson says is precisely what I’ve needed to hear from her to not feel like I’m going mad.
Our time together or friendship isn’t cruel—it’s not admitting the truth to each other, that is.
“It would be nice if you could say something here.” I guess I’ve been silent longer than I thought, taking in her confession.
“Pop it. Let’s pop this ‘bubble’ you think we are in,” I say confidently to her.
“But what if this is it? What if this is all we will ever be? How do we know if it’s enough ?” Her questions come out rapidly.
“We’ll never know till we try. We can figure this out, Emerson.”
“Figure it out? Liam, we could have figured it out this entire time, years ago.” She shakes her head back and forth, pinching her eyes closed. “But we didn’t. So what’s different this time?”
I spin her body toward me. Using my hand, I grip her chin to raise her face to mine.
It’s now or never.
Tell her. Tell her you love her .
Tell her the one thing she doesn’t know about you. The one thing that is different this time. Keep her from retreating further into herself, backtracking on everything I know she’s feeling.
“I love you, Emerson,” I say. “This time, I’m in love with you.”
She stands there, disbelief washes over her. Then, a wave of calmness crashes over her.
Emerson raises on her toes and plants a kiss on my lips.