38. EMERSON
38
EMERSON
Three Summers Ago
I’m type A—well, type A-ish. I like things organized, going a certain way, making a plan, and following it. I check boxes on to-do lists in every facet of my life, including other people’s. I didn’t check all the boxes for my dad or mom, so I try to ensure I check the boxes of others in my life.
That’s why I need routines.
Coming to London, my second biggest fear was whether I could find a routine in Liam’s life. Did I fit in? Do I check the boxes?
It was more than an ‘I love you’. To have the relationship with Liam I want, I need to confirm that we’d work and that I would be enough.
Our lives are different. Different continents. Different jobs. Different upbringings.
On the page, they don’t mesh.
Much to my chagrin, I’ve meshed right into his world. Okay, maybe four weekdays wouldn’t be defined as a routine, but this is the fifth day doing it, and it’s a routine enough for me.
Each morning, we get up and run together. After our morning run, we shower, and as Liam gets ready for work, I make coffee for us. Liam leaves pretty quickly after that to head to the office, which has been around seven. Liam’s been working till four the past few days, but I know from experience that normally he’d work much later. I know he’s leaving early for me, but I suppose he’s the CEO, so he can make his own rules.
While he’s gone, I pick up his place before packing a bag to head out for the day. In the evening, he takes me to a few of his favorite restaurants, and then we explore parts of London, showing me the places he grew up going to.
Today, I find myself at a park near his place—one he walked me through the afternoon after I landed. I’ve visited it the past couple of days. It’s quiet and peaceful. I find a seat on a metal bench overlooking a series of others. I pull out a book and set it next to me while taking in my surroundings.
Across from me is a couple. They appear to be Liam and I’s ages. Her legs are draped across his. He’s leaning into her with his arm around her. Their heads are as close as possible, whispering to each other. The girl is smiling, giggling up at him. His eyes never leave her.
I wonder if that’s what Liam and I look like. Do people look at us how I look at this couple and see a flashing, neon sign that reads they are in love?
Question after question, doubt after doubt, start drifting in. Unlike the blue skies above, my world goes gray. Clouds drift in, a storm of uncertainty, and cold raindrops regulate the temperature between Liam and me.
He told me he loved me. I couldn’t say it back.
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard those words, but it was the first time hearing them that they mattered and didn’t feel like a lie.
That the person saying them meant them. No strings attached. No caveats. No boxes to be checked.
Liam hasn’t asked why I haven’t returned the sentiment. He hasn’t pressured me to say it back. He hasn’t acted like that’s a problem.
But it’s a problem for me. It’s not that I don’t feel the same way. I do.
It was there, on the tip of my tongue—I swear. I tried to tell Liam, but my whole mouth went dry. I wanted to tell him, but when I opened my mouth, I was mute. The words sucked into me like a vortex back into the depths of my soul, the dark part that is chaining me to my beliefs and holding me prisoner from accepting his love and loving him back.
I seized up then. I’m seizing up now.
My lungs seize up, my heart rate increases, my shoulders shake, and my thoughts run a million miles per hour, crisscrossing.
“Is she alright?” The couple across from me stares at me, concern flashing on their faces. The male’s brows are tense as he asks the female.
“Are you okay?” She calls out to me from across the path.
I stare back at her blankly, but I don’t see her or the male in whose lap she is no longer lying in. I’m thirteen again, seated under the covers of my plush, eggplant purple comforter; my arms are wrapped around my knees, squeezing them too tight. I hear the screams coming from downstairs—my mother’s voice and then my father’s. They go back and forth like a game of ping-pong, volleying threats back and forth at one another.
I ran up to my room when it started. My dad clattered his suitcase in one hand and two duffels in the other down the stairs. He must have left the items by the front door because as I picked up my head from my math homework, he looked me in the eyes, patting my shoulder, and told me he was leaving. My mom came flying down the stairs frantically. My dad bolts from me. They collide in the entryway to our house, where his bags are. She has her hands on them, refusing to let him go. That was when they were screaming. When I ran up the stairs, I tripped twice on the way up. Nausea rises in my throat as I enter my room. I throw up in the trash can in my room not once but twice. Climbing onto the bed and pulling the covers over me doesn’t help quiet their screaming as it continues until it all goes silent. I climbed out of my bed, opening my door quietly. As if I were a mouse, I crept to the top of the stairs, where it opened up to our loft.
My mom was there sitting on the couch sobbing, not a sound coming out of her. I had never seen anyone silently cry before. It’s rather terrifying. It pierced me to see her this way. A slam of a door snapped my attention to where my dad’s bags used to be, but they were gone. He’s gone, too. No goodbye. No explanation. No looking back at me. No, nothing.
This time, in the nightmare of the memory, I’m not only the little girl—I’m my mom. Liam’s face and voice are those of my dad’s. The memory is playing out in a vision of what I fear will happen to me someday. I can’t—I can’t let it come true.
I don’t know how I ended up back at Liam’s place, but I do. I don’t remember getting up from that bench, collecting my belongings, or walking the few blocks.
I remember the ringing in my ears.
I remember my eyes going fuzzy.
I remember tossing up my breakfast.
I remember my brain going black.
Standing in Liam’s flat, in the middle of his kitchen, it’s as if the lights are turned back on. I take in my surroundings. I take in my body, starting with my feet, legs, stomach, arms, and head. The exact way my college therapist taught me.
I’m not in the nightmare.
I can prevent that nightmare.
I repeat the affirmations as I change into my running clothes, lace up my shoes, and exit Liam’s flat again.
With the pounding of the pavement below my feet, the summer sun on my face, and the humid air coursing through my lungs, I’m hopeful that clarity will come.
I throw myself onto Liam’s couch after when he calls me.
“Hey!” I answer the phone.
“Oi, love. I know we were supposed to get dinner with everyone tonight, but does tomorrow for brunch work instead?” he asks me.
“Yeah, of course.”
“Figured I’ll cook us dinner?” he asks. His voice is hesitant, or is that nervousness I hear in it? “Hold on, States.”
Liam is talking to someone in the background. Chatter that goes over my head as they discuss something about an interest rate. I enjoy seeing the interior of the places that Liam’s company is inquiring about, but outside of that, I’ve told him before, it’s in one ear and out the other.
“Still there?” I let out an uh-huh . “Dinner?”
“What are you planning to make?”
“You’ll see.” He laughs.
“What time will you be home?”
“Five latest. Gotta jump, but be hungry for dinner. . . and me.” I roll my eyes. I know he can’t see them, just like I can’t see the playful smirk that I know is on his face right now.
“You better do the same.”
“I’m famished. I love you.”
“See you later,” I say and hang up.
I kick my feet up over the edge of the couch, flipping through my book. Within pages, I fall asleep, dreams catching me quickly, exhausted from my run and panic attack.
“States, wake up,” Liam says. He’s gently shaking me. I rustle in the blanket. Fluttering my eyes open, I see him staring down at me.
“Fell asleep?”
“No. . .” I give a fake smile. “My run wore me out.”
“You ran without me? And a second time today?”
“Maybe. . .” I sit up on the couch. Liam’s training for the Berlin Marathon this September. He’s deep into his training, longer runs than I could ever imagine running or would want to. What sane person wants to run twenty-six miles? When he began training, I started running. It was good to try something new.
Running together for the past five days has been a joy. It’s comical to watch, I can only imagine. He looks like a horse on a slow trot, while I look like a cheetah at full sprint, yet they are at the same pace. Liam doesn’t complain though. He doesn’t worry about meeting his miles or speed when we are out together. It’s sweet and makes me wish we could spend all our mornings like these .
“I run without you at home,” I inform him. I don’t say that I ran again today because it was the only way to escape myself and the nightmare—past and future. Until today, I only ran to stick to the plan he sent me and to be close to him.
Today, it was like I was running away from him.
“I know. I didn’t expect it, that’s all.” He leans down and kisses me.
“What time is it?”
“Quarter to five.”
I slept longer than I wanted to.
“Want to walk to the supermarket with me?” I nod, and he helps me up. Still in my athletic clothes from earlier, I put my sneakers back on. Liam doesn’t change. He’s still in his navy suit, fitted perfectly to his body. Every muscle, every curve accentuated. Even the color, a shade of navy, complements every feature.
He’s handsome—I keep saying or thinking handsome to match the sophisticated way he’s dressed, but he’s Theo James level of hot. No, definitely hotter. Liam in a tailored suit, though? That does me in.