Chapter 15
Eight years earlier
It’s a gray, rainy day when Liam and I move into our first apartment together.
A one-bedroom walk-up in Seattle’s Green Lake neighborhood that’s close to the hospital where Liam’s in residency, and the restaurant where I’m waiting tables.
The apartment is old and drafty, and the puce-colored walls are a choice. But it’s ours.
Ours. The word beats heavily against my chest with a kind of awareness that I feel all the way in the hollow of my stomach.
It’s hard to believe we only met a few months ago and now we’re moving in together, but things just feel right with Liam.
He’s kind and generous and funny and easily the smartest person I know—something I got to brag about when he graduated top of his class from med school. Mostly he makes me feel safe and loved.
You’re mine, he whispers every night before we fall asleep.
He doesn’t say it in a possessive way, like I’m something to be owned.
He says it like I’m his to be cared for, loved, cherished, protected.
And I never sleep better than when I’m wrapped in his arms, lulled by the steady rhythm of my heart tapping out his, his, his.
And yet, despite my excitement to be taking this step forward together, I’m afraid of how things might change between us when the walls come down and Liam gets a front row seat to all my messes, both the literal and the emotional ones.
What if Liam decides he hates my laugh? Or he gets annoyed with how I load the dishwasher? Or he can’t stand that I always leave too much hair in the shower drain?
Mostly, I’m afraid of losing him.
When we first got together, I was afraid of getting too close, of falling too hard.
But now that I’m his, that I know what it’s like to fall asleep in his arms and wake up to sleepy morning kisses, I know for sure that the pain of losing him wouldn’t just be a surface-level wound, the kind that would fade and heal with time—it would be a permanent scar on my heart. One I fear I won’t recover from.
I’m unpacking a box of pots and pans in the kitchen when I feel the solid warmth of Liam behind me. Hot fingers dig into my waist as he plants a kiss on my neck, a not-so-subtle clue that Liam is no longer interested in kitchen organization.
“Babe, we have to finish unpacking,” I remind him.
“Five minutes?” he asks, his teeth nipping the place under my earlobe. “I can do a lot in five minutes.”
I gasp at the feel of him pressed against my back, broadcasting his need, and I consider surrendering myself to his scent, his touch, the feeling of him between my legs, the way I usually do. But I know it won’t ease the knot of anxiety wedged inside me, and I pull back, untangling myself from him.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, brows furrowing.
“I’m just worried,” I admit.
“About what?”
I gesture vaguely to the mountainous pile of boxes crowding the tiny, seventies-style kitchen. “I’ve never moved in with a partner before.”
“Neither have I.”
I chew on my bottom lip, hesitating. “What if you don’t like how my skincare products crowd the bathroom counter?” I ask. “Or the sound of you chewing makes me homicidal, or you get annoyed with how much I cry when I’m on my period? Or you get bored of having sex with me?”
What if you stop loving me? I think.
There’s a long beat of silence before he takes my hand, tangling his fingers with mine, and says, “First, I could never get bored of having sex with you.” He gives me a heated look I feel all the way in the bottoms of my toes.
“And second, I don’t think it will be easy.
I think there will be days when it’s really hard, but I love you and I want to do this with you, and if it takes work on both of our parts, then that’s worth it to me.
” He pauses, his eyes finding mine. “Is it worth it to you?”
He makes it sound so simple, so straightforward, and slowly I nod.
“Yes,” I whisper. And I mean it. I want this.
I want him. I want this little life we’ve built together.
A life of cooking together and forehead kisses and secret signals when we want to leave parties. I want as much of Liam as I can have.
“But what if I’m still scared?” I ask.
I think about all the times Mom told us to pack our belongings because things didn’t work out with yet another boyfriend. All the times I never even bothered unpacking because I knew we wouldn’t be there long.
I spent years learning that nothing ever lasts. Not even the good stuff. But I so badly want to believe that things with Liam are different. That this home, this relationship, this love between us is the enduring kind.
Liam’s gaze holds mine as he wraps his arms around me, pulling me into the fortress of his chest. “I’m scared, too, but we’re in this together,” he whispers into my neck. “Me and you.”
My heart swells too big for my chest. I love how certain he is. How sure of what our future holds.
I’ve never felt that kind of certainty before.
Not as a child waking up somewhere different every other week, or even now as an adult without a plan for the next year.
But when I’m with him, I feel a little more certain.
A little sturdier. Like no matter what happens, our future together is something solid and firm and reliable.
Something I can trust completely without hesitation or worry about what tomorrow will bring.
Liam and I stay like that, arms wrapped around each other, swallowing each other’s unsteady breaths until his mouth dips to mine, drawing me in for a kiss.
As he walks us back against the wall, lips pressed to mine, hands wandering lower until they find the zipper on my jeans, I realize that home isn’t just a drafty walk-up, or a kitchen full of moving boxes.
Home is a person, and he’s mine.