17. Liam
CHAPTER 17
LIAM
Y esterday, Emma’s ankle was looking good, and today she’s walking just like normal again. A few days of rest have done her the world of good.
This morning, I woke up to a text from Emma telling me to meet her in the lobby once I was up. I brush my teeth, freshen up, pull on a shirt and get ready to head out. I have no idea what she’s planning, but I’m intrigued.
When I come out of my room, Emma is coming out of hers at exactly the same time. “Morning.” She grins. “I wasn’t expecting to see you so early.”
“Good morning to you too.”
“Want to do something today?” she asks.
“Let’s get breakfast first. I can’t do anything without my morning coffee.”
“Okay, deal.”
We get in the elevator together and descend to the first floor. We’re on the earlier side of the breakfast opening, so there aren’t too many people around. That’s the way I like it. This way we can get first pick of the buffet.
Emma, as usual, gets a selection of fruits and toast with jelly. I have a bowl of plain, bland cereal. Hotel cereal is always the same. They never have brand stuff, so it’s always whatever the closest wholesale brand is. But it’s reliable. It’s always the same type of terrible.
“What do you feel like doing today?” Emma says as we settle.
“Who knows? It’s your plan to go out.”
“Yes, and I’m asking what you think.”
I hum thoughtfully, perhaps hamming it up a little too much. “Well, your ankle is looking a lot better. Why don’t we go out on an excursion?”
“An excursion?” she asks, intrigued. “What sort of excursion?”
I shrug. I don’t really know why I’m agreeing to this again. I would have thought that by now I should be tired of her. I shouldn’t want to spend more than two minutes looking at her, let alone go for a whole day trip with her.
But then my mouth opens again, and I say, “Let’s head into the forest. Let’s do it properly this time. We can find one of those walking trails and see everything that we missed last time.”
“Great idea,” she says with a smile. “I like that.”
“Good.”
We agree to meet again in the hotel lobby after breakfast, both of us having changed into more sensible shoes and longer pants. I’m not going to let the forest get the best of me this time. There will be no falling over, no bug bites, no getting lost. We’re doing this by the book.
I arrive in the lobby first and head to the desk.
“Hello, sir,” says the young woman at reception.
“Hi. Are the buses to the trails running this morning?”
She nods. “Do you want a day ticket?”
“Can I get two?”
“No problem, sir. Can I interest you in any of our guided tours?” She gestures to a tableau of leaflets on the desk, and I let my eyes dance over them for a second. They’re all bright colors and bold fonts, shouting about boat trips and scuba diving and tiny little turtles.
They all look like tourist traps to me, and though I think some of them might be kind of fun and I definitely think Emma would enjoy some of them, I shake my head. This is about us time.
Us time does not include hundreds of tourists talking too loudly and disrupting everything as we’re trying to enjoy ourselves.
“It’s fine,” I say. “Just two bus tickets.” Then I really know that Emma’s rubbing off on me because I add a belated and slightly forced please to the end of my sentence.
“Liam,” comes her voice from behind me. I turn around to see her in a hat and sunglasses, and my heart jumps inside my chest.
Why is just the sight of her making me feel like this? What power is she holding over me?
I hold up the two bus tickets. “I got us tickets,” I say.
“Tickets?” she asks. “I thought the trails were free.”
“They are, but I think we should go to one of the fun ones. And the fun ones are a bus trip away.”
Emma makes a face, scrunching up her nose, but then her mouth twitches into a smile. “I think I should hold the map this time, don’t you?”
I raise an unimpressed eyebrow. “We won’t need a map this time because we’re going to stay on the trail.”
“Ah, see! You do learn from your mistakes.” She grins, and I can’t help but let a little smile out too. The power she has over me is making me see comments like that as a joke rather than a challenge.
It’s starting to get disturbing.
We head out to the bus, and to our surprise, it’s sitting waiting for us, several people already on board. We board without an issue and hit the road towards the hills where the rainforest stretches out endlessly. The bus creaks and vibrates, and Emma sits there clenching her fists as if she’s scared that the whole bus is going to disintegrate around us.
I can understand why she thinks that, but I hardly think they’d sent us up here in something that’s going to actively fall apart. Then again, I could be wrong. If the room mix-up on our first day was anything to go by, standards could definitely be improved.
When I think that thought, I catch myself and wince a little, feeling the imaginary Emma in my head giving me a look of disapproval. Then I frown at the idea of having an imaginary Emma in my head. She has well and truly wormed her way into my brain. Worrying.
As inconspicuously as I can, I let my hand fall between us, brushing against hers as if to take it. I want to offer her an act of comfort, something to hold on to if she’s scared. I want her to feel safe when she’s near me.
But she pulls her hand away and puts it in her lap, leaving me with a burning ache in my palm for where her hand should be.
When we get there, about half a dozen other people get off the bus with us. There’s a small hut with a restroom and more leaflets and maps inside. Emma ducks in to grab her map, and I stand waiting. The trail is clearly marked and the path is well-defined, so I don’t think we need it. But if it makes her happier to hold a map, then who am I to stop her?
“Come on.” She grins as she emerges again, a huge, glossy rectangle in her hands. “Let’s go.” She gestures for me to follow, and I do without complaint. A first for me.
This time, instead of hating everything, I take a moment to look up at the trees. The sun blinks in and out through the branches, a sparkling gem that makes the shadows ripple and blur at our feet. The air is damp, so damp that it fills my lungs with moisture, but it comes with a green smell, the scent of wildflowers, trees and nature, and I’m pretty sure I can hear a river too.
I make a mental note that it might be a nice place to stop for a few minutes if we see it. Maybe we’re not quite prepared for a picnic, but a rest is good too.
Birds flutter and squawk around us, and the insects scream from their perches, and rustling in the undergrowth makes me shiver. “There aren’t any snakes here, are there?” I say.
Emma gives me a dubious look. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there were. You get snakes everywhere.”
“I hate snakes,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Why? Some of them are cute.”
“Cute?” I scoff. “Do you know how many snakes are venomous?” She shakes her head slowly as if that’s something she’s never stopped to consider before. “At least six hundred. And you know how many kill people?”
Emma shakes her head again. “No. I don’t know how many could kill a person.”
“It’s at least two hundred. The worst of them will kill you in minutes.”
“Why do you know that?” she laughs.
I shrug. “I’m a doctor. It’s my job to know stuff.”
“Yeah, about people, not about snakes.”
I shrug again, not knowing what to say to that. It’s one of those interesting facts that you can throw out at a party, and people look at you like they’re impressed. I know way too many of those.
“How’s your ankle?” I ask, changing the subject. It’s starting to feel a little too much like she’s getting to know me.
“It’s fine,” she says. “I can barely feel it. Stop worrying about me and start looking at the trees.”
“I am looking at the trees,” I tell her. “But I’m also looking at you. I don’t want to carry you out of the forest again.”
“You did not carry me out,” she huffs. “I couldn’t walk well, but I wasn’t carried .”
“Okay,” I say, agreeing with her because it feels easier than arguing.
She sets her mouth in a tight line and glares at me. “I’m fine, I promise. I’ll tell you if I want to stop, but I don’t. In about half a mile, we’ll reach the river. Let’s get there and stop for a while. I bet it’s gorgeous.”
“I bet,” I echo, wondering how exactly it is that she managed to get inside my head and speak aloud what I was thinking.
We don’t say much else until we reach the river. We can hear it before we see it, its quick currents rushing through the landscape, the water reaching a crescendo until we turn and see it marking out its path.
“Wow,” breathes Emma.
“Wow,” I agree.
And it is wow . If you stand at the right angle, you can look all the way down the river, down into the forest. Lizards sit in patches of light and sun themselves, and tiny mammals scurry through the bushes. I’m sure there are snakes and spiders everywhere too, but I try not to think about that. Instead, I focus on the flashes of fish as they jump out of the river, the cry of what sounds like a hawk overhead.
“This is perfect,” Emma whispers, staring at the scene utterly transfixed.
“Yeah,” I agree softly.
She looks at me curiously, as if she wasn’t expecting me to agree with that, but I know how to appreciate beauty when I see it.
My eyes linger on her for slightly too long before I look away. But if she notices, she doesn’t comment. She’s too busy looking at the beauty before us.
That’s why I keep looking at her.
But the last thing I need is for her to realize that I find her attractive. That’s not a conversation I feel like having, not even with myself. She’s just a random stranger who happens to be in the same place at the same time as me.
Besides, she’s looking for so many things that I’m not; she wants a family, a life. I just want to get back to work.
We stand and stare in silence for a long time, and when we finally get tired and decide to start heading off down the path, I hang back for a second to watch her walk.
“Liam, I’m fine,” Emma says, throwing up her hands as she looks over her shoulder at me. “Honestly, can you stop?”
“Excuse me for being concerned about my patient,” I huff.
“I am not your patient,” she snaps. “I’m your…” She trails off as if she doesn’t quite know how to end that sentence.
“I’m your…?” I ask. It’s kind of an aggressive move to push her on it, but I’m intrigued to see what she’ll say. I want to know what she thinks I am.
She hesitates, looking me up and down as if she’s trying to decide what to say. I’m not in a hurry, though. I can wait for her all day.
“Friend,” she says at last. “You’re my friend.”
I smile. “Okay, well, as your friend, I’m concerned about you.”
“And you don’t have to be. You don’t have to be so nice, you know. It doesn’t suit you.”
“Ouch,” I say, pressing a hand to my chest as if she’s wounded me. “Fine. I’ll be nasty again.”
“Don’t,” she says quickly. “I like this side of you.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I say nothing. Instead, we just keep walking, her words running around and around in my head.
Friend.
I don’t have too many of those. I think I like it.