29
Lia
Owen is slumped against the railing, looking out across the dark city, a shell of his typical confident posture.
He wasn’t expecting me, at least not yet, but the snap of the door has him spinning around, emotions washing down his face.
Hopeful and wrecked, surprised and dazed, terrified and determined as he breathes my name.
“Lia.”
Always polished, always overdressed—but today a bit undone.
His shirt is untucked, hair ruffled, bags under his eyes.
There are twenty feet between us. The black sky overhead and the string lights around the edges and a warm breeze that’s picking up, twisting in the edges of my skirt, spinning the curls of my hair, compelling me forward.
“You’re here,” I say, because where else can I start?
He nods. Swallows. “I’m here.” The yellow light from the door behind me streaks across his face, cracking it in two. His desperate eyes catch mine, brave heart on the line as he asks, “Is that okay?”
And it is okay. It’s so, so okay.
But it’s also not, because I’m still confused and overwhelmed and this feels so much bigger than anything I can grasp in my fist.
I start with a nod.
“I’m so sorry, Lia,” he says. “I’m sorry about our fight, about the letter, all of it.”
I should accept his apology. I should apologize myself, then promise to be better, calmer.
To mold myself into something soft and palatable for him.
That’s the only kind of love I’ve seen succeed.
It’s what Connor expected, it’s perfect for Sophie and Andy, it’s even what I saw with my parents—but it’s not me.
From across the rooftop, I say, “I fucked up. I shouldn’t have said…
shouldn’t have made them think—” It’s coming out all wrong so I try again.
“I know you would never hurt me. I’m so sorry for what I did, but Owen I’m so tired, and I get so angry sometimes and I…
I don’t know how to be any different. I don’t know how to change the way I am. ”
He says, “I don’t need you to change, Lia. I fell for you exactly the way you are. I want all of it, the soft and the hard, all your tenderest parts and all your ruthless ones too. I would much rather fight with you than have peace with anyone else.”
The clouds shift overhead, blocking out the stars. The air is wet fingers on a live wire—sparking and dangerous.
“But also,” he says, “if you think you’re incapable of it, you’re dead wrong.
Look at you. Look at everything you’ve done this summer.
The way you’ve chased your dreams, and changed your goals, and opened up about the things that hurt you.
You’re doing it, gorgeous. You always strive to be better, and that’s a kind of change. ”
“I’m still scared,” I whisper, too low for him to hear across the rooftop.
But he must read my lips in the glow of the string lights, because he says, “I know.”
The loose fabric of my sweater twists in the wind, slapping against my arms, tangling me in it. “This was supposed to be casual. We said that from the beginning and—”
Owen steps closer, cutting me off. “It’s never been casual to me. Not for a moment.”
His eyes are warmed in the low light, blue shifting to green as his pupils dart between mine, reading me so well. Better than anyone else ever could. Pressure builds as the clouds grow thicker. No rain yet but thunder—a roll of it in the distance.
“You mean more to me than anything,” he says, “and it’s terrifying, because I’ve always fallen short for the people I care about. There’s never been a time in my life when I’ve been good enough. I’m broken, and you deserve the very best things in this world. You demand them.”
“Owen…”
“Wait. Let me say this.”
The wind picks up. A storm is brewing, almost here.
The ribbon in my hair is torn free, a slash of white across the sky.
My hair blows sideways, tangling in front of my eyes until I push it aside and I’ve never felt like this before—like my heart outside of my body, ten feet away, exactly where he stands.
“I may never be good enough,” Owen continues, “but I want to be. For you, I want to be better. And what a gift that is, Lia. To want something again. To—to love again, even if it's not returned.”
A knot ties itself in my throat, crawling up and tightening behind my eyes. Thunder rolls again, subsonic and trembling.
He’s close enough now for me to see the pleading crease between his brows. “If you want me to leave, I swear I will. I’ll go and never bother you again. I know I’ve been doing things wrong this whole time and I fucking hate myself for that—”
“You haven’t—”
“—but I won’t be like him, Lia. I swear it. If you want me to, I’ll go. But...”
A flash of lightning—purple-white slanting across his face. My heart is metal waiting to be struck by it.
“But what?”
He presses his eyes shut. “But despite everything, despite the fact that I’m broken and bitter and scarred, I still want you to choose me. I still want you to—to love me. Because for me, there’s never been a choice. I’m in love with you. And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop.”
He loves me.
He’s in love with me.
My gut and my heart twist against each other, fighting through logic and emotion.
I excavate all the vows I made to myself—that I would never be vulnerable again. That I would never need someone else to make me feel whole. That I would never leave my heart exposed.
But also, the things I never dared admit. That I don’t want my heart to be safe. That I want it to be exposed and raw and seditious. That I want it to run wild and betray me with the strength of its feelings, then be caught tenderly in someone else’s hands.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admit, clutching the hem of my skirt against the storm. “With work, with Connor, with… you. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about any of it. All my plans are falling apart.” I choke on the last word, a pathetic, sputtering sound.
“Lia,” he mouths, too soft to be heard over the gathering storm.
“And I have all these rules for myself,” I explain.
“The things I can never forget, or never allow. And I think I forgot how to let them go, how to change my mind. I’m trying to unlearn it but it might take a long time, Owen.
And I might never figure it all out.” I laugh as I say, “I think I need some serious therapy.”
He smiles, but it’s pain and desperation. “We can figure it out together. Even if you don’t love me back, just let me help. I will do anything to be near you again.”
The first drops of rain fall, freezing freckles across my nose, my cheeks, my hands. The remaining feet between us are a gaping cavern and it may be impulsive, may not be what I planned, but I have no choice but to leap over it.
The words spill out of me. “I missed you so much. It’s only been a few days and I’ve been going crazy without you.”
Hope swells in his eyes, and my chest inflates with it.
“And I think I have an idea about what to do, with—with Connor, but I would need your help, and I thought you were giving up on me. I thought I ruined it. I finally pushed you too far and—”
Then he’s there, hands on my waist, urgency in each fingertip. “You could never push me too far. I’m so fucking in love with you, Lia. I’m helpless with it, no matter what you do.”
His eyes scan mine, searching for fear or worry or disapproval. What he finds there instead is a small, teasing spark.
“You love me that much, huh?”
His exhale is a laugh. “I am pathetically in love with you.”
My hands press into his chest, then slide up over his shoulders.
“That would be pretty embarrassing,” I say, fighting against the tremble in my voice, “if I weren’t pathetically in love with you too.”
Then his lips crash into mine—insistent, warm, loving. He consumes me and offers himself in return, taking and giving, and it's never felt like this before. Like I’m home.
The rain picks up, falling in sheets around us. We’re instantly drenched except for the place where our bodies press together. And that’s when I hear it—over the rain and thunder and our shared breaths—the sound of… cheering?
I look to the left.
My obnoxious, nosy friends are gathered in the doorway to the roof, huddling beneath the overhang, clapping and jumping and hollering with joy because they’re voyeuristic perverts and I love them so much.
Owen’s face presses against the side of my hair, laughing as he says, “Your friends are real weirdos, you know that?”
I turn to face him, our bodies still locked tight. “They’re our friends, babe.” My hands on either side of his face, I stare straight into those clear blue eyes as I say, “You’re stuck with all of us now. Because we fucking love you.”