Chapter Twenty
The town is asleep. Liam drives me the short distance to my home, and his car is the only one on the road. We pass the cemetery in complete silence, and he pulls into my driveway. The house is dark except for the light on the front porch.
“I’ll walk you in.” Liam hops out of the car before I have a chance to tell him it’s unnecessary.
I love the porch on this old home that extends from one end of the house to the other.
He steps into the light, his hair golden. He points at the swing hanging in the corner.
“Sit for a minute?”
“Yeah.”
I take a seat in the corner, tuck my feet in, and put a pillow in my lap. The weight from Liam makes the swing rock forward. The night is clear, and the crescent moon reflects off the wood panels of the porch floor.
“Thanks again,” I say, and Liam turns to me. “I feel like I derailed your Fourth.”
“You didn’t.” Liam bends his leg and leans his head on his hand. “I get the importance of the nursing home in ways I didn’t before.”
I smile. “The residents loved it, didn’t they?”
He nods. “Their faces. It was maybe the best thing I’ve seen. My grandparents looked so happy.”
I stretch my feet out. They’re sore after being on them most of the day. Liam grabs hold of them, slips off my sandals, and places them on his lap.
“Hey, Birdie.” Liam’s gaze flicks up to mine. “If I did something to offend you in any way on the jet ski, I’m sorry.”
He thinks he hurt me in some way, but it has nothing to do with him. I’m broken and have been for so long that I’d almost forgotten until today.
“You didn’t hurt me,” I say.
“But we were having fun, and something shifted. I’ve gone over it in my mind a thousand times, and the only thing I keep coming back to is that I must have crossed a line in some way.”
I close my eyes and move down until my head is resting on the pillow of the wooden rocking bench.
“Today took me back to something I try not to think about.”
He turns his head toward me, and his voice is mostly a whisper. “What happened?”
“When I was thirteen, something traumatic happened, and for whatever reason, being on the jet ski brought me back to that day. It came out of nowhere. I had to get off.”
Liam squeezes my feet. I glance at him, and he studies me. Crickets cry out all around us, and a steady breeze blows the leaves of the big trees in the front yard.
“Have you ever gone through something that you’re convinced is going to define you for the rest of your life?”
“What happened to you, Birdie?”
Liam pinches my toe, and I sit back up.
“You know how I told you my mom had me as a teenager? My dad could never decide if he wanted to be in our lives.” I lean back on the bench and curl my legs up.
“My mom’s parents, my grandparents, took us in. My mom was eighteen, had a newborn baby, and no money, so we lived on their ranch with them in South Dakota. Honestly, it was the best childhood. I had three people around me who loved me to death.”
Liam nods, and I find myself getting lost in his eyes.
“My grandparents had horses, and I grew up riding them.” I chuckle, thinking of a memory.
“I didn’t have a lot of friends, but I had my very own horse, Shadow, and he was the only best friend I needed.”
“When I was thirteen, I got home from school, and my grandma asked if I wanted to go trail riding. We’d done this a million times before, and this day was no different. She was riding her horse, Brewster, and I was on Shadow, like always. For whatever reason, though, Shadow was acting strange and not responding to commands, so somewhere along the path, we decided to switch horses, and my grandma started riding Shadow.”
“We came to an open meadow, and both horses took off galloping. But then Shadow took off at full speed ahead. Something spooked him. I still don’t know to this day why he acted like that. He bucked her off, and on his way down, his hoof went into her head.”
“Birdie.” Liam brushes hair out of my face.
“It was the scariest thing I’d ever seen. She was lying there, in the meadow of flowers and long grass, with her eyes shut and blood at her temple. I rode Brewster back to the ranch as fast as I could. My grandpa was in the barn, and I had him call 911. He rode to the meadow until a helicopter came and got her.”
My face is wet, but it takes me a moment to recognize it’s from my tears. I hadn’t realized that I’d started crying.
“Grandma survived, but she had a traumatic brain injury and was never the same. No one would take her in, and we couldn’t provide the care she needed. The Wheaton Nursing Home stepped in, and they cared for her so well, until she died from her injuries two years later.”
Liam flicks a tear from my face.
“When I turned ten, my grandma gifted me the most beautiful locket, pendant thing. It was white gold, and according to my mom, very expensive. It had this intricate design, and I opened it up, and it had this saying from Dr. Seuss about no one being more youer than you, or something like that. Somehow, in the chaos and aftermath, and me jumping off my horse and riding back to the ranch, it got lost. Every day for an entire year, I went to that meadow to look for it. I thought if I found it, she’d come back to me. But I never did. It’s the stupidest thing.”
Liam rubs his fingers down my arm and then wipes away another tear. “It’s not.”
“The worst part of all of it is it’s my fault.” I swallow away my pain. “It should have been me on Shadow. He was my horse. It should have been me.”
Liam closes the distance between us and scoops me into his arms. He holds me against his chest, and I bury my face in his neck. I’ve never shared anything more than the very high-level details of that day with anyone. I didn’t even tell my mom and grandpa the horror I saw. Yet, I exposed all of this to someone I just met.
His cotton shirt now smells like sunblock, and I breathe him in. He feels safe in ways that someone I’ve only met shouldn’t.
“It wasn’t your fault.” He presses his hand against the back of my head and kisses my temple. “You were a child, Birdie. It wasn’t your fault.”
Liam grips me firmly, and his body is so large next to mine that I feel all of him wrapped around me from every angle.
Car lights shine in my eyes, and I squint. The sound of an engine turns off, and I back away from Liam after realizing I’m practically on his lap at this point. Footsteps echo against the steps, and Mom turns and jumps when she sees us.
“Birdie. Liam.” She puts her hand on her heart and smiles. “Come inside. It’s so buggy out. You must be getting eaten alive.”
“We’re fine,” I say. “Liam gave me a ride home after the fireworks.”
She looks at Liam. “That was nice of you. Well, I’m headed to bed, but you kids have a good night.”
“Love you.” I blow her a kiss as she walks inside.
I wipe my eyes with my palms. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Liam takes my hair into his fist. “Never apologize for sharing these parts of yourself, Birdie.”
I nod. A silent, understanding look passes between us.
“You’ve totally ruined my plan, you know?” he says.
“What plan is that?”
“I was supposed to come to Wheaton and hate everything about it. I was going to go back to New York and tell them that this place I was stuck in all summer was the absolute worst. But then I met you.”
“Hmm.” I stand and hold my hand out to pull Liam up. “Maybe you’ll decide to stay.”
Liam grabs my hand and laughs. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
Liam walks me the few steps to the door, and then pulls me into a hug. His arms are so solid, warm, and strong, and they keep me pressed against his firm chest.
“Thanks for reminding me what’s at stake here,” Liam says. “I knew the nursing home was important to you and your mom, but now I realize it on an entirely different level. I’m not going to let you down.”
“Okay.” I pull back from him.
Liam grips my shoulders and then lays a kiss in the middle of my forehead.
“Goodnight, Birdie.”
I lock up the house and tiptoe up the stairs. My mom’s bedroom door is open, so I peek inside, and she’s sitting up in bed, scrolling through her phone.
“Goodnight, Mom,” I say.
She looks up at me and smiles. “Birdie.”
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Hey,” she says as I’m about to step out. “I love getting to see this side of you.”
I raise an eyebrow. “What side?”
She presses her lips together. “The side where my favorite person in the entire world is falling in love for the first time.”
“I’m not falling in love.”
“Oh, Birdie,” she says. “You’ll see.”
I roll my eyes. “Goodnight, Mom.”