Chapter 49
FORTY-NINE
I sat on the old wooden bench at the edge of Miller’s Pond, the same bench where Drew and I had laced up our skates a thousand times as kids.
It had been cold the past few weeks, but not quite cold enough for the pond to be fully frozen yet.
Frozen or not, there was no one here which was just what I’d been hoping for.
Most folks were probably with their families getting ready to dig into a big Thanksgiving dinner.
My mom had texted me three times already asking where I was.
She’d sent me out for a can of cranberries hours ago, but I’d driven by the pond and pulled over.
My butt was numb from sitting on the cold bench for so long, but my jacket was thick and my gloves, hat, and boots kept most of the cold out.
I stared at the pond, remembering simpler times like when the hardest decisions I had to make were whether Drew and I would practice slapshots or play keep-away until our fingers went numb.
Drew and I had learned to skate on this pond.
His dad had brought us out here when we were six years old, patient and encouraging while we fell on our asses over and over again.
By the time we were eight, we were playing pickup games with the other kids in town.
By ten, we’d convinced our parents to sign us up for the youth league.
I remember wanting to grow up so much when we were kids. But now being a grown-up seemed like a shitty deal. It came with a lot more complex decisions than what games to play on a frozen small-town pond, that was for damn sure.
I just never thought it would come with a broken heart too.
The crunch of boots on frozen ground made me look away from the pond.
Drew stood at the edge of the clearing, his hands shoved in the pockets of his heavy Carhartt jacket, his breath pluming in the cold air. He looked pissed. It wasn’t the same rage he’d had in his eyes when we’d gotten into our fight on the ice, but he was definitely fuming.
“Figured I’d find you here,” he said.
I didn’t ask how he knew. Drew had always been able to find me when I didn’t want to be found. It was one of the annoying things about having a best friend who knew you better than you knew yourself.
“Your mom’s worried,” he continued, walking closer. “Said you’ve been avoiding her calls and texts.”
“I was going to text her back in a few minutes.” Probably. I don’t know. Time moved differently out here.
He stopped a few feet away, close enough that I could see the tension in his jaw. “And my sister’s been crying but she won’t talk to me about it, so I’m going to ask you one more time, and I want an honest answer.” His eyes met mine, hard and uncompromising. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I should’ve lied.
But I was so fucking tired of lying.
To my mom. To Drew. To Ava.
Fuck, to myself.
“I thought I was doing her a favor.” The words scraped out of my throat like broken glass. “You know who my dad is. You know what I am.”
Drew stared at me for a while, his gaze hard. The wind picked up, cutting through my jacket, but I barely felt it.
“That’s it?” His voice was dangerously quiet. “That’s your excuse?”
“It’s not an excuse. It’s the truth. I’m saving her from—”
He moved so fast I didn’t have time to react. One second he was standing there, the next his fist was knotted in the front of my jacket and he was hauling me off the bench, getting right in my face.
“You are not your dad.” The words came out low and furious, his breath fogging between us. “Fuck, Liam. You’re nothing like your dad. Just because you look like him doesn’t mean you act like him.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know that.” He shook me once, hard enough to rattle my teeth. “Don’t make me fucking punch you again. I’ve known you for practically my entire life. Twenty fucking years. I’ve watched you stay loyal to your friends, to your team, to your mom. You’re the most loyal person I’ve ever met.”
“Loyalty doesn’t mean I won’t hurt her.”
“No, but running away sure as hell does.” His grip on my jacket tightened. “I’ve never known you to be a coward, and I sure as shit didn’t expect that you’d run away from the best thing that ever happened to you.”
The words hit me like a puck to the gut.
His eyes bored into mine. “You make your own choices, Liam. Your DNA doesn’t decide who you are. Your actions do.”
I couldn’t speak. Could barely breathe. The cold was seeping into my bones now, but I didn’t care.
“So here’s what’s going to happen.” Drew released my jacket but didn’t step back. “If you love my sister, then you need to stop throwing yourself a pity party, get off your ass, and fix this. Fight for her the way she deserves.”
He paused, and his gaze narrowed. “But if you don’t love her—if this was all just some game to you—then tell me right now.”
The question hung between us, but I didn’t have to think about the answer.
I knew.
I’d known even as I’d broken both our hearts.
“I love her.” The words came out broken. “I love her so much it fucking terrifies me. And I made a mistake. The worst mistake of my life.”
Drew’s expression shifted—his eyes losing their hardness and his lips lifting slightly at the corners.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought you’d say. So what are you doing here?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why are you sitting out here in the fucking freezing cold instead of getting on your knees in front of my sister and begging for her forgiveness?”
“Drew—”
“She’s at the house.” He stepped back, giving me space. “She’s been hiding in the barn all day. Mom thinks she’s doing homework away from Rory since she’s teething and miserable, but I figure she just didn’t want to be around people.”
The barn. That damn barn was always going to be our place in my mind from now on.
“What if she doesn’t forgive me?”
“Then you try harder.” He clapped me on the shoulder—hard, but not unkind. “But you don’t give up. You don’t run. That’s not who you are, Liam. It never has been.”
I nodded once, clapped him on the back, and then started toward my truck. I’d made it about ten steps when Drew’s voice stopped me.
“Hey.”
I turned.
“If you hurt her again, I won’t be so understanding.” His eyes were serious, all traces of the almost-smile gone. “Best friend or not, I will end you.”
“I know.”
“Good.” He jerked his chin toward the parking area. “Now let’s get out of here. I’m freezing my ass off.”
I didn’t go to the barn. Not because I didn’t want to fix things as soon as possible, but because there was someone else I needed to talk to first—someone who’d lived the nightmare I thought I was saving Ava from.
Mom was in the kitchen when I let myself in, pulling a pumpkin pie out of the oven. Normally we spent Thanksgiving with the Dumontiers, but she hadn’t pushed when I’d told her we should have our own Thanksgiving dinner this year.
“Liam?” She turned, surprise flickering across her face. “Where on earth have you been? I’ve been worried sick.”
“I know.” I ran a hand through my hair. “I’m sorry. I just needed to think for a while.”
She studied me for a long moment, the way only mothers could. Then she set the pie on the cooling rack and wiped her hands on her apron.
“Sit down. You look half frozen. I’ll make tea.”
“Ma, I don’t need—”
“Sit.”
I sat. My mom thought tea fixed everything, although she still complained that US tea wasn’t the same as Irish tea. Even the imported stuff didn’t taste the same as it did in Ireland, but she still preferred it over coffee.
She’s never had another relationship after my dad.
I wasn’t even aware of her ever dating, although she was still pretty and could have easily dated.
Instead she’d focused on giving me a stable life.
She’d gone to school so she could become a nurse and buy our house.
She’d always put me first, when she so easily could’ve blamed me for being the reason she’d been stuck with my dad for so long.
“You look terrible,” she said as she set a steaming mug in front of me.
“Thanks.”
“I’m serious.” She placed the back of her hand on my forehead and then my cheek, humming in her throat before she sat across from me, wrapping her hands around her own mug. “You’ve got shadows under your eyes and you’ve been very quiet since coming home for break. What’s going on?”
I stared into my tea like it held answers. “I did something stupid.”
“Okay,” she said, like she was waiting for me to elaborate so she could determine if it was really stupid or just boy stupid.
I looked up at her. “I fell in love with Ava, and then I broke up with her because I was scared I’d turn into Dad.”
The color drained from her face and her body went very still. Then she placed her hand over mine where it rested on the table. “Liam.” Her voice was quiet but steady. “You are not your father.”
“Drew said the same thing.”
“Because it’s true. You’ve always taken after him in the looks department, but your personalities couldn’t be any more different.
Your father doesn’t know how to care about anyone but himself.
You have always cared deeply about the people in your circle.
You have the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met, and that’s what makes you different.
My sweet boy,” her voice broke and I looked up to see tears in her eyes.
“It kills me to think you’ve spent all this time thinking you were even a smidgeon like him.
You are good to your core. You are loyal, kind, generous, and have been since the moment you were born. ”
“But what if that changes? What if one day I wake up and I’m just like him?”
She scoffed. “That’s not going to happen.
” She must’ve seen the doubt in my eyes because she squeezed my hand.
“But if it did, then you simply make a different choice. That’s the thing your father never understood because he’s genuinely too selfish.
It’s not about who you might become someday—it’s about who you choose to be right now. Every day. Every moment.”
I let the words sink in, settling deep in my chest where the fear had been rooted since my dinner with my dad.
“I hurt her,” I said. “I said terrible things to make her think she didn’t matter to me.”
The pain in my mom’s face made shame rise to my cheeks. I was going to throw up; I never wanted her to look at me like that again.
“Then you apologize. You make it right.” My mom’s eyes were fierce now, the same fierceness I’d seen when she finally told my dad to leave for good. “But you don’t do it with only pretty words, Liam. Words are cheap. Your father was always full of pretty words.”
“Then how?”
She smiled. “You show her. You show her who you really are, not who you’re afraid of becoming. And if you’re going to start with words, use those words to show her you know her and love her not just the idea of her.”
I nodded slowly, an idea forming in the back of my mind.
“Thanks, Ma.”
“Thank me by being happy.” She squeezed my hand once more before letting go. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”
I stood, then paused. “Hey, Ma?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
Her eyes went bright with tears she wouldn’t let fall. “I love you too, sweet boy.”
I headed to my room, eager to get started on the idea that was taking shape in my head.
I pulled out a piece of paper from a notebook and grabbed a pen and started writing.
Things I Want to Do With You.
When I was finished with the first twelve items I could think of, I folded the paper carefully and tucked it into my jacket pocket. I wouldn’t go over there today because of the holiday. I wasn’t going to disrupt the Dumontiers’ Thanksgiving.
But I was going there tomorrow.
Because my mom was right—words weren’t enough.
But this list wasn’t just words.
It was a promise.
It was a map of the future I wanted to build with her.
And I was going to spend the rest of my life proving I meant every single item on it.