Chapter 28
June, Four Years Ago
Liam is near the tail end of his regular season, playing against Vanderbilt in Nashville, when he pulls himself from the game in the fourth inning because his shoulder hurts too badly to pitch.
Folly and I are at my apartment, watching on TV when it happens.
When it happens.
When the defining moment of Liam’s future happens.
The pitch is good, and the batter smacks it, so for a few moments, the camera is focused elsewhere as the grounded ball is passed from glove to glove. But when the first baseman tries to throw it back to Liam, he comes into view on the screen, shaking his head and ungloving.
The TV announcer says, “Looks like Bishop is requesting a relief pitcher.”
And the bottom falls out of my stomach.
My eyes search his when the camera zooms close to Liam. He makes his way to the dugout and converses tensely with his coach, who sends in another pitcher.
The coach has Liam raise his arm out to the side of his body.
Liam winces in pain, dropping the arm immediately. The coach says something else, and Liam shakes his head.
“He might’ve torn something on that last pitch,” the announcer muses. “Wouldn’t be the first time for this player. He had an elbow injury last season, though that was on his left side, and this appears to be the right.”
“That single throw,” the co-announcer says, “could be detrimental to Bishop’s professional prospects.”
It’s their tone I can’t move past. Serious, but calm and detached. Meanwhile, inside my cage of fragile bones, I’m shaking so hard I could jump-start an earthquake.
The camera moves off Liam and I want to shout at the screen, demand they go back so I can see him. But gameplay resumes, and I’m still frozen in shock, my knees against my chest and my eyes wide with horror.
I turn to look at Folly on the other end of the couch. Her face makes it clear she has no idea what to say either.
“Call him?” she finally suggests.
I pull my phone off the side table, fingers trembling as I unlock it and call him.
Liam answers after two and a half rings. “You saw that?” Underneath the pain in his voice, he sounds disappointed, humiliated, even, and I immediately recall his fear of choking in front of his family. But this isn’t that—it’s so much worse.
Detrimental.
“Yes,” I say. “How bad is it?”
There’s a long pause. Very long.
But at last Liam says, “I think it’s probably very bad.”
There’s an agony I’ve never heard lancing each of his words. He’s suffering, muscling through it.
“Is this the same thing that’s been bothering you for a few weeks?”
“Yeah,” he admits. “It was stupid to ignore it.” He sighs. “Really fucking dumb.”
I’ve only seen Liam react to his left shoulder twice. He brushed it off both times.
“They’re gonna take me to the hospital here.”
Hospital. He isn’t solving this with an athletic trainer. He needs to go to the hospital.
“Paige,” he says, voice shaking, “can you come?”
It’s uncharted territory to be needed.
No one in my family has ever needed me like this.
No one has ever asked me to drop everything and be there for them.
Which is probably why I wouldn’t have suggested coming myself even though my instincts told me to get in the car as soon as Liam walked into the dugout.
I would’ve assumed his coach, his teammates, his family had it covered, that I wasn’t necessary or vital to the situation.
That theory is proven totally wrong during my three-hour drive to Nashville.
One of Liam’s roommates, Carlos, who I’ve met only twice, travels with him to Vanderbilt Medical, gets my number from Liam’s phone, and calls me every thirty minutes with an unprompted update.
“He’s getting X-rays and scans right now.”
“He’s got a SLAP tear.” When I ask what that means, Carlos says, “Basically, the cartilage in Liam’s shoulder is damaged.”
I ask if that’s serious, and Carlos says, “It’s as bad a diagnosis as a pitcher can get.”
“They have to start surgery to get the full extent of the damage,” he updates me a bit later, “but based on his pain level, they think it’s a severe tear.
Liam just admitted to the doctor it’s been bothering him for a while, so they think it’s a combination of cartilage deterioration over time and that one pitch today that exacerbated the damage. ”
And a little later still: “He’s in surgery now.
The doctors just gave me the update that they need to reattach his labrum to his shoulder socket.
Apparently, they are drilling some kind of hole?
And also suturing something, which I’m pretty sure is like, sewing.
But he’s going to be fine. Like, he’ll live,” Carlos clarifies, “And he’ll recover, in time. ”
In time.
Liam will live, and he’ll recover in time, but he won’t be playing baseball anytime soon or possibly ever again.
Tears begin to stream down my cheeks as I make it into the city, navigating my way to the hospital. I hate that Liam is in pain. That he’s probably been hurting for a while now and hiding it, with the false hope that it would go away, or he could force it not to be true.
And now, the emotional torture of this—having it end so much worse than it might’ve if he’d only listened to his body. If he hadn’t been so focused on pitching steady and strong at all costs ahead of the draft.
I wish I’d questioned him on it more than I did. I wish I’d pushed him about it instead of letting him lie to me, to himself.
My thoughts flash again to his family. The jokes about bankrolling. Whatever he’d promised his mom. Before the doctors knocked him out with anesthesia, I have a feeling that’s the thought that was eating at him.
But if I know Liam at all—and I do—nothing will break his heart more than the simple loss of not being able to do his favorite thing in the world.
I park and hurry into the building. Carlos meets me in a waiting area, still in his uniform. He hugs me tight, like I need soothing.
I do need soothing. My eyes are puffy, hands shaking.
“He’s going to be okay,” Carlos repeats several times in between other medical updates. “They’re done with the surgery. It was quick and successful. They’re going to let us know as soon as he wakes up. This is a good thing; Liam won’t be in any more pain now.”
“Did you tell his family?” I ask.
Carlos nods. “His mother is flying in tomorrow morning.”
“That’s good,” I say.
Carlos sets his hands on my shoulders, catching my eyes. “Do you need anything, Paige?”
I say no, but he still wanders off and comes back with a bottled water and granola bar. We sit. I eat and drink, just to give my body a routine to follow, staring into the distance, imagining Liam on a surgeon’s table while his team finished the game.
“He’s done, isn’t he?”
Carlos says, “With the recovery time, the risk that he might never regain full mobility, and the fact that this is his second injury…” He sighs. “Yeah. I’d say he’s done.”
I turn to Carlos. “You’re a good friend.”
“You’re a good girlfriend,” he replies casually. I don’t correct him.
Carlos stands when a doctor he recognizes comes to greet us.
“Liam is awake,” the doctor says, smiling gently. “Groggy from the anesthesia and a little loose-lipped from the painkillers, but he’s ready to see visitors.”
“You go first.” Carlos nods me toward the doctor. “I’m going to call around and give some updates.”
“You sure?”
He just nods again, sitting back down.
I follow the doctor down a hallway and into a private patient room.
Liam is sitting upright in bed wearing a hospital gown, one of his arms in a sling and the other bandaged around the elbow from his IV.
His hair is flattened, there’s an indentation near his crown from a possible hairnet gone missing, and his face is white as a sheet.
But when Liam sees me, he grins ear to ear. “Hey,” he croaks out, voice lined with sleep. “It’s my sort-of, kind-of girlfriend.”
“I’ll give you two some privacy. Just be very careful,” the doctor murmurs to me.
I nod, and he closes the door, leaving us alone.
“C’mere,” Liam says, using his good hand to gesture for me.
I go to the side of his bed and grab his clammy, cold hand, holding it with both of my own. My fingers begin to massage his palm gently.
“Look at me, Paige.”
I glance up at him, my eyes instantly welling with tears when our gazes lock.
This is not what Liam needs. He needs me to be positive and strong and uplifting, but here I am choking back a sob.
“Carlos said you’re not gonna be in pain anymore.”
Liam rolls his eyes. “It wasn’t that bad until today.”
I swallow thickly, still massaging his hand. “I’m just really glad you’re okay.”
He snorts softly, then laughs. “I’m not okay, Paige. I’m toast. I probably can’t even pitch for my senior year of college. I fucked it all up and I don’t have a backup plan and now I’m toast.” He thrusts his head against the pillow, eyes on the ceiling.
“I’m so—sad,” he whispers eventually. “I loved it so much.”
My heart can barely take it. Such a simple admission that says everything.
“And I wish my dad was here.”
I push my forehead against our clasped hands, fighting back my emotions. I wish I’d called Maren for advice on the way here. How to be strong in a storm.
“Hey,” he says, voice cracking. “Don’t cry, Paige. Don’t cry. I didn’t mean instead of you. I wish you were both here together.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumble, sitting upright and plastering on a smile.
“I know that’s not what you meant, Liam.
I just care about you so much, and I want to make it better however I can.
I’m sorry your dad can’t be here to help you through this, but I promise that you have so many people in your life who love you and will do their best.”
His hand moves up my arm, past my shoulder to my cheek. “Do you love me?”
A warning flare shoots off in my stomach. “Please don’t ask me that right now.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re high,” I say, still leaning my face into his hand even so, “and sad, and you might not even remember this conversation, or worse, you might remember it and regret knowing what one of us said to the other.”
He shakes his head, but it’s more of a loll against the pillow, illustrating my point. “I only regret waiting to say it. I love you, Paige. The only thing that made this day bearable was knowing you were coming.”
I feel like I’m hallucinating this moment straight from a dream, but Liam’s touch on me is solid, and his eyes hold mine with an even keel while he speaks.
“Of course I love you. Obviously, I love you. The only reason I haven’t said it before now is because I—because—” He cuts himself off, tightening his lips. “Well, it’s still kind of a secret.”
Well, that is a tiny bit alarming in a sea of good feelings and gives me enough pause to remember he’s not in his right mind.
Liam’s fingers thread into my hair. “Do you love me too? I’m pretty sure you do.”
It isn’t arrogance in his voice. Just sureness.
He already knows.
He knows because I constantly look at him, doe-eyed, like he hung the moon.
Because he’s heard every one of my songs.
Because he’s funnier to me than a standup comedian and because my reactions to his tiny, romantic gestures—like buying a night-light for his dorm room because I hate the absolute dark, and making playlists he thinks I’d like on Spotify—are cause enough for me to blush and kiss him in a frenzy and say things like you can’t be real, can you? while my heart beats out loud.
Liam Bishop knows I love him.
“This isn’t the right moment,” I whisper, fighting every instinct to say the words back.
“Funny, that’s what I kept telling myself all month.
But Paige”—he widens his eyes—“y’know what?
You know what, Bristol? There is no right moment.
I’m actually pretty sure the only right moment, the only defining, critical point of us, was when I followed you into that bookstore because you were my personal siren, and every moment since is just a waterfall of that one.
I could say I love you now, or I could’ve said it in my truck bed under the stars, or I could say it in a few days when these drugs wear off, and it’ll all be the same love.
The moment you admit it doesn’t mean shit. I promise.”
The gallop of my pulse nearly drowns out my frenetic thoughts. I try to memorize his words, then change my mind and test out erasing them instead.
It isn’t that I doubt right now, in this hospital room, Liam truly loves me too.
But saying it must be a knee-jerk reaction to missing his dad, not having his mom by his side yet, losing his chosen future.
Plus, with all the change headed Liam’s way, there’s a real chance he might regret being tied to me like this at his most vulnerable point.
I won’t hold this confession over him, and I won’t feed it.
Doing either of those things would be categorically wrong.
I squeeze Liam’s hand. “I’m not trying to avoid answering you,” I whisper. “But I need you to trust me that this is really not the right moment. It would feel like I’m taking advantage of you. Can we talk about it another day?”
He sighs loudly and says “fine” with a bit of petulance, which makes my lips kick up a hair.
He keeps watching me. Releases a deep exhale. I fiddle with his blanket.
“I don’t know who I’m supposed to be now,” Liam admits, sounding devastated.
“I’ve never known who I’m supposed to be.”
“I have,” he says. “I’ve known your future all along.”
My head quirks. “Care to illuminate me?”
He smiles loosely, something flashing behind his eyes. “How was the drive?”
“Not too bad.”
“Yeah, it’s not too bad at all. Only two and a half hours if the traffic is light.”
I smirk through my confusion. “I would have driven ten hours to be here.”
He hums. “It’s only seven and a half from Savannah.”
I nod, still confused. “But Carlos told me your mom will be here first thing in the morning.”
Guilt smothers him. “Shit,” he rumbles, eyes widening goofily again. “I need to see the hospital bill first.”
“Insurance will cover most of it,” I say, even though I have no clue if that’s true.
Liam looks unconvinced.
I frown. “Don’t worry about that right now.”
“Not the moment to talk about money either?” He tries to wink at me, but in fact, both of his eyes blink closed.
I laugh out loud; I think Carlos might have been listening for something like it, because he knocks and comes in a few seconds later.
“Vols lost” is the first thing he says to Liam, who groans, palms his forehead, and moans, “All for naught!”
Carlos and I burst into laughter then. He pulls up a chair on Liam’s other side. We stay with him until visiting hours end. And we’re back first thing in the morning to keep him company up until the moment his mother arrives.