Chapter 55 Andrea #3
“You didn’t flinch. You stayed. And I’m not with you because you need me, Liam.
I’m with you because you choose me. And I get to choose you back.
Because I want a life with you. And if that means more lifts, more boardrooms, more awful Mondays, and the occasional cross-dressing elf, then fine. I still want that. I want you.”
*
Liam was standing by the window of his apartment, jacket off, sleeves rolled. The city glowed behind him.
“There’s something I should explain to you,” he said. “Can I show you something?”
He turned and walked back down the hall, disappearing into his bedroom. I sat on the edge of the sofa and thought about what had happened, what we’d both said.
I love you, Andrea. I have for ages.
He came back a moment later, carrying something, then set it down on the low table between us and sat opposite.
It was the box I’d seen in his bedroom.
He opened the lid. Inside were a few things arranged neatly—a folded paper and a photograph. A small metallic disk with a ribbon tucked beneath it caught the light briefly before he turned it face down.
What was that—a medal?
He lifted the photograph.
“This is Samir,” he said. “He was ten in this one.”
The boy was smiling, one arm hooked possessively around Liam’s leg.
“He used to hang around the base,” Liam said. “He was a good kid. Clever. Liked anything with wires.”
I took the photo and studied it. Liam’s head was thrown back in a laugh. He was tanned, wearing fatigues, probably about twenty-six. It was creased around the edges, like it had been held a lot.
How many times had he looked at it?
“We were close,” he said quietly. “I tell myself it wasn’t my fault—”
His hands were shaking. I’d never seen that before.
“Liam—” My heart picked up. Was this what had been driving him all along? Not some abstract need to do good, but something specific and painful that had a little boy’s face on it?
He reached out and took the photo back from me.
“It’s all right. I know it wasn’t my fault, really.
Technically. I get it. And they tell you that all the time in counseling, too.
But the kid and I—” He breathed in deeply and looked at the floor.
“He was just a really good kid, Andy. He trusted me. And when the explosion happened, he was looking for me, like I might be able to protect him—”
His voice broke.
Liam always wanted to protect those around him. It was who he was.
“He ran to me, Andy. To me. When the bomb went off. And that’s why—”
I couldn’t imagine it. The pain. The guilt that didn’t belong to him, that he’d carried anyway. Was that why he’d been the way he had, after the RAF? Why he’d avoided relationships and getting close to anyone?
Could he just not bear to let anyone into the pain he’d been carrying alone?
After a minute he said, “This is where it started … I had this idea that if I couldn’t stop something bad, I could at least try to balance it. Like good things could somehow … make up for it.”
My eyes were stinging, and I reached out and took his free hand.
“But they don’t, Andy. The bad things are still bad. I just didn’t know what else to do with it. With the fact that he trusted me.”
“You don’t have to turn it into something useful, Liam,” I said. “You’re allowed to let it just … be awful.”
He set the photograph back in the box and closed the lid slowly.
“I don’t know how.”
I hesitated.
“I didn’t either,” I said. “When my dad died. I just sort of … kept going. Took care of everyone else so I didn’t have to feel it.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“And how did that work out?” he asked.
I let out a small, humorless laugh. “Yeah, not brilliantly, as it goes.”
For a second or two, neither of us said anything.
“It changed everything,” I said. “He wasn’t just gone, everything else was different, too. The family, how we saw each other, how I saw myself.”
“You were so young when you lost him,” Liam said after a while.
“Yeah.” I sniffed, and he squeezed my hand briefly. “I think everyone was just … waiting for someone to say it was okay. And nobody did. So I just … got on with it. There didn’t seem to be another option.”
I glanced down at our hands, noticing how easily his fit around mine.
“I got used to being the one who didn’t need anything,” I said quietly. “I felt like … if I let someone else carry any of it, they might drop it. Or disappear. And then I’d have to survive it all over again.”
He shifted closer and drew me in against him, one arm around my shoulders. “And now?”
“Now I think I’ve just been making things harder than they need to be.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve done that too.” His hand came up to the back of my head, and he stroked my hair.
“So maybe we don’t do that,” I said, my eyes filling up again. “Not with this. Neither of us.”
He didn’t answer straight away, but I felt him press his lips gently to my temple.
“So … what do we do, instead?”
I drew back slightly to look at him.
“We say it,” I said. “The things we don’t want to say. The things we’re scared of, the things that hurt.”
His thumb brushed under my eye, catching a tear before it could fall.
“All right,” he said quietly. “We’ll do it together.”