12
Layla
Ten years ago
Grandma did end up having a stroke that day. The whole thing was a blur. An ambulance arrived, rushed her off, and we followed in the car, spending the rest of the day at the hospital. We sat impatiently in the waiting room as doctors came in and out giving us updates.
I was too scared and worried about her to think about whether we would go back to the cabin at all, or if I would ever see Liam again. Sometime later that evening, my dad drove back to the cabin to grab all our things. We stayed at the hospital that night, and we never went back to that cabin.
The doctors had said the stroke was minor and that Grandma would be relatively okay. She had some vision issues and her memory was a little foggy, but it could have been so much worse. They let her rest for the night, and the next morning, we were able to visit her.
It wasn’t until we got back home later that day, and I calmed down after realizing Grandma really was going to be fine, that my thoughts started to drift to Liam. A quiet panic swept over me when I realized we never exchanged numbers or anything. My parents were still driving back and forth to the hospital for the next week, busy with Grandma’s care and figuring out when and how they would get her back home. Or if they were going to send her back home at all. I couldn’t bother them with my silly boy problems. It was clear they were both stressed by the whole situation.
After a few weeks of Grandma staying with us while she recovered, Mom flew her back out to the East Coast. She loved it there and wanted to be back around her friends. It was her home, she had said.
Dad was back to work and busier than ever. He had to pick up a lot of extra tasks around the house that Mom usually handled. I tried to help out where I could. Mom was going to be gone for several weeks while she helped get Grandma into an assistant living home back in Florida.
Weeks turned into months, but I still thought about Liam. I never voiced it out loud, though. It felt silly at that point. What was I supposed to do—ask Dad to drive me back to Lake Tahoe so that I could knock on his door and…what? Ask for his number? He had probably forgotten about me by then. But I hadn’t forgotten him. The boy who gave me the best night ever, who woke something in me, was gone from my life in the blink of an eye. It wasn’t fair. Sometimes, I wished I could go back to that week. I would have gone with Dad the night he went back to get our stuff, and I would’ve knocked on Liam’s door and gave him my number. And maybe one more kiss.
**
That next Christmas, we didn’t go to Lake Tahoe. Instead, we went to Florida to visit Grandma. A small part of me still clung to that magical spring night. I wanted to go back, just to see if he was still there. To see if what we had between us was still there. But I felt selfish asking.
The following spring break, I begged to go back. And that time, we did. I brought my friend Daniela along, who knew all about Liam. Or “the one that got away,” as she called him. She tried to convince me to go knock on his door, but I didn’t have the courage in me. It had been too long. A full year had passed, and he’d most likely gone off to college. When I pictured him opening the door to find me on the other side, it never went well in my head. The most I let Daniela convince me to do was walk along the same shore here and there, hoping for a chance encounter. It never happened. It didn’t even look like anyone was home at his house the entire week we were there. I watched it from afar. I didn’t fixate on it, though. We also spent a lot of time kayaking, hiking, and simply enjoying the outdoors.
The years went by, and gradually, the memory of that one unforgettable night with the boy who made my heart race faded into a distant corner of my mind. I was busy with college, and my parents were enjoying retirement. We only returned to Tahoe City as a family a few more times, but those trips were filled with cherished memories. One summer, a few months after my twenty-first birthday, I got absolutely hammered at the tavern, and Mom and Dad laughed about it for years. Then their accident happened, and I fell into a deep pit of despair, slowly trying to claw my way out.