“Your fiancé who is clearly in love with someone else? Does he really get a say in this?”
I pull even farther out of his embrace at the mention of Courtney. “That’s not fair. If I do this with you, then I’m no better than he is.” I stand abruptly, my purse falling to the ground. Liam picks it up and our hands brush.
“I’m not going to apologize for kissing you. I’m not going to spend one more day pretending I don’t care—even if it means I get hurt.” He stands and grabs my shoulders, but his eyes soften quickly when he looks into mine. “Don’t go back in time again. Don’t marry Max. Stay here and be with me.”
My mind spinning, I watch him as he chews his lower lip, his eyes squinting at me so hard it’s as if he’s trying to see inside of me. Liam is in love with me? The question materializes in my mind like skywriting as we continue to lock gazes, neither of us ready to break eye contact or the palpable silence. I loved him too, of course, and would do anything for him, but I couldn’t give him this—not when I had fought so hard to make things work with Max. “I can’t do this right now,” I say, and his shoulders sag. “I’m sorry.” I reach for him, but he moves away from me.
“I’m sorry too . . .” He finally averts his gaze, staring out at the crowd of partygoers oblivious to the drama unfolding between us. “But I had to tell you. I needed you to know there’s a life here, with me. If you’re brave enough to take the leap.”
“I’m sorry.” I shake my head, thankful that the darkness is helping to conceal my watery eyes, the disappointed expression I imagine in his eyes, suddenly remembering his words before the rehearsal dinner—that I didn’t have to go through with the wedding. He had quickly laughed it off, but I wonder now if he had been harboring a sliver of hope that I really would call it off. I hear Nikki’s voice echo from the main stage as she thanks everyone for coming tonight—wondering suddenly, as the sound of thunderous applause fills the air, if the real reason I had fought against Liam’s relationship with her had nothing to do with her celebrity and everything to do with my own feelings for him. I think back to how unsettled I was when he began to choose Nikki over me, how my heart had felt vacant as I’d stared at yet another unanswered text message on my phone, and wonder if the idea of losing him had sparked something inside of me that I hadn’t let myself realize was there, or more likely, was too afraid to acknowledge.
“I have to go back,” I say more to myself than to him, deciding that I still owed it to myself to see things through with Max.
“Then I have just one request,” he says, his voice low and scratchy. “Don’t tell me when you get there.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t tell me about coming back here, about what Max did to you the first time. About what I just confessed to you.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to know—I won’t want to know.” He stands up and starts to walk away, then stops himself and turns back abruptly. “Have you ever thought about why I haven’t gotten serious with anyone?”
I think of his last string of girlfriends: Daphne, Erica, Janie, or was it Jamie? Many of whom I’d never even met, but had, of course, heard about. After a month or two, he’d inevitably announce their departure, then tell me why it would’ve never worked. I’d listen as he explained why he’d broken things off with her—always wondering about the real reason he wasn’t settling down, guessing it was a commitment issue because of his absent father. But I never pried. I figured he’d eventually find the one who would rise above the rest and weed through the bullshit and ultimately get to his heart despite his greatest efforts to tuck it away. And all along that person was . . . “Me,” I hear myself say. “It was because of me? ” I ask, the words sounding strange as I say them out loud.
He rubs the stubble that’s lightly dotting his chin and nods slowly. “I compare them all to you,” he says quietly. And suddenly, I flash back to that night in college Liam kissed me and I blew it off. Has he loved me since then?