Unexpected

Liam twists his broad shoulders to fit through my window frame, then hoists himself inside. I expect him to greet me with a hug. To sit beside me in my bed, possibly even lay back, pull me into his arms, and talk until we fall asleep. He’s done that so many times over the years, I’ve lost count. Not tonight. Instead, he chooses to sit in my desk chair, spinning it to face me.

The tiny hairs on my arms stand on edge. A feeling of unease I can’t shake weighs me down. It’s heavy on my chest, heart, and mind. I think I would prefer a night with my thoughts, drowning in wonder, than have whatever conversation Liam wants to have.

“Did you have a good night?”

Liam lets out a long sigh and slouches until his head rests against the edge of the backrest. He stares up at my ceiling, at what’s left of the glow in the dark stars I never bothered to take down from when we were kids. A small smile tugs at his lips but leaves as quickly as it came. “I don’t want to do this anymore, Lainey.”

All of my senses hone in on the pang of fear rippling through me. I can’t breathe, can’t think, let alone speak. My mind races a million miles a minute, unable to focus on one thought for more than a second. Liam is not breaking up with me. He can’t. He wouldn’t throw years of, whatever you’d call us, away for a girl. A stupid girl he just started dating. This has to be some sort of misunderstanding.

“Do what anymore?”

“Us.” Liam pushes up out of the chair. He runs a hand through his blonde hair, shaved on the sides, long on top.

I hated the cut when he first got it. I thought it made him look like a tool, but it grew on me. Now it’s at the stage where it needs to be styled again. Even so, in his flustered state and through my emotional turmoil, I can’t help that my heart beats for him.

“It’s not fair to Corah.”

To Corah?

My lips turn down into a frown. What about me? What about us? We never explicitly talked about it, but we were going to go to college together. Get married. Be that one percent that stays with their childhood sweetheart. My mind reels. Images of the future I’ve dreamed about since middle school flicker, then shatter into tiny pieces, along with my heart.

When I don’t say anything, Liam adds, “I like her too much to hurt her. I think I might even love her.”

I stop breathing, stop thinking, and force myself to meet Liam’s gaze. His eyes are red and glassy. His lips turned down. He looks upset. Then again, he could be high.

“You can’t love her,” I whisper. Finding the courage to speak is like looking for a needle in a haystack; hard but not impossible. I clear my throat and force myself to talk louder. “It’s only been a few weeks.”

“It’s been seven.” He huffs.

I twist the edge of my comforter between my fingers, anxious to distract myself from the despair threatening to eat me alive. My diversion is not working. I still feel the pang of jealousy, the hurt of betrayal, and the desperation to make Liam realize that we belong together. “That’s not love, Liam. It’s lust and hormones.”

Liam’s dark brows pull together. Perfect plump lips press into a tight line. He’s angry with me. He’s never been angry with me, not even after I spilt red Kool-Aid all over his favorite baseball card when we were kids. Or when I slammed the window shut, breaking two of his fingers a week before playoffs last year.

“You don’t know what love is, Lainey. You’ve never even dated.”

“I love you.”

I’ve said those words a million times in my head, but never out loud. My heart races, pumping my blood so fast I’m dizzy. I think I might die if he doesn’t say it back. He has to say it back. When he does, he’ll know; it’ll hit him how perfect we are together and all of this nonsense with Corah will be over.

Liam lets out a strained breath. He steps forward and takes my hands in his, only there's no tingle with his touch tonight. No zing of excitement. “I love you too, Lainey, but not like I love her.”

The tiny cloud of hope I was floating on dissipates. I pull my hands from his and hook my thumbs behind my back, under the elastic of my pajama shorts. I can’t touch Liam, not if I intend to keep my composure. “I don’t get it. What makes her different?”

Liam shrugs and walks over to my desk, then picks up a framed picture of us from last summer. We’d borrowed his dad's boat and spent the day drinking with his friends at the sandbar. When the sun began to set, we found a tiny island to explore before exploring each other for the hundredth time. It was perfect. We were perfect. What happened to us?

“I don’t know. Corah just is, and I can’t do this with you anymore.” He looks up at me and sighs. “You don’t cheat on someone you love.”

Liam’s words knock me back a step. Every whisper, every rumor I’d told myself wasn’t true floods my brain.

He pities her. She’s his fallback girl. She’s pathetic; who lets her boyfriend kiss another girl? He’ll never date her.

Anger fights its way through the pain, morphing into a hungry beast. I taught Liam how to kiss. I gave him his first blow job. I helped him figure out that when you finger a girl, you don’t twirl it around like you’re mixing tea. I should be the person he’s worried about hurting because I came first! “But it’s okay to cheat on me?”

Liam puts the picture back on my desk. He turns to me, confusion etched across his face and the fact that he’s so ignorant pisses me off even more. “We were never dating, Lane. It’s not cheating if you're not together.”

All the air leaves my lungs. My jaw drops as I struggle to take another breath. Never dating? We’ve been hooking up in one way or another for the better part of five years! How can he say we weren’t together?

“That’s not fair.”