Colin was laughing, already walking off down the street, holding a phone to his ear and calling a taxi.
My body felt like it was spinning at a million miles an hour. I waited two minutes, but I couldn’t stop focusing on the end of the block where Colin had walked away, as if I expected him to reappear like some sort of ghost.
I kept Liam’s body close to mine, holding him. I worried he’d evaporate as soon as I let go.
“Liam,” I said softly. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Is it true?”
“Of course it is,” he said.
My heart ached. “You—you never told me.”
He was chewing on the inside of his cheek. “It’s embarrassing. I’ve… I’ve tried so many times to get sober. So many, Red. It never works.”
“Fuck,” I whispered.
I held him like I was somehow trying to cocoon him from a storm. All of my insides were so heavy, and there was nothing I needed more than to protect him right now.
“It’s going to work this time,” I said.
“I hate him, but he’s right. I know he’s right. I don’t know why I thought coming here would make any difference—”
“Don’t ever say that motherfucker is right,” I said, my voice firm. “I won’t let you.”
“Even the worst people are right sometimes,” he said. “Some part of me came to this town expecting you to save me. And the whole time I’ve been making your life worse. Pulling you into this shitstorm of idiotic drama.”
“You’re wrong,” I said. “You’re so, so wrong, Liam.”
“You don’t want me,” he said, his voice rising now. His eyes were a little bloodshot now and red around his eyelids. I could feel my heart cracking inside me.
“Stop—”
“You don’t. You don’t want me like I want you,” he said, wiping his eyes with the heels of his palms. “Sex isn’t the only thing I want.”
My heart slammed in my chest. “It isn’t just sex.”
He looked at me like he was about to shatter into pieces. Looking at Liam right now, all I could see was the sad, scared child who was completely rejected by his own family. A kid who had all the brightness in him snuffed out far too soon.
He was so beautiful, yet he’d been so mistreated. Abandoned, over and over.
I knew I couldn’t save him even though it was the only thing in the world I wanted.
A few tears streamed down his cheeks as he spoke.
“Do you know what I dream of, more nights than I can count?” Liam said, shaking his head and looking at the ground. “It’s pathetic, Red. It isn’t even sex. I dream… I dream of us being an old married couple. I dream of gardening out in the back yard and bringing you basil as you simmer tomato sauce on the stove. Waking up next to you on some Sunday morning and watching the fucking sunlight hit your face. I dream of never being with anybody else but you, for the rest of my life. And I keep it inside, Red. I don’t say a word about it. But it’s killing me. It’s killing me every day knowing you don’t feel the same.”
He stopped to pull in a long, shaky breath.
“And now I’ve said what I shouldn’t,” he told me, his voice weak. “Shit.”
A cold shock of fear hit me, moving through me like ice. I felt the defenses I’d built up for ten years rising to attention, ready to form reinforcements all over again.
I wasn’t supposed to want every single thing that Liam told me he fantasized about.
But I did.
Thinking about a life with Liam—a future with him, as a true partner—didn’t sound like chaos anymore. In fact, it sounded like some form of heaven. A slow kind. A kind that is more like a warm fire than a roller coaster.
And that made me feel scared in a way I hadn’t in years. The idea of letting go of the safe little airtight fortress I’d been hiding behind and taking a leap. The idea of letting myself merge with someone else so completely, to trust like I hadn’t trusted in a decade.
I’d been hurt so badly before. But now that pain seemed to pale in comparison to the pain of being without him.
“I’ve… I’ve been shutting you out,” I said, my voice weak. “Without even realizing it.”
Liam shook his head slowly. “And you know what Red? That’s probably the right choice.”
I swallowed hard. So many words bubbled up inside me, only to disappear as soon as I tried to speak.
“No,” I whispered.
I wanted to give him the whole fucking world. I wanted to show him exactly how deeply he affected me, got to me, in a way that nobody else had even come close.
Instead now I was the one who was paralyzed. A grown man, always so in charge of my own destiny, and I couldn’t even figure out how tell my favorite person how I felt.