“Correction,” Gabby said, snapping her fingers to gain her attention, “you were trying to steal Liam.”
“Either way, I did a bad thing and I am sorry. I’m leaving school now, so don’t worry about seeing me around. I won’t bother you anymore,” Josie said, and with that she turned and walked out of our lives. I looked to Gabby, Tyler, Liam, and everyone around us, wondering if they’d heard the same thing I had.
Liam was watching me. His face was unreadable. Of course, he’d heard her. He had been trying to tell me for a month. I just wouldn’t listen. I’d needed absolute proof, and for the first time in a month I had it. Would he ever understand that? Could he understand me?
Gabby stepped to me, inches away from my ear. “Go to him. He’s been shot down too many times to ask,” she whispered.
Without a second thought I went to him, grabbing his hand. “Can we go to your room and talk?”
Unsure, he nodded. “Of course.”
I entwined our fingers, leading him from the kitchen. The party had seemingly stopped. The music was muffled. The students were in slow motion. Nothing was on my mind other than my lost month. I had no one to blame but myself.
Liam closed the door when we got to his room. He was silent, letting me take the lead. I got it. I’d blown him off more than once, convinced one moment he was plotting against me, and the next that I didn’t deserve a relationship.
“Do you hate me?” I asked, getting it all out in the open. He took a few steps toward me.
“Quite the opposite,” he said in the breathy voice I loved so much. It was like waking up next to him before it all happened, drenched in his love and kisses.
“I’m damaged goods. I couldn’t even trust the one person who cares for me. The only person who…” I stopped, taking a breath to calm down.
“Finish that. What were you going to say?”
“You loved me. You always have. I should have seen that. I got scared. I was insecure. I pushed you away and you stopped trying.” At this point, tears were streaming down my face.
“There’re so many things wrong with what you just said.” He stepped closer, putting his hands on my face, wiping away each tear that fell. “I only stopped trying because it hurt you, Autumn.”
Sniffling, I looked at him. He was at peace near me, almost smiling. “What else is wrong?”
“You said I loved you. I loved you then, I love you now, and I’ll never fucking stop, Autumn.”
“I love you, too, Liam. I think I always have. I just don’t know how.”
“I’ll teach you,” he said. His lips crashed into mine with so much need, it took my breath away.
He tugged my sweater off, gently placing me on the bed. My pants and everything else followed as he kicked everything off him. He looked at me lovingly, keeping his hands gentle, but there was an urgency about him that hadn’t been there before.
His rolled a condom on and his lips were back on mine. “Is this okay?”
“More than okay,” I said, promisingly.
He rocked into me and I squeezed his shoulders, taking him in for the first time in over a month. My breathing matched his, shallow and quick. I’d needed this. I wanted to be hugged fully, a part of him, sweaty. I wanted every piece of him that made us whole.
“I needed this,” he whispered in my ear, rocking into me.
“You have no idea,” I said.
This ugly stain of guilt popped up, but I pushed it away. If nothing else, this moment was worth it. This was all I’d ever needed. Me and him like this. Balling my hand in his sheets, I screamed. Not caring one bit who heard me as the music was cranked to the fullest downstairs.
He began trembling after me. “I love you, Autumn. My God, I love you. I’ll never stop,” he chanted in my ear until he went still. He rolled over, taking me in his arms on his side.
“Don’t leave me again,” he said, and I could hear his voice crack.
“I won’t,” I promised him, and I meant it.
“Unless I deserve it.” He tried to lighten the mood.
“You won’t deserve it, Liam.”
“You heard about me…the drinking, partying, fighting. Acting like a complete ass.”
“And you’ve heard about me. Shitty homelife, trust issues, daddy issues. The whole works,” I said, offering him a half smile. His face tried to crack, but we had been through hell and back. It would take time.
“I love you, and I hope that will be enough for you for the rest of our lives because the last month has been hell for me.”
“It’ll be enough. We will always find each other. We may have issues, Liam, major ones, but we don’t have to have the answers. We just have to know where to find them. From now on let’s talk about them and listen, okay?”
He kissed my forehead tenderly. “I’ll do whatever it takes to feel this way forever.”
I knew what he meant. I had heard dozens of times that the love and infatuation would wear off, but it never did for me. He scared the hell out of me, but it was only because I knew it would wreck me if he was completely out of my life.
I had left my hometown thousands of miles away, only to fall into the arms of the boy who would teach me confidence. Someone tried to knock me down by bringing up my past, but she only secured the fact that my past would never be back. It was out of my life completely.
