Smart Girl (23 page)

When I get to my room, I head straight for the shower. I just want to wash this night off of me, put on my favorite pajamas, and sleep until noon tomorrow, when we’re all supposed to meet for brunch to celebrate. As I stand under the hot spray, I can’t help but smile when I remember Landon on the way home. She couldn’t stop looking down at her ring, she couldn’t stop telling him that she loved him, she couldn’t stop smiling every time he said it back. They describe it sometimes in books—the giddiness, the stars in their eyes, the electric current that runs back and forth between two people in love—but the words don’t do it justice. In this instance, the book isn’t better than real life. No book could ever clearly describe the palpable joy that my friends are wrapped up in. Max made jokes about gagging over their PDA, but it was a halfhearted attempt at best. Everyone was swept up in their love. It was like stepping near a fireplace: it was impossible to be around it and not be warmed by it.

I am so happy for my friends; nobody is more deserving of that kind of joy. But I can’t help but think how their situation compares with my own.

I keep telling myself that we’re still new and that I have to give Liam time, but is that the case? Is enough time ever going to pass for him to stop holding me out at a distance? I reach up to finger the chain at my neck. I haven’t taken the necklace off since he gave it to me, and all of a sudden that feels embarrassing. It feels like Gollum and the ring, and coveting things that were never supposed to be yours to begin with. Even with that knowledge, I still can’t make myself remove it now.

Ugh! Is this what relationships are like? Never knowing what’s going on? Always being confused? Always wishing, hoping, praying that you’ll do the right thing or say the right thing? Feeling desolate when you know you’ve missed the mark?

I shake my head sadly as I dry off in answer to my own question. No, my friends are in relationships, and theirs aren’t like this at all. They might argue sometimes, and they might have to work through their problems, but they’re supportive and respectful of each other. Both Landon and Max are totally confident that they are loved unconditionally. They never try to change themselves into someone new or worry that they’re doing the wrong thing, because being loved makes them utterly confident in just being themselves.

I rub at my gritty eyes. It is
so
time for sleep. I absolutely cannot think about this for one more second today.

I slip into pajamas and pad across the floor to my bed. My phone on the nightstand is showing a text message.

You should totally come over and hang out with me.

How many times has he sent me the exact same text? How many times have I immediately dropped whatever I was doing and gone to his house? I’m frozen, stock-still, unable to move for the anger bubbling up inside me. Tonight, of all nights, he’s going to try that? After he couldn’t be bothered to show up when he said he would? After he missed his own brother’s engagement because—what, he knew there would be too much commitment in the air? Now he wants to text me at three o’clock in the morning so I’ll drive over? It’s New Year’s and he must know that I’ve been drinking; how does he propose I get there? Does it even matter as long as I show up? Anger gives way to rage and with it comes clarity.

What am I to you?
I asked him once.

A friend?
he answered.

And I believed him too, because we have fun and we laugh and I thought it could be enough. My parents are best friends. Charlie and Viv, Max and Taylor, Brody and Landon: I’ve watched these couples all around me who are definitely close friends with each other, and so I convinced myself that this was a solid place to start a relationship. I shake my head.

But we’re not friends. Friends don’t treat each other this way.

It’s like a switch is flipped and I can see clearly for the first time in months. Friends don’t waver back and forth on whether or not they like you. Friends don’t constantly make plans and then break them. Friends talk. Friends ask each other questions. Friends care enough to try to keep you from being hurt. Friendship was the minimum I was hoping for from him—but we’re not even friends, are we?

I look over the last eight weeks and the ten months before that with a new kind of clarity. I chased after him like a puppy, but whatever I did, it was never enough to interest him. So I gave him everything I had to give and didn’t ask for anything in return.

Tosh always told me,
In business you’re worth whatever someone is willing to pay for you.
The idea being that you should charge a prospective client more because the value you have in yourself increases your value in the world. I’ve placed no value on myself at all, and worse than that, I’ve allowed Liam to treat me as if he agreed with the price.

The realization makes my knees feel weak, and I have to sit down on my bed.

How have I become this person?

If someone had told me a story about a friend who found herself in this situation, I would have felt pity. I probably would have said something snarky about self-esteem and higher standards. It would never have occurred to me that I would, or even
could
, become this person. It would never have occurred to me that Liam, who I’ve loved since the very first time I met him, was the one who would help me get here.

I lie back on the pillows, resigning myself to the truth. I have to have a conversation with Liam—and not the kind that happens over text.

I get up midmorning and go about getting ready with slow, methodical steps. My hair is big and wild; my T-shirt is the size of a regulation flag and just as many colors. My boyfriend jeans have almost as many holes as they have denim, and my red low-top Converse make me smile. I feel like myself—for the first time in a long time, I feel just like myself.

I drive to Liam’s house, feeling totally confident in what I’m about to do. I ring his doorbell with hands that don’t shake. When he opens the door, looking sleep mussed and sexy and so, so happy to see me, my heart kicks into a higher rhythm, but I ignore it.

“I’m so happy to see you.” He reaches for me.

I dart around his outstretched arm and into the entryway. I don’t want to let him touch me; I don’t want anything to cloud my thinking right now.

“I need to talk to you.” I look him right in the eye.

A little furrow appears in between his eyebrows. He’s never seen me so serious.

“Is everything OK?”

Too many answers pop into my mind, but I ignore them all. I reach into my front pocket and pull out the tiny blue pouch.

“I came to give you this,” I say, handing it to him.

He looks down at the Tiffany’s pouch that holds the necklace he gave me.

“I don’t understand.”

“I don’t want to see you anymore.” I say it with total calm sincerity. “I know we’ll have to see each other, but I don’t want to do this”—the old words taste bitter on my tongue—“whatever this is with you anymore.”

He scowls. “You’re this upset because I didn’t show on New Year’s.”

He just doesn’t get it. Maybe he never will.

“I’m this upset because you didn’t show up ever. Not once in the last two months.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I can’t be with someone who thinks it’s OK to treat me this way.”

Pain and confusion race across his face. He takes a step closer to me, and I step closer to the door.

“You’re with me, but we’re not really together. You like me but just not enough to acknowledge me in public. You called me your friend, but friends don’t treat each other this way. I can’t keep going on like we have been.”

The last part comes out with a bit of a sob, and I have to take a couple of deep breaths to regain my composure. I refuse to break down right now. I’ve cried over him enough already. I can tell that my emotions make him uncomfortable.

“I don’t do relationships. I told you this months ago.” He crosses his arms and anger seeps into his tone. “I also don’t do ultimatums.”

How sad. How totally, utterly sad that this man has been so affected by his past that his first instinct is to think I’m trying to manipulate him into change. The understanding strengthens my spine again. It’s sad and I want to comfort him and make it better, but it’s not my job to do that anymore. Actually, it never was my job in the first place. I swallow and force myself to look him right in the eye.

“I love you.” I ignore the shock on his face. Saying these words isn’t about him or his reaction to them—this is for me. “I’ve loved you almost as long as I’ve known you. I just wanted to be able to say that to you at least once. I truly hope you’ll find happiness.” I reach for the car keys in my back pocket. “Please don’t text me anymore.”

I make it to the door before his voice halts my progress.

“You—you feel that way about me and you’re still ending it.”

For once I’m not the one someone is looking at with pity. How upsetting that he can’t even say the words, even just to repeat them back. It makes me sad, as does the bittersweet truth in what I’m about to say.

“I love you, Liam.” I take another calming breath. “I’ve just realized that I love myself more.”

I walk out of his house into the bright sunshine and never once look back.

He doesn’t listen to what I asked. He texts anyway. He tries playful, he tries sexy, he even writes some that clearly show his frustration. When I don’t respond to a single one, he starts calling. I send him to voice mail each time. I know I can’t answer, or we’ll be right back where we started.

When you break something yourself, you feel the force of the explosion; you can see every part of the destruction and watch the pieces fall. But at least then you can find them again when it’s over; at least that way you have a chance of putting the pieces back together. I find it ironic; this whole time I’ve lived in fear of Liam breaking my heart. But I did it all on my own.

So I cry.

I cry so long and so loud and so hard that Tosh finally stops politely asking me questions through my closed bedroom door and eventually uses some unknown key to unlock it. When he sees me wrapped up in blankets in the same pajamas I put on three days before, with a face that is splotchy and puffy with tears, he lets out a long string of curses I didn’t even know he knew.

First he turns off the iPod dock, which is probably a good thing. It can’t be healthy for anyone to listen to Beyoncé sing “Best Thing I Never Had” on repeat for three hours straight. He comes over to my bed and sits back against the headboard with his feet stretched out in front of him.

“Don’t put your dirty sneakers on my bed,” I chastise him weakly.

He raises one brow sardonically.

“Koko, you’re lying on a pillow covered in mascara and chocolate sauce. My shoes aren’t going to hurt anything.”

I sniff. “I made myself a hot-fudge sundae for dinner last night,” I say by way of explanation.

“Did it help?”

I force myself to sit up against the headboard with him.

“It did, actually.”

My bedroom looks like a bomb went off in it. I wonder how long it’ll be until all this chaos makes his OCD start to itch.

“What are you crying over?” he asks carefully.

Liam is the obvious answer, but there’s so much more to it than that. I’m crying for every crappy choice I’ve made over the last several months. When I tell him as much, he nods in understanding.

“I sincerely want to hurt that guy. Not kill him or anything, but beating the hell out of him or maybe leaving a few noticeable scars would go a long way for me right now.”

I never knew someone wanting to maim another person on my behalf could warm my heart.

“Can you fight?”

He stares at me in total affront. “Of course I can fight. All guys can fight.”

The image that comes to mind is of my friend Lonny from last summer. A bee buzzed too close to his face, and he went fully spastic trying to shoo it away. All this while wearing a thirteenth-century troubadour costume.

“That is patently untrue.”

My brother shrugs. “Well, I’d figure out how, Koko. I’m sure my rage could carry me pretty far, if you’re willing to let me have at him.”