The Status of All Things (25 page)

“Wait,” I say. “This is it? You’re walking away from me, now?” I ask, feeling panicked. “How do I fix this? Do I have any more wishes?” Maybe there was still a chance I could make this all right—if we hadn’t come to this party, if he’d never seen Courtney dancing with that man. If I could erase it all, Max and I could still be happy together.

Ruby sighs heavily, looking tired. “You do have one final wish. My advice to you is to use it wisely.” She pats my shoulder lightly. “Just remember, some things just aren’t meant to be fixed,” she says before disappearing into the darkness.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The cold water tingles my skin as it splashes up onto my face, wiping away in an instant the careful work I’d done applying my makeup earlier tonight, when I stood barefoot on my tiled bathroom floor, my heart still beating quickly after making love to Max, a nervous excitement coursing through me as I anticipated coming to this Hollywood party with him on my arm. Blotting my face dry with a stark white monogrammed napkin that reads
Nikki’s Night,
I sneer at my reflection in the mirror, wanting the answers I am seeking to be reflected in my eyes. Was Ruby right? At least I have one more wish. I could use it to go back in time again. Third time’s a charm, right?

I pull a tube of gloss out of my black sequined clutch and glide it over my lips, thinking about what I could have done differently with the wishes I’d been granted. Obviously it had been a mistake to use them to try to help Jules and Liam, my efforts to make their lives better completely backfiring. If I did decide to do this all over again, I wouldn’t have any more wishes, which means I would have to rely on my own power of persuasion to convince my best friends I had traveled through time. And Liam was so skeptical, I wasn’t confident I could make him believe me
on my own. Or that I’d even want to try. It might be better not to tell them at all—not to involve anyone else in my inability to get my own life right.

Yes
, I decide as I push open the bathroom door, the bass from the band’s speakers vibrating in the hallway. Traveling back again will be worth it because it will solve two major problems: Jules will hopefully be satisfied with her marriage and Liam won’t be at the center of a celebrity cheating scandal. Those two reasons alone are enough to convince me to do it. Even though I know I’ll be back to square one with Max and Courtney—but I’ll just have to figure out what I can do differently so my actions don’t keep pushing them together instead of pulling them apart.

I’d definitely need to go back further in time. Maybe two months? Six? When had their friendship shifted to something more? Was it when I sent Max to pick her up after her car broke down on Sepulveda Boulevard? Or had it been when Courtney scored backstage passes to meet the members of Toad the Wet Sprocket, Courtney sweet-talking her way onto their tour bus where she and Max partied with the band? What had been the exact moment that had changed the course of all of our lives? If I could pinpoint that, I might have a chance.

I make my way through the crowded ballroom, trying to keep my composure as I pass the entire cast of my favorite sitcom, finally spotting Max sitting with Ben and Jules in a lounge area in the corner, Jules cocking her head in the direction of the dance floor where Courtney is still gyrating with her date. I throw my hands up and shake my head, refusing to look in her direction again. As I start to make my way toward them I spy Liam’s lanky body sitting at the edge of the party where the dimming lights and darkness meet.

“Hey,” I say gently, and sit beside him as he raises a bottle
of tequila to his lips, his hair now rumpled, his bow tie loose around his neck, looking so much like the old Liam that my heart jumps—I hadn’t realized how much I had missed this version of him.

“Hey,” he echoes, and passes the bottle of Patrón to me.

I hesitate before taking a large swig, coughing slightly and wiping my mouth with the back of my hand as it burns my throat. “Damn, Liam. How much of this have you had?”

He shrugs his shoulders. “It was full when I snagged it from the bar.”

I look at the bottle, a little over a quarter of the liquor gone. “You okay?”

“This night has not turned out at all like I thought it would.”

“Tell me about it—check out who ended up on the guest list.” I point the bottle to where Courtney is on the dance floor.

“What are the odds of that?” Liam says, shaking his head.

A gazillion to one
.

“You should have seen Max’s face when he noticed her.” My stomach curls as I remember the look, one I wish I could erase from my mind. “It was like he’d seen a ghost,” I say, a single tear escaping from my eye, and I reach up to brush it away, but Liam beats me to it, his fingertip dissolving it.

“Come here,” he says, and pulls my chair closer to him, wrapping his warm arm around my shoulders.

“I found out I have one more wish. I’m thinking of using it to go back in time again. But I’m planning to go further back—maybe as far as six months.”

Liam takes another long drink from the bottle. “What if you don’t? What if you stay here? If you saw him look at her that way, after everything, maybe it means it’s time to let him go.”

The tears begin to fall more rapidly and I turn my face into
his chest and wipe them away with his shirt. “I’m worried that I don’t know who I am without him.”

“That’s funny.”

“What?”

“I don’t know who you are
with
him.”

I pull back, startled by his reaction. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” He shakes his head. “Forget it.”

“No, tell me.”

“I don’t even recognize this version of you—you’ve had tunnel vision this entire time, so closed off from everything that you can’t see what it’s done to you. You’ve changed, Kate.”

Stunned by Liam’s words, I try to formulate my response. I knew I was different, but I wasn’t sure that was a bad thing. My eyes were wide open this time. I wasn’t letting my relationship slip through the cracks while I paid attention to all the wrong things.

“And what about love?” he asks before I can respond.

“Love?”

“I tell you to let him go and the first thing you say is you don’t know who you are without him. Why didn’t you say it was because you loved him?”

“I don’t want to live my life without him. That
is
love.”

Liam shakes his head. “Not in my book. I say that’s fear.”

With each hurtful word Liam throws at me, anger begins to build up inside me like logs being stacked to make a fire—I’m worried I might erupt into flames if he struck a match against me. “Since when did
you
become a relationship expert? Aren’t you the guy whose buddies take over/under bets on how long before you find a flaw and dump the girl you’re dating? The man who’s Nikki’s puppet?” He flinches slightly when I say the last part.

“Not anymore.”

“Which one?”

“Either. Both. Whatever. Nikki and I are done. Tonight was all for show. Even though there was a part of me that still thought she’d change her mind.”

“The boy bander?”

“True. All of it.”

“But you told Jules the press got it wrong.”

“I wanted to believe they had. But then she admitted it to me this morning and begged me to still come as her date.” He closes his eyes for a moment, as if remembering their conversation. “I don’t know why I agreed—guess I’m just a sucker.”

“Or a nice guy.” I rub his back, suddenly ashamed of the things I said. “You’re too good for her anyway, Liam.”

“That’s what Nikki said too.” He smiles sadly. “Right before she dumped my ass for a guy who has a swagger coach in his entourage.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, and mean it. I might have not liked Nikki, or the way she changed Liam, but I never wanted to see him hurt.

“No, it’s okay, really,” he says. “Honestly, I got caught up in it. I think I liked the lifestyle more than I liked her.”

“Still, it never feels good to be dumped.”
Especially not for someone else
, I think, remembering the rehearsal dinner as if it were yesterday.

Liam looks at me. “I know Max really hurt you.” He points to where Courtney and her date are still wrapped around each other. “That he’s still hurting you.”

I start to defend him, but Liam puts his hand up. “Don’t make excuses for him.
Please
. I know he’s not a bad guy, but it’s not him I care about.” He gives me a long look, his eyes fixated on me, the things he wants to say swirling in them.

I stay silent, staring at my engagement ring, remembering the night Max asked me. Had it been a proposal like something out of the movies? No. But it had been special and I had said yes without a second thought. But now it was like Liam was shining a spotlight on Max, forcing me to look at him in a way I hadn’t wanted to before. The night Max asked me to be his wife, I knew he was as excited about our future as I was, but it was possible the not-so-subtle hints about my age I had dropped pushed him down a road he hadn’t truly been ready for.

Liam leans his head down toward mine. “Remember, right after college, when I was up for the lead in that sitcom? I went through, like, thirty auditions. It was down to me and one other guy and they called my agent to tell me the part was mine? And then, when we were expecting the contract to be sent over, we got a phone call that they chose him?”

I nod, cringing inside at how devastated Liam had been, how humiliated he was when he had to call his friends and family and tell them they’d retracted their offer.

“Do you recall what you said to me after I told you I was going to quit acting? When I said it wasn’t fucking worth it anymore?”

I shake my head, my eyes filling with tears.

“You said the only way to get through something is to go straight through it. Not hide from it. Just feel it, learn from it, and then pick up the pieces and move on with your life.”

“I said that?” I smile weakly as Liam nods, touched that he’s held that advice with him all this time, but my chest feeling hollow at the thought of following it myself. “It’s solid advice, Liam. But I can’t.”

“Why not?” He frowns.

“Because I’m not like you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Liam’s shoulders tense.

“I can’t compartmentalize my feelings like you do.”

“Is that what you think I do?”

I sit up straighter so I can meet his eyes. “You give everyone these small scraps of yourself, always careful not to get too involved, too attached. You never let anyone hold your heart long enough to hurt you. But you think I should just dig in and feel the pain?” Liam’s eyes glisten but I can’t stop, thinking again how he’d judged me for not wanting to let Max go. That he inferred that I didn’t love him enough. “What do you even know about love anyway?”

“I know more than you think,” he says cryptically before whispering, “I know what it’s like to have the person you love be in love with someone else.”

“What?” I say, confused. “You mean Nikki?” I whisper back, our faces so close that the tip of his nose grazes mine.

Liam laughs. “God, you’re so dense sometimes,” he says before tentatively placing his lips on mine, almost like his kiss is a question he’s looking for an answer to. My eyes widen in shock and I instinctively try to pull away, but he holds me close.

“Liam,” I murmur.

“Shhh,” he says, holding my chin gently in his hand. “Stop thinking so much. Just follow your damn heart for once in your life.” He kisses me again, his lips so soft and welcoming that I have to force myself to pull back a second time.

“I can’t. Max—”

“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.