may-september 2017 : 3 years ago

The summer Liam spent with Natasha was some of the most fun he'd ever had. And it was real fun, not the sort of stupid stuff he used to do with Caroline and call fun just because they brought alcohol with them.

Nat worked 9-5 on weekdays, but they would see each other in the evenings. They usually ended up at his place; as nice as her apartment was, he could never relax when he was right down the hall from Jessica's. Being in that building put a lump in his throat and a phantom pain in his wrist. And if Jess saw him with another girl, it would surely get back to Caroline. He didn't know what she would - or could - do, but he didn't want to find out the hard way. He had learned his lesson about going down that road.

Natasha knew that something serious had gone down the night they met sheerly based on the state she found him in, but Liam never told her anything else about it. Despite this, she was gracious and didn't push him to come over. She assured him that she didn't mind hanging out at his place and would gladly take it over the alternative of a college dorm. It wasn't like his parents were ever home, anyway.

It wasn't the sort of relationship he ever envisioned himself being in. It didn't check off all the boxes, didn't fit within the narrow confines of what he previously assumed dating was always like. But dropping the expectations was oddly liberating. He could just ride the wave and see where it took him, unconcerned with what life on the other side might look like. He finally gave himself the chance to just live in the present, not the past or the future.

There was no neat sequence of events, no one thing that led to another. Neither of them even officially asked the other out. They just started seeing each other and eventually reached the mindset of if we're together all the time and there's repeatedly kissing involved then maybe we should just call ourselves something besides friends.

Maybe they shouldn't have labeled it. Maybe that would have made things a little smoother when they ended. But they both wanted to at the time. Calling her his girlfriend made it more meaningful to him, made it sweeter while it lasted, so Liam never regretted it.

There were some unavoidable formalities that came with sticking a title on it, formalities that made him quite nervous. When Mom and Dad asked if they could meet her over dinner, Liam wished he had a way to say no. He didn't want Nat to have to endure that, particularly not after they expressed their mutual distaste for their pretentious parents.

"I'm sorry we have to do this," he told her as they walked up to the front porch that evening, both dressed in significantly nicer outfits than they would ever be caught in when it was just the two of them.

"No worries. I've got this."

He should have known she had a plan - she always did.

"You look great."

Great was an understatement. Liam imagined that she would be the type of person who felt out of their element when forced to get dressed up, but she was clearly confident as always tonight. As she should have been - she looked like something out of a fairytale in that dress, deep blue like the night sky. It looked black until it caught the light just right, but when it did you felt as though you were somehow looking at the universe embedded in a piece of fabric.

She smiled. "You don't clean up too horribly yourself."

Neither of his parents said anything too cringy and Nat held her ground wonderfully. None of it was a lie, but she fed them exactly the kind of stuff they would want to hear, telling them all about her parents' and brother's picture-perfect suburban lives in Upstate New York while Liam nodded along as if he already knew all of this information. He was impressed - she had even gone and researched whatever data analytics was so that she could sound interested in Dad's company.

Liam was extremely grateful that she dashed out of the hospital that night back in February before his parents could see her. It would have been incredibly awkward now to go back on their lie and admit that she wasn't a classmate.

Jo, meanwhile, had inevitably met Natasha the very first time Liam had her over. Jo was working longer hours over the summer which meant that she was still around by the time Nat would show up in the evening. But there was nothing to be worried about there. They both liked anyone who wasn't too conceited and liked to chat a lot, so they got along immediately.

Nat loved to sit out in the garden and scribble down drawings in her sketchbook of all of the plants. That worked out nicely for Liam since it gave him the chance to spend time with her while also being available to help Jo if she could use it. He enjoyed feeling useful and doing something with his hands for a couple of minutes helped him clear his head on the days he wasn't feeling great mentally. The lilies did not, he observed, stay around any longer this year as Jo had once predicted when they started sprouting early.

"Maybe next year," she suggested with a shrug and a smile.

Liam doubted it, but they would.

He noticed that Nat spent a surprising amount of time outside of work still drawing. He wondered if she had some difficulty separating herself from her job, but he admired her talent a lot. He didn't know how anyone could create something so lovely out of nothing so quickly.

This also meant that it was perfectly fine if the two of them "hanging out" turned into hiding in the library for hours on end and barely speaking to each other while Liam played his piano and Natasha drew to her heart's content. He usually tried to pick slow pieces, ones that wouldn't be too distracting as background noise while she sketched. When he found that just-right song it felt like he could temporarily sweep them off to a world more entrancing than this one if only for a few minutes. And there was also something important in those few seconds of silence between songs, a stillness that both of them needed to let themselves have amidst the rest of the chaos of life.

He loved the rare occasions where they got to do that in the mornings. Those early rays of sun would peer through the willowy curtains at just the right angle to gleam off of Natasha's hair and give it a lovely tangerine sheen reminiscent of the sunrise. It was unlikely that she even noticed how nice she looked; if anything, the light was probably just getting in her eyes. But Liam noticed. He didn't skim over any of the things he appreciated anymore, no matter how small.

More weekends than not, they went on some sort of adventure. They had some truly amazing days, like the time they stayed awake for almost a full twenty-four hours because they were both dying to go to the beach but it was an eight-hour drive each direction.

It was the perfect day for it, not a cloud in the cerulean blue sky. The beach must have been Natasha's happy place; her demeanor lightened more and more with each mile that passed. All of her remaining worries floated away once they were finally out of the car and she immediately ran towards the ocean.

Her feet barely seemed to touch the white sand under her feet, like she was so light and carefree that she could lift off the ground at any moment and simply fly away. An inviting breeze brushed against his cheeks and whistled in his ears as he chased after her, catching her right at the shoreline and giving her a kiss to pull her back to Earth. The kiss was interrupted by their laughter as the water lapped up around their ankles, slightly colder than either of them had anticipated.

That moment right there might have been his favorite they ever had. There in her tee shirt and shorts, loose strands of hair that had fallen out of her messy bun framing her face, Liam thought she looked more beautiful than she ever had. It was almost ironic, he thought, that they had come all the way here and yet he didn't care to look at the vast expanse of ocean in front of them because her eyes were a much more mesmerizing shade of blue. They were like the sky and sea all in one and were filled with happiness as she looked up at him.

"I'm glad we came," she smiled.

He was glad, too. Their day there was so worth the drive. Natasha never pulled out her sketchbook even though Liam saw it tucked in her tote bag. They found cheap to-go food so that they could have a picnic dinner on the beach and stay there until the stars came out.

On the way home, they made fun of themselves for thinking that doing it all in one day was a good idea. It took an unhealthy amount of gas station coffee and energy drinks to push through the night, but they did it, both of them too stubborn to fall asleep while the other had to drive. When he got home, slightly sunburned and still smelling of the salty sea air, Liam quickly showered and then was sound asleep the second his head hit the pillow.

Then there was the night he accidentally got them locked out of his house. His parents changed out the code for the lock keypad on the front door every few months. They were out of town, but Mom had texted him a new code that morning before she and Dad left for their trip. Liam totally forgot over the course of the day to memorize it and accidentally let his phone battery die.

Neither of them had a car charger on them. "Do we text Jo?" Natasha asked after multiple unsuccessful attempts at using the old code.

"She's not gonna be awake this late," he pointed out. It was 10:30 already. "But I have an idea."

He had sworn that he was past the days of sneaking in through his window...but he could make an exception. They hopped the fence and he led Nat to the tree by his room, fairly confident that he could pull the window screen off and pry it open since he still wasn't in the habit of locking it.

She was highly unimpressed when he told her the plan. "You want me to climb in the window, really?"

"I promise it's not any harder than hopping the fence."

She crossed her arms. "What are we, sixteen?"

"Did you ever actually sneak in someone's window when you were sixteen?"

"...No."

"See? Your moment has finally arrived." He gave her his most charming smile but how well she could even see it in the dark was questionable.

She rolled her eyes but carefully watched his footing as he climbed up the tree limbs the same way he had a million times before. As expected, it took little effort to get the window open. Liam slipped inside and set the screen down on the floor. He turned around to offer Nat a hand, but she had already clambered up after him in a matter of seconds, her feet hitting the floor much more gracefully than his had. She brushed the dirt off her hands.

"See?" he grinned. "Easy."

She pretended to look annoyed but gave him a quick kiss. "I get to pick the movie."

"Deal."

During those fleeting summer days, it was easy to believe that the two of them weren't so different from one another. It was only once college started back up for Liam in August that their tidy relationship began to unravel. His previously open evenings were now filled with homework and mentally, he started to sink again.

It had absolutely nothing to do with Natasha and everything to do with being back on campus where he could run into his old friends at any second. It didn't take more than a few days for him to realize that the whispers about him were still fluttering around. No one had fully forgotten all of those rumors Caroline started about him in the spring.

He wasn't plummeting all the way back into that dark hole he thought he had climbed out of entirely, but anxiety and uncertainty were crawling back into his heart and taking their toll on him.

Maybe everyone else had moved on more than he thought they had, but it didn't really matter in the end. Because he hadn't. Everything else was continuing on as it should and Liam was standing still in the middle of it all, watching the world pass him by because he was too paralyzed to move.

He had really believed he was getting so much better. He had felt good about his decision to take a break from therapy in June. But now he was stuck right back where he was in April, back to panicking about how he was going to survive school and wondering who he even was.

It didn't take Nat long to notice that he wasn't as easygoing as he used to be. He felt like he had been lying to her all summer by making himself out to be this calm and collected person when the reality was that he was still a total wreck.

The most heartbreaking part of it all for him was that he genuinely liked the person he had become around her - the funny, charismatic guy who was spontaneous but not impulsive. Adventurous but not dangerous about it. He liked this person so much more than that shy shell of one he was in the spring. But it was merely a facade, a projection of the person he wanted to be but wasn't. If it was real, it wouldn't have dissolved in the wind the second things got hard again.

What are you supposed to do when you realize that the only parts of yourself that you're proud of are fake?

He could see that Natasha wasn't mad at him, but she didn't know what to do about the changes in his behavior. How could she know when he still wouldn't explain the truth?

He wasn't totally sure why he didn't. Maybe because he wasn't sure that he was in love with her. They hadn't said it. He absolutely liked her a lot, but he didn't know if he would even recognize love when he came across it.

It wasn't so much that tension formed between them as it was disconnect. They were living different types of lives now, different enough that they weren't sure how they fit into each other's.

They could only dance around the issue for so long, so he wasn't very surprised on that night in late September when Natasha asked if they could talk.

It probably wasn't too uncommon for relationships to end in the exact same spot they began. The irony came from the fact that this place also signified the beginning of the end with Caroline, as if this singular dot on a map could be out to get him. Perhaps putting him back here was the universe's way of telling him that he hadn't made nearly as much progress as he thought he had.

A certain sadness filled him as he walked down the hall towards her door. Because although he felt like he should cut this place off, he didn't want to anymore. There was something good for him here now - she was good. Yet he had a feeling that once he left this building tonight, he wouldn't be coming back.

He lightly knocked on the door. She immediately opened it like she had been waiting right on the other side for him. "Hey," she said, much more subdued than usual.

Yeah, he was definitely getting dumped.

As he stepped inside and discreetly glanced around, taking her apartment in one last time, he couldn't help but think that it was nice. He thought about how cozy it was. How every time he had been over, she had that diffuser in the corner puffing out lavender mist because it was supposed to help him calm down. If only he had been brave enough to let himself enjoy it here instead of getting so hung up on people who didn't care about him.

"Do you want something to drink?" she asked quietly.

"Sure."

He slowly trailed behind her into the kitchen as she pulled out what she happened to have, a bottle of red wine, and poured two glasses. He watched her subtly concentrated expression as he lowered himself onto one of the barstools and the burgundy liquid sloshed down into the cups.

"Thanks," he mumbled when she handed him his. "Look, I, um..." It was a lot harder to say it now that her eyes were on him. "I know where this is going. You don't have to say it."

A nearly inaudible sigh left her before she took a tiny sip of her drink. "You deserve something better than that..."

He followed suit and tried his drink just to avoid the tightening feeling in his throat as he waited for something better than that.

"Liam, you're a great person, I just..." She tucked some hair behind her ear and finally looked him in the eyes. The usual vividness of hers had dimmed and the first trace of her heartache finally made itself visible to him. "Do you really think we're working anymore?"

Silence permeated the air for a long moment as Liam thought about everything he felt for her. There was so much that he never put words to. Being with her made him feel like he could finally breathe again after months of being smothered. She couldn't have cared less about college drama. She was just her own person trying to be authentic and live her best life. But that was the thing - she was authentic, she was confident, she knew herself.

It was the epitome of meeting the right person at the wrong time.

He thought about the day they went to the beach and waited for nightfall so that they could see the stars. He could still feel that soft sea breeze on his face, so refreshing after the heat of the day, and still feel the way her hand fit in his as they stared up in awe. He could hear the sound of her voice as she pointed out the constellations scattered throughout the black sky to him and their hushed laughs as they kept giving themselves five more minutes before making themselves get up and go to the car. The stars were much brighter out there over the ocean than they were back home, yet Liam had looked over at Natasha on her towel next to him and thought that she shone brighter than all of them.

He barely knew who he was and she was so passionate, burned so brilliantly. She was the brightest star in the sky and he was holding her back, so she was letting go of him.

And he needed to let her do it.

"No."

Natasha observed him tentatively, pressing her lips into a thin line and looking like she wanted to say more but wasn't going to. It was only going to hurt them more. He understood. Because no matter how much he wanted to say that he would see her around or say that they could still be friends, he knew that these things weren't true. He had gone a little too far with her, kissed those lips a few too many times for either of those things to be true. His heart ached to kiss her one last time, but that wasn't going to help, either.

He didn't know that their last kiss was their last. But that meant they could both move on knowing that their last kiss was a happy one. And he thought there was something pretty special about that.

So instead of kissing her, Liam took one last sip of his nearly-untouched drink. He just had one final question for her. "What am I going to do without you to save my butt when I'm doing stupid stuff?"

She almost smiled, gently shaking her head. "You never needed me to do that, you just didn't know it. You're ready now, I can tell."

Just like that, he could breathe a little easier than he could before. An unexpected sense of closure washed over him as he realized that was the one thing he had really needed to hear from her.

"Thanks, Nat."

"Could you promise me one last thing?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Will you just...stay out of trouble?" she asked delicately.

"I will. I promise."

He actually believed himself this time.

She softly nodded. Liam knew that was his cue to go, so he did.

He kept waiting for tears to come as he walked back down the hall without her. The sun had just slipped below the horizon when he stepped outside, but even in the fading twilight he could just barely see the yellows and oranges that were starting to peek out in the leaves of the trees.

He was calm while he drove home, which was such a different shift from last time. He expected to hurt so much. In some ways he did, but more than anything, he found himself feeling so grateful for the time they got. He knew he was going to be okay. So he rolled down the window, felt the fall air on his face, and let his thoughts peacefully drift where they wanted to go.

He wondered if summers would always make him think of her.

Perhaps their paths would cross again someday when they were both ready. 

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That awkward moment when I accidentally make myself start shipping the wrong characters in my own book...

But in all seriousness, I adored writing this chapter and how it turned out so I hope you guys liked it, too! I was kind of bummed out at first when I was planning this section of the book and realized that I should probably limit their relationship to one chapter for the sake of time, but I felt like it ended up giving it that fleeting summer romance vibe I was going for.

That's enough of me rambling for now, but let me know what you thought of this one and don't forget to vote if you enjoyed it!