may 2018 : 2 years and 4 months ago

Liam wasn't sure if he could go through with this.

The grocery parking lot was nearly empty. Melancholy raindrops drizzled against the metal roof of his car like tears; their quiet and steady pattering was a stark contrast against the current cyclone of emotions jostling around in his head. His hand clenched the gear stick and his foot hovered over the brake, but he couldn't make himself move. The solitude of his car felt like both a safe haven and a prison. It was a shield between him and the rest of the world that could protect him from whatever she might say if he drove over to her house right now, but the problem was that he didn't know if her words would be ones of acceptance or rejection.

His heart sank when his eyes drifted back to the bouquet of sunflowers now lying in the passenger seat. This whole plan seemed like such a good idea until he actually followed through with the first part of it.

When Lily mentioned in passing that her parents were going to be out of town this weekend, he knew it would be the best time to go see her and talk in private. To show up at her door and surprise her with these stupid sunflowers and spill all his feelings to her and kiss her like he wanted to on his birthday. To convince her to go out to dinner with him or watch a movie or anything.

So he got her address from Izzy. He came here and bought her favorite flowers. And now he was getting cold feet. Maybe it was best to just toss the sunflowers and go home.

He was standing at the edge of a cliff, teetering on the verge of something that maybe he wanted and maybe he didn't. All he had to do to find out was simply take the leap. But what if he didn't like what was there? Would the two of them be able to go on as if he didn't say anything or was he putting everything they had on the line? And if that was the case, was taking the risk really worth sacrificing all of that?

When she asked him about how he got the scar, Liam had no idea if she really wanted to know the truth or if she was just throwing him off guard to stop him from kissing her. He had been thinking about it for days and still wasn't any closer to a conclusion.

If only he could just see what was going on inside that confusing brain of hers. He was almost annoyed that she couldn't just be more transparent about her feelings for him, but the irritation waned as quickly as it cropped up. He couldn't hold something against her that he wasn't doing himself.

Apprehension writhed around his insides like a snake and his heart started pumping a little faster to keep up with the pressure. He felt sick out of nowhere, his head pounding to the beat of his heart. Little dots swarmed his vision like ants and he scrunched his eyes shut to keep the sudden dizziness at bay.

He was well-acquainted with this miserable sensation by now. He was having a panic attack. Again. He couldn't breathe right, his lungs screaming as though they'd been tautly bound in plastic and were failing to push against it to expand like they needed to. His only saving grace was that his head was just barely clear enough to process that Lily wasn't really the one making him feel like this. It was Caroline. It always was. He knew that no one else in his life would do that to him, yet there was a tiny seed of irrational doubt stuck in his heart that never left. He never stopped being scared of what the consequences might be if he started feeling these sorts of big feelings and tried to share them out loud.

He hated associating this terrible feeling with Lily at all, but this twisted perception of the world wasn't something that he could just shake off on a whim. He was angry at himself for it and even angrier at Caroline for ruining this for him. Lily was good. She didn't deserve to be tainted by his own internal shortcomings.

He knew he was never going to forgive himself if he let his past ruin his present. So he did his best to reel in the fluttering of his breath and heart and forced himself back to what his therapist told him to do a year ago whenever he got stuck in this spot. Focus on five things you can see. Four things you can touch. Three things you can hear. Two things you can smell. One emotion you can feel.

Okay, okay. Five things he could see. Raindrops. Sunflowers. 6:51 p.m. His sad eyes reflected in the rearview mirror. If he closed those eyes, her face.

Four things he could touch. The steering wheel. Sunflowers. Windows. That gum wrapper she accidentally left in his floorboard.

Three things he could hear. The faint hum of the air conditioning. The squeaky wheels of a grocery cart somewhere outside. The sky weeping its tears.

Two things you can smell. This was a hard one. He didn't smell much of anything. But if he thought about it hard enough, he could almost smell her perfume.

One emotion you can feel. She makes you happy. Really happy.

He took a deep breath. Screw the past or whatever he thought he had to do now because of it. He didn't have to justify his choices with himself. There was only a single thing he had to be sure of in order to go talk to her and he knew with all his aching heart that he was sure:

He liked Lily Myers too much to just let her go.

So he put the car in drive.

It didn't take him very long to get to her house. He wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing. On the one hand, he wanted more time to search for the words he needed in order to say what he wanted to. Stringing the right sentences into sensical threads felt like finding a needle in a haystack. But perhaps having more time to overthink and second-guess would only make it worse.

He saw a light on inside the house as he pulled up to the empty driveway. He put the car in park, grabbed the flowers, and stepped out into the misty rainshower before he could talk himself into backing out.

His feet felt like lead as he walked up to the front porch and his throat was so tight that he was unsure what could even come out of it when he tried to speak, yet his anticipation began to shift from nervous to excited. This was it. One way or another, Liam was finally going to know.

He lifted a finger to ring the bell and only had to wait five seconds or so before the door swung open, but he nearly dropped the flowers when it did. His heart froze in his chest as every coherent thought swiftly exited his head.

Except for one:

This must be Henry.

They stared at each other in silent surprise for a few seconds and Liam's face started burning with embarrassment. He must have looked absolutely pathetic showing up here damp from the rain and holding this giant bundle of flowers. The freaking flowers. I must look so stupid. He desperately wished he could hide them - it crossed his mind for a nanosecond to chuck them in the bush by the porch - but Henry had obviously already seen them.

Liam felt like he was going through the five stages of grief right there. He couldn't move. He just had to watch as Henry's expression shifted from surprised to confused to slightly amused and he pressed his lips into a thin line like he was trying not to laugh.

God, if you're real, just end me now, please.

"You must be Liam," Henry noted.

Oh, great. They've talked about me.

When Liam didn't have a response to that, Henry elaborated. "You, ah, you just missed her," he explained, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly as if he felt some secondhand embarrassment. "But she's right down the road at Katie's. I can call her-"

"No-" Liam interrupted a bit too frantically, but he wasn't about to subject Lily to the mortification she would surely feel if she found out that he and Henry ran into each other. He shook his head. "Forget it. It's stupid. I'll, uh- I'll go."

He moved to leave, but Henry interjected, his eyebrows furrowing. "Wait, no. It's not stupid."

Once again, Liam had no clue what to say. He had expected Henry to get all protective and want him to stay far away from Lily, not...whatever this was.

Henry subtly cleared his throat and stepped back, indicating that Liam should come inside. Oh boy. He was about to get interrogated about his "intentions," wasn't he?

He very hesitantly stepped across the threshold, the door quietly clicking shut behind him. He kind of wished Henry would have talked to him outside; being in here made him immensely uncomfortable. The house was really nice, but seeing it without Lily knowing he was here felt wrong.

He had no choice but to follow Henry to wherever he was going, which was apparently the kitchen. It smelled like someone had just cooked dinner and there was a small stack of plates and silverware in the sink that needed to be washed; Liam ventured to guess that was why Henry was still hanging around now that she was gone.

"You like breadsticks?" Henry offered lightly, nodding to a basket of them that was sitting on the kitchen island.

Liam curtly shook his head. The last thing he needed right now was a garlic knot when his stomach was already contorted into a giant knot of its own. Being around Henry kind of made him want to throw up.

Ever since he started getting to know Lily, he had been way more nervous about the prospect of meeting Henry than that of meeting her mom and dad. She seemed to only have a moderate amount of regard for her parents' opinions, but he was totally done for if he didn't get Henry's approval.

Her older cousin was a little intimidating in his own right, a bit taller than Liam and with several black tattoos strewn across one arm like battle scars. The resemblance to her was obvious; they had the same complexion and similar features. Even some of the same mannerisms, it seemed like. Henry was currently regarding Liam with a look he had seen from Lily before - usually while they sat across the table from each other at Starbucks - like she was trying to read his mind.

But it was none of these physical attributes that intimidated Liam the most; it was the way she talked about Henry. She spoke of him like he was the whole world and she was just a moon in his orbit, so Liam had been startled to hear that he was moving away. But not before deciding if Liam had any right to be dating his cousin, apparently.

The room was filled with a tense silence between them as Henry opened a cabinet, pulled out a glass vase, and began filling it with water from the sink. Once it was half full or so, he set it down on the island. Liam, aware that this was his cue to stick the flowers in it, shyly did so.

"I'll tell her you came by."

This constant back-and-forth between Liam and Lily and the disappointment that always ensued was getting exhausting. Despite knowing deep down that it was his own fault for not being more forward, it almost made him want to cry.

"No, don't tell her I was here," he mumbled, glancing at the flowers. "Just, uh...say they're from you."

Henry raised his eyebrows. "You sure about that?"

Liam silently nodded.

Henry crossed his arms and sighed. Liam's cheeks warmed again as he braced himself for the impending lecture about how he probably wasn't good enough for her.

"I'll stay out of it after this, but-" Henry began.

"Like 2,000 miles out of it?" Liam suggested.

He immediately regretted it. He wasn't trying to be rude. He just wanted to get out of here. All he was accomplishing was making himself look like a complete idiot in front of the person Lily cared about most.

Henry, however, didn't snap back as anticipated. One corner of his mouth twitched up into the ghost of a smirk like he could begrudgingly respect that Liam wasn't completely sucking up to him. "2,390, if we're being exact," he corrected coolly.

"But who's counting," Liam muttered.

Henry faltered for a second as if debating what exactly he wanted to say. "Look, just hurry up and go shoot your shot."

Henry definitely had the upper hand here, so Liam didn't expect to watch the self-assuredness that was there a moment before slip away into something reluctant and maybe even regretful. Henry continued on more solemnly.

"Just do me a favor and don't break her heart, okay?" he asked earnestly. "I...well, I already did enough of that. And she deserves better than that. But I've given her all I got. Whenever I'm back here again...all I want is to see her happier than she was when I left her."

The pressure of his words hit Liam like a physical weight being dropped on his shoulders. The tightness returned to his chest. He had viewed himself as mostly an observer to the cousins' downfall until this moment, but Henry made it sound like fate was giving Liam a role in all of this by sticking him in Lily's life at such a moment that he now had the capacity to either pull her out of the deep end or devastate her even more. If Henry was truly her sky, her night and day, then Liam was somehow supposed to be Atlas and bear enough of the weight of Henry's exit to stop it from crushing Lily.

He couldn't let himself be the thing that destroyed her, but how would he be able to keep her going when the reality was that he barely knew her? Her life had been intertwined with Henry's for years and Liam was expected to come in with two months of perspective and somehow know how to help. 

He swallowed a lump in his throat. "That's a lot to ask of someone you don't know."

"We both know she's talked about you. You seem up to the task," Henry pointed out and nodded towards the flowers. "And you're off to a good start. They're her favorite."

"I know."

A flicker of amusement waltzed back into Henry's expression, but Liam was still hesitant. "But I...how am I supposed to fix what you messed up?"

Something between a scoff and a laugh escaped Henry. "You know dude, you kinda sound like you want me to hate your guts-"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

"And if I had an answer to that question, I would have done it," Henry pressed on. "But you obviously came here to say something." His eyes momentarily flickered back to the vase of flowers before returning to Liam. "So say it."

A little bit of the pressure exited Liam with a shallow breath and a nod. He was mad that he didn't get to talk to Lily tonight, but Henry was right. He was getting ahead of himself. For now, at least, the best course of action was stupidly simple. He couldn't help Lily get through anything without being honest with her. It all would continue to bubble down to that until he just got it over with.

Henry appeared to be much more relaxed now that he said his piece. "Now if you really don't want her knowing about this, get out of here before she gets back," he grinned, lightening the mood immensely. "And take the freaking breadsticks. You were lying before - everyone likes bread."

Liam was going to look weird walking out into the rain with a random bag of breadsticks but figured he ought to do what he was told. On his way to the door, he realized that another fraction of pressure had been lifted off his shoulders: he survived meeting Henry.

"Oh, one more tiny thing," Henry called lazily from somewhere behind him once he had already opened the door and was about to step outside. "You should ask her what I did to the first guy that got on her bad side."

He succeeded in making Liam nervous with that comment, so it was unfortunate that the latter knew he wasn't getting an explanation. Henry wasn't about to cough one up and asking Lily about it would mean giving away that this tête-à-tête ever occurred. But now that he was more confident in Henry's disinterest in killing him, Liam was game to use some leverage of his own.

He glanced back over his shoulder towards Henry, who was watching him from the kitchen doorway, and raised his eyebrows.

"Was that before or after you cried at Tangled?" he questioned with feigned curiosity.

As he stepped out and closed the door behind him, he could hear the quiet sound of Henry's laugh.

"Henry got me some sunflowers."

Liam nearly choked on his coffee but managed to swallow it down without being too conspicuous. He prayed that the small smile he tried to give her didn't look like a grimace. "Oh yeah?"

"Mhmm." Lily lifted her mug to take a quick sip of coffee and when she set it down, he noticed that her lips were curved up into a small smile. "I dunno what prompted him to do it since we already made up, but I thought it was sweet. They're really nice ones, too," she said dreamily, but then frowned slightly. "Sorry, I'm not trying to bore you going on about my dumb flowers."

"You're not boring," he assured her quietly.

A warm and fuzzy feeling sprouted up in his chest upon hearing that he made her happy. She didn't know that, of course, but he could be content with just knowing that she liked them. At least Henry kept his word about not telling her.

Liam was halfway relieved that he was able to get her to come over for coffee after missing her last night, but the other half was somehow even more nervous than he was before. In theory, he had nothing to worry about. He now had two very important pieces of additional information: firstly, she and Henry had talked about him, and secondly, Henry nudged him to ask her out after talking with her. Put together, those two pieces of info implied that she told Henry she wanted to date Liam.

It made sense if she was waiting on him to make the first move, but what made much less sense was why she always seemed to pull away when they got too close. It seemed to contradict the signs he was getting from everyone else, but she clearly wasn't going to divulge that information without him opening up, so he was going to have to do it and hope for the best.

Jo went outside to work just a couple of minutes ago after generously making them coffee, but he worried that she was gonna walk back inside smack in the middle of him confessing his feelings for Lily. He kept glancing out the back window to make sure she was getting started on a task that would keep her occupied in the garden for a while. But he couldn't keep procrastinating forever.

"Lils, I-"

He was immediately interrupted by the front door suddenly opening. His mother rushed in, clearly dressed for work. Liam knew for a fact that mornings were the busiest part of her workday, so he had no idea why she wasn't at work right now.

"Hi, sweetheart," she smiled, her heels clicking on the wooden floor. "Hi, Lily."

At least she remembers her name, he thought. And if she was surprised to see the girl sitting with her son, she didn't let it on. He caught Lily glance down at her coffee and blush a little bit. The only time she and his mother ever interacted was that night they fell asleep upstairs working on their research paper. He hadn't even given his mom Lily's name until afterward when he went back to elaborate on the fact that they really were just classmates suffering from an unfortunate lack of sleep.

"Hi, Mom," he said reluctantly. "What are you...?"

"Oh, we're working on last-minute stuff for the fundraising gala. I needed to grab some color swatches I left here on accident," she explained. "Speaking of which, can you make it this year? It's on the 2nd."

Oh boy. The dreaded fundraising gala. Dad's company put it on every year and Mom always had a hand in planning it simply because she was obsessed with that kind of thing. The last thing Liam ever wanted was to be stuck in a room for several hours with a bunch of rich people who only wanted to show off how much money they had and how much champagne they could drink, but his parents liked him to be there. He didn't really know why; he supposed they looked even more like a picture-perfect power couple if they had a pretty kid to show off, but it wasn't like he knew enough to carry on a conversation about Dad's company with any of the donors. The most he ever did was smile and nod.

To their benefit, his parents always technically gave him the option not to go. But it was the longest amount of time out of the whole year that he could ever get all three of them in a room together, so he never felt like he should ruin it. His parents put so much effort into pulling these together and he knew it meant a lot to them when he came. And now that he had been reminded of it, he remembered that this year was the 10th anniversary of the event, so it was going to be an even bigger deal than usual.

"Um...what's the theme this year?"

While the fundraisers were always successes, the themes varied greatly. While some of them - like the Old Hollywood one - were fun, others were...not so much. Liam was not about to commit to going only to be told he had to dress up like a mermaid or something. He was still traumatized from the nightmarish year it was Vegas-themed and everyone was acting like they were drunk within the first thirty minutes.

"Oh, it's Celestial," Mom said excitedly. "Very whimsical and elegant. Dark blue, silver, gold, white and black. Don't worry, your tux would work just fine."

Liam had mixed feelings about having to look that nice for anything, but Mom was getting lost in her own dreamland (probably one of many Pinterest boards) just from talking about it.

He didn't notice how intrigued Lily looked until she chimed in. "You should go," she piped up. "I mean, it sounds fun."

Mom brightened. "You wanna come? I haven't finalized the guest list yet and we'd love for Liam to bring a plus one."

She said this as if he weren't sitting right there. Lily's blush deepened; she probably wasn't expecting to actually be invited.

"Oh, sure," she squeaked. "I'd love that. I mean, um, as long as-" she frantically glanced over to Liam, silently asking for his permission.

"Yeah, we'll be there."

He didn't know if it was what he really wanted or not. Lily's presence would absolutely make the evening a thousand times less miserable, but his heart was already nervously racing at the thought of slow dancing with her.

She looked over at him apologetically as soon as his mom disappeared to go get the color swatches. "Oh my God, I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to make you uncomfortable-"

"It's not you, Lils," he assured her, which was kind of true and kind of not. "These things are just way fancier than either of us are. No offense."

"Well apparently not, because we're going," she beamed, taking another sip of frothy espresso. "I haven't gotten to dress up in forever, I'll need to go buy something-"

They were interrupted yet again by the sound of her phone buzzing. She looked down at the notification and then sheepishly back up to Liam. "It's Henry, someone picked up his shift and he asked if I wanna hang out...I can rain check-"

Liam's heart sank a little, but it felt wrong to get in their way of seeing each other when he was only here for three more weeks. "Don't worry about it. You can go."

"I don't wanna be rude-"

"It's cool, really."

"Okay," she sighed, relief evident in her voice. "I, um, I'm sorry if I'm not great at talking until he...you know. I'm trying to spend as much time-"

"I understand," he promised. "It's okay."

"But I'll see you on the 2nd?" she asked hopefully, as if concerned he might bail out now that she was basically telling him she was gonna ignore him for two weeks.

"See you on the 2nd," he echoed. "I'll pick you up. I'll just, uh, need your address at some point," he lied. She didn't know he had already gotten it from Izzy.

"I'll text it to you."

Lily hopped down from her barstool and moved to leave, but after taking a few steps towards the door she caught him by surprise and came back to give him the swiftest kiss on the cheek. He didn't have time to react before she was already out the door, leaving him behind with just the lingering aroma of her sweet perfume and the already-fading memory of what her lips felt like on his skin. 

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I hope you guys enjoyed this one! It was a lot of fun to write Henry and Liam meeting. Hopefully I'm driving you a little insane with how slow this slow burn is going ;)