january 2019 : 1 year and 8 months ago

Lily typically wasn't capable of eating half of an extra-large pizza in one sitting, but it was difficult to exercise any self-restraint when it was her birthday and one of her favorite foods was set in front of her. She inhaled it with no regrets after the fact.

The day had been pleasantly relaxed so far. A couple of hours of the morning were spent out shopping with her mom and then several after that spent buried under her blankets watching Netflix. Katie and Izzy got here shortly before the pizza arrived and now the three of them were piled on the couch, sipping away at some hot chocolate while they waited for one of them to build up the motivation to reach over and grab the remote so that they could put on Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper, the first installment of the cinematic masterpieces they planned on watching. They were basically film connoisseurs.

It was aggressively cold out tonight and there seemed like no greater torture than being uncomfortable on her birthday, so Lily had requested a highly elegant dress code for the occasion – she, Katie, and Izzy were decked out in coordinated Winnie the Pooh onesies, with Izzy as Pooh, Katie as Piglet, and Lily as Eeyore. It took surprisingly little convincing to get her friends on board with this decision. Now they were living their best lives, all snuggled up on the couch with a thick layer of blankets draped over their laps.

Mom and Dad were still hanging around, talking quietly at the kitchen table, but were sure to flee as soon as the Barbie music started up. Katie finally worked up the energy to lean over to the coffee table and grab the remote, but as soon as she did, Mom suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, I almost forgot!"

All three girls' gazes darted to her as she got up and hurried over to the kitchen island to grab her phone off of it.

"Forgot what?" Lily questioned.

Instead of offering any more of an explanation, she said, "Someone who's good with technology help me put this on the TV," while looking down at her phone screen.

Why were parents so indirect sometimes? "Put what on the TV?" Lily tried again.

Her mother rushed into the living room, still grasping her phone, and sat down to Lily's right.

"Liam left you a birthday message and said to put it on during the party," she elaborated nonchalantly, as if that was a totally normal and anticipated thing for him to do.

What? Lily's heart did a confused somersault in her chest. She had talked to him on the phone in the morning before she went shopping and he didn't mention anything about a video. And why would he ever send it to Mom instead of her?

Izzy let out a long "OoooooOoooooooh" while Katie took Mom's phone to help her mirror her screen with the Fire Stick. Since they were apparently all meant to watch, Dad came over and sat down on Mom's other side. Lily stayed plopped in the middle of all of this, her brain attempting to pick apart why her boyfriend would leave them a video but still completely blindsided to whatever this trick he had up his sleeve was.

She felt a tiny pang in her chest when his face suddenly popped up on the flatscreen. She recognized his outfit as the one he was wearing the day before he left, so that must have been when he filmed this. He had only been gone for a couple of days and she already missed him. The sadness was swiftly forgotten about, however, as it hit her that he was sitting at the piano and must have propped his phone up on top of it to film himself.

He had a soft little smile on his lips yet looked ever-so-slightly nervous, so subtle that she was probably the only one who noticed. She was the only one who spent her days learning all his minuscule gestures, memorizing every last detail of his features like he was an artwork and her job was to study him and only him, to know his lips so well she could write a thesis on his kisses.

Liam didn't say anything before he started to play, but Lily's heart jumped up into her throat as she heard those beginning notes that anyone would recognize. She was barely given time to think that she knew what was going on – what he was doing to make up for his absence – before he surprised her yet again, this time much more. A tiny startled breath left her lips at the sound of his voice as he started to sing to her.

"Wise men say only fools rush in, but I can't help falling in love with you."

Katie and Izzy both immediately started squealing and she elbowed them to shut them up without having to break her gaze off the screen. Not that she could blame them—Liam singing was a total rarity despite the fact that he had a lovely voice. The only time she ever caught him doing it was if they were listening to music in the car and he was so into the song that he started singing along without thinking about it. He got shy if she ever asked him to. But he was doing it now despite the fact that other people were going to hear.

His lips curved back into a tiny knowing smile as he sang, "Shall I stay? Would it be a sin if I can't help falling in love with you?"

A lump suddenly formed in her throat as it finally hit her what he was doing. Oh. Her heart was so busy loving him that it had forgotten its own plea that he let anyone know that he loved her, but he clearly heard that plea and held onto it. He wasn't doing this despite the fact that other people were going to hear—he was doing it because he wanted them to hear.

The smoothness of his voice effortlessly melded with the richness of the piano into the sweetest song, almost a lullaby, carefully crafted to resonate with the delicate tune of her heartstrings and hers alone. She was silent the whole time, her knees tucked up to her chest and misty eyes never moving away from the screen. Entranced. Missing him. Falling in love with him all over again as he sang to her about his inability to stop himself from doing just that.

He somehow made her feel like he was actually there with her. Her awareness of the rest of the room melted away until the very last moment when his fingers came to a gentle stop on the keys.

Liam smiled at the camera. "Love you, Lils," he told her softly. "See you soon."

The video ended. Only then, in her stunned silence, did she break her gaze off the television and finally glance at everyone else's reactions. Katie was rather wide-eyed while Izzy was gaping more conspicuously – but to be fair, she spent a lot of time around him in their music ensemble trying to convince him to sing and not getting anywhere with it. Mom was being the most dramatic of all with her hands over her heart like Lily and Liam were just the cutest little couple and she was overwhelmed by it. Her dad kind of just looked generically shook, but she was neither surprised nor bothered. Dads were generally bad at fully knowing how to react when boys were smitten with their daughters.

It took Lily another second to process that everyone's eyes were drifting over to her as they awaited a verbal response from her. She didn't even know what to say and could still feel moisture lingering in her eyes and threatening to spill out.

"I'm gonna go call him real fast," she decided quietly, hopping up from the couch to scamper up to her room before anyone else had to deal with her sentimental crying.

Her fingers had already unlocked her phone and clicked on his number by the time she slipped into her room, closed the door behind her, and crawled onto her bed. She prayed he would pick up but didn't actually know if anything on his itinerary was going on right now.

Her otherwise-dark room was illuminated by brightness as he picked up and appeared on her screen. The lighting on his end was dark enough that she couldn't quite tell where he was, but she guessed from the lack of background noise that he was in his hotel room.

His face broke into a silly grin when he saw her. "Hey, Eeyore."

She giggled a little bit, having entirely forgotten about her outfit choice, and wiped a stray tear off of her cheek. "You just set your standard for apologies very high, mister."

"I guess I did," he murmured, still smiling.

"You didn't have to do anything for me. I forgave you."

"I know. I wanted to."

"I love it," she promised, already knowing that she would end up rewatching the video multiple times before he got home. "I love you."

She wished that she could lift her hand and reach through the screen to touch his cheek. She could almost feel his warmth and the way his skin felt under her fingertips, the way that tiniest dimple would form under her hand when he smiled. She wanted to believe that he could be here to hold her until she fell asleep.

Lily was entirely aware of the fact that she was being absurdly melodramatic considering that he was only going to be out of town for four days in total, but it was her first time away from him and he certainly wasn't doing anything to make her less sentimental.

"I miss you," she sniffled.

"I miss you, too. I wish you were here."

The sound of his voice covered her with a blanket of comfort. She almost closed her eyes to simply listen to him talk to her, but she didn't want to imagine too vividly that he was here at her side and then have to deal with the disappointment when her eyes opened again and he was still only on her screen.

"My roommate snores so loudly," he sighed, causing her to laugh.

"Well, I'm sure New York can't be too bad besides that."

"No, it's not," he agreed. "Here, let me show you-"

Liam got up and walked over to what must have been the window. His face was suddenly bathed in the faint neon glow of a city that never slept. She got to admire him properly – his long lashes, the curve of his jawline, dark eyes that were almost black in this lighting – for a second before he flipped the camera around.

It took a second for it to focus through the mildly dirty glass of the window, but that didn't stop the view from being impressive even through an iPhone screen. Blocks of shadowy skyscrapers sprawled before her against a dark blue sky, all of them blinking with little dots of yellow and white light. It was breathing with activity, a city so vast that there was bound to be a place for you if you only answered the call.

"Wow," Lily breathed. "I've always wanted to go."

She couldn't see his face anymore, but the sweet, gentle hum of his voice – the voice as familiar to her as her own – was still there. "I'll bring you someday."

The skeptic in her felt no temptation to point out that it was expensive or that they didn't have the slightest clue what the future was going to bring. That stuff didn't matter right now and Liam didn't say anything to her that he didn't mean. "I'd like that."

It was so peculiar how she could look at a blurry video of New York on her tiny phone screen, nestled here in the shadows that enveloped almost every inch of her room, and feel like she was there. There was something about darkness that made your imagination spring to life and allowed you to feel all the uninhibited wonder of a child. She could be in a cave or soaring amongst the stars or floating across a dark ocean, the waves bobbing her up and down like they were rocking her to sleep. And there was something about knowing that your lover was still there with you in the silence that made you unashamed of feeling this naive wonder. You felt like they were right there with you, holding the map to your adventure in the stars.

"I should go," she whispered reluctantly after a long moment of this silence.

He turned the camera back to himself. "Five more minutes?"

"I want to," she sighed. "But Katie and Izzy and King Dominick are waiting for me."

Liam's expression was completely blank. She clicked her tongue. "I'm really gonna have to educate you on these movies sometime."

"Oh, would you look at that, it's time for me to go-"

She stuck her tongue out at him. "And I can't even call you a jerk, can I?" she complained.

"No," he beamed. "You really can't."

"I suppose I'll settle for saying I love you."

"I love you, too, Lils."

She felt herself smile back at him. "I know you do."

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brb sending myself to jail for how cheesy that was. idek why I do these things to myself because writing characters singing is so hard. 

I hope you enjoyed it anyway and thanks for sticking with this book for 40 chapters now! The time jumps will be more spread out for most of the remainder of the book, so make sure to keep an eye on the dates at the beginning.