So that happened a roman.., p.28
So That Happened: A Romantic Comedy, page 28
And there it is: Not we, but I.
Liam still sees all of this as his battle to fight. He’s carrying so much responsibility on his shoulders, has employees to think about. Luke to think about. And I know he’s thinking about Legs and her future, too. Because he’s Liam, so of course he is.
What he’s been working toward for years is on the line. He wants to take care of his family. Feel like a success. His dreams are currently right on his doorstep, but I’m standing in the way.
It’s actually almost laughable: the entire time, I’ve been worried whether it’s a mistake for me to fall for him. I never, ever stopped to consider if it was a mistake for him to fall for me.
And that’s when I know, in my heart of hearts, that I can’t just tell him the truth and let this mess happen. I need to snuff out the match before anything catches fire. My stupid fake boyfriend stunt at the hotel caused this problem, so now, I need to fix it. Not Liam. Me.
Because if there’s one thing I can’t bear to be, it’s Liam Donovan’s biggest mistake.
And while I can’t control the outcome… at least I can try.
“I promise that this will all work out just fine, Annie. For SITL, and for us.” He’s calm. Quietly full of hope.
I take a deep breath. “Liam… I need to go.”
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?” He thinks I’m joking. Looks down at me and smiles that devastating smile. The one that usually rips me into a thousand pieces then puts them all back together.
This time, the pieces stay scattered on the floor like confetti.
47
LIAM
The night air is warm, cloying, beneath the twinkling stars. The breeze smells like sweetgrass and the promise of summer.
But in this moment, I feel nothing but cold, wintry disbelief as I stand in the driveway, staring at the dust still swirling above the gravel road that stretches toward the edge of the property as I attempt to make sense of what just happened.
Annie’s gone.
She called an Uber to take her to the train station. And then, she just got in the car and drove away. It took everything in me not to run after her, waving my arms and shouting “Wait!”
I refrained. Obviously.
She wouldn’t tell me what she was doing, where she was going—just that it was an urgent problem that she had to solve.
That I’d see her in a couple of days.
There was a weighted look in her eyes that told me something was wrong. That there was much more to this. With all the questions she was asking as we danced, I thought maybe she changed her mind from what she said last night. I asked her if I was moving too fast, talking about telling everyone at work about our relationship. That we could put the brakes on if that’s what she needed. But she insisted that wasn’t the case, that she was fine. That I stay. “You don’t always have to solve everyone’s problems, Liam.”
Her startling insistence shook me. I’m entirely perplexed by what on earth changed when everything between us last night had felt so right.
But she wanted to go, so I let her. I didn’t like it one bit.
When my mom died—when I realized I belonged in Atlanta with Luke and Lana Mae and Legs instead of in California with my baseball career—that was an easy decision to make. It made sense. Sure, breaking up with my girlfriend sucked. Dropping out of college sucked. But I knew it was right. The choice was simple.
But tonight, watching Annie drive away without an explanation, I realized that, for the first time in many years, my priorities have shifted. Everything in my life is not in neat, orderly, carefully controlled boxes anymore.
I’ve allowed myself to feel. To experience love. And it’s like realizing that I’ve been living in the dark all these years.
I am where I’m at today because of Luke quitting his job and getting behind SITL, both with his time and with his money. I’m finally in a position that, if we secure this funding, I can pay him back. Give our staff job security for the future. Start investing in Legs’ future with a college fund for her—Lana Mae’s a single mom on a small salary, and I want Legs to have the brightest future imaginable. It’s a responsibility any good father figure would take for their daughter. And I love Legs more than life itself.
But I also love Annie.
Somebody finally flipped a light on, and everything is illuminated. Because of her.
“Hey!” Lana Mae’s voice carries through the night. “There you are!”
I look up to see my sister making her way toward me, wobbling on her heels as she navigates the gravel driveway.
She stops when she sees my face. “Liam, you okay? Where’s Annie?”
“She had to leave.”
She stares at me in puzzlement. “What do you mean, leave?”
I feel weirdly closed-off, like I don’t want to talk. Like all of the emotions I finally tapped into left me right along with Annie.
But they didn’t. They’re within me. And I know that, to move forward and grow, I have to not only be open and honest with Annie, like she’s taught me to do, but also with the other people in my life that I love.
“She went to the train station. She had an emergency or something.”
“An emergency? You let her take the train alone? What’s wrong with you?” Lana’s voice has gone up about two octaves with sheer indignancy.
“She didn’t want me to come, Lana. And I don’t know why she left in the first place.” I rub the base of my hand over my eye, suddenly exhausted. “I told her I wanted to tell Tim about us, and she got all weird and bolted.”
“Well what on earth are you still doing here, then?”
“It’s Luke’s wedding.”
Lana clicks her tongue in indignance. “No, I mean, why haven’t you gone after her?”
“I have to be here tonight. I need to be here for Luke, and for you and Legs. What if Dad goes at you again? I’ll need to fend him off.”
“Excuse me?!” Lana practically shrieks. She jabs me in the chest. “First off, I can fend for myself, thank you very much. Secondly, what kind of a man lets the woman he loves leave so he can be there for his SISTER?”
Well. When she puts it like that.
“That’s not how it was. Annie wanted to do whatever this is alone.”
“And I’m sure she’s fully capable of doing whatever she’s doing alone. I don’t mean you need to be her knight in shining armor, this isn’t medieval times. But for the record, you don’t need to be mine, either. Or Allegra’s.”
“I’ll always be there for Legs,” I say staunchly. “I won’t let her go through what we did with Dad.”
“But she’s not your daughter, Liam. She’s my daughter. And while I so deeply appreciate everything you’ve done to give her a father figure, I’m telling you that spending your entire life trying to make up for something that she doesn’t even remember is not going to help either of you.” Lana Mae is the fiercest I’ve ever seen her. “You are nothing like Dad. Never have been, never will be. And I’m so thankful that she has you to look up to as an example of what to look for in a man.”
She jabs me in the chest again. “But that means putting yourself first every once in awhile. The best thing for Allegra is for her to see you happily married with a wife you adore, and hope that one day she can find a good man to marry, too.”
My head is spinning. I’ve never thought of it this way. Never taken a moment to consider that prioritizing my own happiness could contribute to fulfilling the needs of others, too.
“And if Annie is that woman for you, you need to be there for her first. Whatever this is she’s dealing with right now. Not to save her, but to support her.”
“What’s with all the commotion?” I look up to see Luke striding toward us, bow tie hanging loose around his half-unbuttoned dress shirt.
“Annie left and Liam didn’t go after her.”
“WHAT? WHY?”
“That’s what I said!” Lana Mae crows.
“It’s your wedding, Luke, I couldn’t leave.”
Luke rolls his eyes dramatically. “No offence, little bro, but if this was your wedding and Mindy left, I’d go after her. I love you and all, but I love Mindy more.”
His words are an icy water bucket of realization.
How on earth could I have let her leave?
“Liam,” Luke goes on. “You do know that you owe us nothing, right? Literally and figuratively. I invested in SITL because I believed in it. Believed in you. Not because I wanted to have something to hold over you. I don’t ever want you to feel like you’re indebted to me. Whatever happens with the funding, I don’t give a damn. I love you and all I want is to see you happy.”
This touches my heart. Love isn’t about paying back dues, or keeping score, or penance for things you wish you’d done differently. It’s about not only forgiving others for being imperfect sometimes but letting them forgive you for the same. I may not have always been there for my family, but I’m here now. And I’m forgiven. And my happiness is important, too.
Annie is my happy. The love of my life.
Real love, love that makes you lose sleep, love that makes you say and do crazy things, love that makes you crave a person like a drug every time they’re not near, that type of love only comes around once in a lifetime.
I’ll be damned if I’m going to let that slip through my fingers.
“Um, hey guys?”
“Yes?” my siblings chorus.
“Two things.” I clear my throat. “First of all, thank you. Secondly, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta go. Like, now.”
Luke raises his eyebrows smugly. “It’s about time, idiot.”
48
ANNIE
“Excuse me. Sorry. Coming through. Pardon me.” I repeat the words flatly as I move down the center aisle of the train, trying my best not to whack all the unfortunate aisle-seaters with my duffel bag.
I’m right on time for this particular form of public transit. Nice to see I’ve finally broken the habit of a lifetime.
Unfortunately for me, though, when I get to my designated seat, I discover that there is no handsome, grumpy stranger next to me. Instead, there’s a teenage boy with his finger up his nose.
Charming.
I sink into my chair and rest my head in my hands, breathing in the cold, stale AC that’s blasting on me as I gather my thoughts. Or try to.
Since I left Liam at the ranch, since I ran away from the person I loved with no explanation, my head has been a jumbled mess. Forget coloring outside the lines, my mind is one big scribble.
Should I have told him? Let him help?
I so badly didn’t want to heap yet another responsibility on his shoulders, give him yet another problem to solve. But not being honest with him feels wrong.
Across the aisle, a pair of elderly ladies are drinking tea and reading Danielle Steel books. They remind me of Rosemary and Mildred, from the very plane ride that brought Liam and I together. The thought of them makes me smile despite myself.
Until that day, I never believed in wonders of the universe or fate or stars aligning. Thought it was all nonsense.
But now, I believe that everything happened that day for a reason.
I was meant to meet Liam. It’s so clear to me that we’re meant to be together. And I’m going to do everything in my power to fix this mess. Beating myself up about what I did in the past isn’t going to help me right now, nor Liam. I need to take action, move past it. I quoted Brené Brown about this very thing recently when I was talking to Liam—“regret is necessary to facilitate change and growth.”
When I really think about it, my regrets have shaped change in me that was good. Healthy.
And that change in me is what’s empowered me to take action instead of wallow.
The thought is empowering: in this life, we’re not summaries of our mistakes. We’re merely shaped by them.
And what my past has shaped me into is someone who fights for who and what they love.
The train lurches into motion and a static-y crackle over the intercom announces that we’re on our way.
I gaze out the window as the dark, shadowy scenery beyond the train begins to move.
There’s a rustle of movement in the aisle as someone makes their way to their seat. Must’ve made the train just in the nick of time. Been there.
“Sorry I’m late.” The voice comes from somewhere above me. “I’d say it was because a squirrel broke into my car, but it’s actually because I was busy being the biggest idiot on the planet.”
It’s a deep, achingly familiar voice that makes me turn in my seat.
“Liam?” I can hardly believe it. But there he is, still in his freaking tuxedo, lurching and wobbling in the center aisle as he tries to stay balanced with the train’s jerky movement. As usual, he is a sight to behold. “What are you doing here?”
“Taking a train to…” He pauses and squints at the little screen at the end of the train car. “Wait, Hartsfield-Jackson? We’re going to the airport?”
Before I can reply, he slides into the empty seat across from me. Eyes the teenage nose-picker. “Hey, dude. Wanna make fifty bucks in five seconds?”
The young guy’s face lights up. “Bruh! Do I!”
Liam hands him a folded up bill. “I’ll pay you fifty dollars to go sit somewhere else.”
“Dude, why would you do that?” The boy snatches the money in awe. “There are like a hundred empty seats.”
Liam doesn’t take his eyes off me. “It’s part of my grand gesture… I need to show my girlfriend I love her. That I’m always here for her. And, you see, it all started with a seat swap.”
There’s a bubble in my chest, getting bigger by the second.
The kid doesn’t need to be told twice. He beams at Liam, grabs his bags, and is gone in a flash.
With a satisfied nod, Liam moves to sit next to me.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi yourself,” I reply, the memory of our first kiss tingling on my skin.
“Annie, I don’t know where you’re going or what you’re doing right now, but I know that I want to be by your side for the journey. Whatever that looks like.” He stops. Smiles. “It was a mistake not leaving with you tonight, because being by each other’s side, through good and bad, is what comes first. It’s what you do when you love someone.”
Everything in my body is warm. Soft. Swirling with emotions.
But I have to tell him the truth.
“Liam. I love you. But there’s something you need to know. I left because Justin’s blackmailing me. He threatened to tell Wiseman that we hooked up before I started working at SITL and get us kicked out of the running for the funding.”
Liam looks at me blankly. “And sorry, forgive my ignorance, but how was going to the airport going to solve that? ”
“I was going to fly to Boston so I could kick Justin in the nuts.”
Liam nods in approval. “That’s my girl.”
I sigh. “Um, I guess I didn’t really have a plan. I knew I couldn’t let Justin blackmail me, but I was at a loss. I thought that if I could just talk to Wiseman first, let him see in person that I’m sincere and I love you and that this isn’t some sleazy, seedy boss-employee affair, that he’d see our side of the story and not Justin’s.”
Liam is smiling now. “So, let me get this straight… It’s Sunday night, you are wearing a cocktail dress, and you left a wedding so you could catch a train to the airport. To fly to Boston to look for a random dude called Tim Wiseman so you could tell him you love me.”
I consider this. “Correct.”
He shakes his head in total wonderment. “Do you even know where to find Wiseman? Have an address? Phone number?”
Definitely hadn’t thought this through.
“Nope,” I say resolutely. “But I would’ve found a way. I knew that I couldn’t fail, couldn’t have our happy accident of the way we met lead to something so negative. I love you way too much to let myself become your biggest mistake.”
“It could never be a mistake to love you, Annie. Loving you is a privilege. An honor I don’t take lightly. And I want to keep on loving you every single day, for the rest of my days.”
I look at him through teary eyes. “Same, Liam. I just wish I could have solved this mess for you.”
“You already did.”
“Huh?” I blink at him.
“I placed a call to Wiseman on the way here. Told him everything.” Liam grins. “Guess I beat Justin to the punch, because he told me that my forthright honesty was admirable. Refreshing. In a way, I almost think it gives us an edge.”
“Really?” I sniffle, looking at him in wonder. He actually took that risk for me. Without even knowing what was at stake.
“Really. And whether we end up getting the funding or not, I’m going to change the rulebook right when I get back to the office,” Liam continues. “Because nobody should have to choose between love and their career. And I want you to have the best of all worlds, Annie. You deserve the best of everything.”
My heart is full.
49
ANNIE
Six Months Later…
“We’re baaaaaaccckkkkkkkk!” Luke sings as he swings open the front door of Lana Mae’s duplex with theatrical gusto.
I look up from my spot on the couch—where I’m curled up with a glass of red wine in my hand and Harry Styles in my lap—and burst into surprised laughter.
Mindy, who’s on the chair across from me, groans, then covers her eyes and peeks through a gap between her fingers. “Oh, my eyes!” she yelps.
Lana surveys the scene and smirks. “Well well well, what do we have here?”
Luke, Liam and Legs are all standing in the doorway dressed head to toe in Justin Bieber concert merch—glittery hats, graphic t-shirts, flashing glowstick necklaces and all. There’s even a cardboard cutout of Bieber himself tucked under Luke’s arm.
