Chapter 2

chapter 2

. . .

I t’s been six weeks since Liam left, and I’ve hated every single second of him being gone. Right now, we have a routine. He calls every Sunday, like clockwork. Neither of us wants to miss this call. We spend an hour on the phone, racking up Sterling’s bill. We laugh about it because why not.

Other times we talk, it’s hit or miss. He’ll call, and sometimes I’m not home. He teases and says I’m out there living my best life when in reality, I’m nothing more than a third wheel. As much as I miss Liam, I miss Katelyn. She’s always with Mason or he’s always with us, and frankly, it’s annoying. He’s supposed to be at school but hasn’t moved into the dorms yet because he wants to wait until Katelyn’s there. As much as I love them together, they make me want to gag sometimes.

I need girl time. I want to float in her pool and talk about how horny I am and how much I miss Liam’s dick. Not once during sex education did anyone tell us that once you start having sex, especially with someone like Liam, you won’t want to stop. But I can’t say this to Katelyn because Mason is always there when she’s not working.

To add salt to my gaping wound, Katelyn and Mason fuck like bunnies whenever they’re together. Like all the freaking time. I can’t imagine there being anything worse than spending time with your friend and her running into the pool shed to get laid. Katelyn thinks the sound of the pool pump drowns out their sex noises. She’s so very wrong.

When Liam and I talk, he sounds different. I can’t pinpoint why or how, but it’s like life has dulled for him even though he’s living it up in Texas. I remind myself to call Greyhound later to get the bus schedule and see how much it’ll cost me to go there for a long weekend. I want to surprise him, to show him how much he means to me. And if he asks me to stay, well then, my life will become perfect.

I’m sitting on the step in front of my house, waiting for Katelyn. We’re going shopping for our dorm room, something my mother wants to do with me, but I refuse. We don’t like the same things and she’s a minimalist and doesn’t think I need much. Me, on the other hand, thinks I need everything. Mostly, I plan to buy a phone and get a part-time job so Liam can call my dorm room and not have to call the payphone in the hallway.

Katelyn pulls up to the curb and honks. It’s as if she doesn’t see me even though she’s staring right at me. I take my sweet time making my way to her car.

“We need coffee,” she says when I sit down in the passenger seat. “Java Joes?”

“Is there another place in town I don’t know about?”

“Nope,” she says as she speeds down the street, forcing me to hang onto the door handle for dear life.

“Why are you trying to kill us?”

“Ugh, I’m pissed at my mother.”

“What else is new?”

Katelyn sighs heavily. “She put a lock on the shed door.”

I can’t help it and bust out laughing. “Really? After all these years?”

She looks at me and rolls her eyes. “I got the holy lecture this morning about promiscuity and fornicating before marriage.”

“Did she think you were a virgin until now?”

Katelyn shrugs as she pulls into Java Joes. It’s our favorite coffee shop, smack dab in the middle of a parking lot. According to the owner, Traci, this is the new hype, these boutique drive-thru only coffee shops. I’m hoping one opens near campus so I can get a job there.

We order and pay, and then head to the mall. We have a list of things we need. I swear it’s like moving to an apartment, only we won’t have a kitchen or a bathroom, but still need those essentials.

Our first stop is Kmart. I really hate this store, but things are cheap and when you’re on a super tight budget, cheap is your friend. We’re not in the store for five minutes when the blue light siren sounds and we’re sprinting toward the bathroom accessories to get our towels on sale.

Katelyn may or may not have pushed someone out of the way to get the last set of black towels. She said they’ll hide Mason’s dirt better, which leaves me with questions. First, why is he using her towels and not his? Second, does he even own damn towels? Third . . . well I’m sure there’s a third, fourth, and fifth but I’m too frustrated at the situation to move past the first two.

After the towels, we grab all our shower needs, including those ugly shower shoes. When I went shopping with Liam, he made me promise to wear them all the time because he likes my toes and would hate to see me lose one to some type of fungus.

I pick up new bottles of my shampoo and conditioner, and a couple bars of soap to go in the caddy we found in the “Back to School” section. I never looked to closely there before, but they have dorm room supplies and decorating ideas.

Katelyn and I decide we’re going to decorate our room with posters of some of the bands we like and I’m going to ask Liam to send me a University of Texas pennant for my wall, as well as a shirt or two. Preferably one he’s worn because it’ll smell like him and the one I have now barely holds his scent.

God, I miss him. Talking to him on the phone doesn’t do my heart justice. I need to see him, touch him, and feel his body against mine. I miss him nuzzling against my neck and holding me against his chest. Those are things I took for granted when we were together daily, and now that he’s gone, doing his thing in Texas, I yearn for them. For him. The physical ache I feel when we get off the phone is debilitating at times. I don’t know how I’m going to last four years without seeing Liam every day.

After we finish shopping, Katelyn drives me back to my house and helps me unload everything into my room. I’ve packed some stuff, mostly clothes and anything Liam has ever given me. There’s no way in hell I’m going to leave something behind.

Katelyn stays for dinner and well into the night because being at my house is better than hers, even though mine isn’t great. Mason is the only one of the four of us who has amazing parents. If I could live there, I would. The Powells’ is warm and inviting, the door is always open, and Mason’s mom loves to cook. If he had a pool, we’d never leave his house.

After Katelyn leaves, I spend some time organizing the things I bought for our dorm room. I wash the towels, the extra-long sheets, and the new quilt I happened to find with some of the University of Texas’s colors in the flowers. They’re a little darker than what the rest of our flower décor looks like, but who cares.

Once I put everything in the dryer, I hop in the shower. Normally, I shower in the morning but tonight I need the hard water pressure to ease the stress I have in my neck. I never understood this until Liam explained how this is as good as a massage. Still, I much prefer his hands on me. After standing under the water for who knows how long, I get out. The hot water eased some of the tension, but not enough.

Outside the bathroom door, my mom stands there, wringing her hands.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she says. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” I say a bit sarcastically.

“I was thinking. Maybe tomorrow I can take you shopping for some new clothes. Just like we used to.”

“Okay,” I tell her. I’m not about to pass up new clothes, especially if she’s paying.

“Okay, good night.”

“Night.” Back in my room, I dry off, get dressed and crawl into bed. As soon as my head hits the pillow, I know I’m not long for this world.

My phone rings and even though the ringer is on the lowest setting, it scares the shit out of me. Blindly, I reach for the cradle and lift it from the receiver. “Hello?” My voice is hoarse, groggily.

“Hey, baby,” Liam says on the other end. Hearing him causes me to sit up straight and rub the sleep from my eyes. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

“It’s okay. What’s going on?”

“Nothing . . . I just.” Liam pauses and takes a deep breath. “I can’t?—”

“Are you okay?”

“No,” he says quietly. “I need to come see you.”

Who am I to say no?

“What about football practice?”

Liam goes silent and I fear I’ve said something to upset him or there’s someone in his room right now. The last I knew, he didn’t have a roommate, thanks to Mason, so he should be all alone. I shake my head, clearing the last thought away. Liam wouldn’t cheat.

“Josie, I need to see you,” he says. “It’s been six weeks, and I can’t . . . you don’t . . . I need you, Jojo. I’m leaving now.”

Before I can protest or ask him to wait until the weekend, he hangs up. I try to call him back, but my call goes to voicemail.

I turn on my bedside lamp and get out of bed to rummage through a stack of books until I find an atlas. Grabbing a notepad, I flip to Texas, find where Liam is and write down the number of miles from there to here, and then calculate his speed. I’ve never known Liam to drive the speed limit and figure he’ll be here sometime tomorrow night.

Back in bed, I lie there staring at the ceiling and replaying his words over and over in my mind. None of them make sense and he didn’t give me enough time to ask him to elaborate. And then, I start thinking the worst and wonder if he’s cheated on me and he’s coming to break up with me. Surely, he’d just do that on the phone and not say it to my face.

It’s simple. I won’t give him a chance to say those things to me. I’ll have to remind him of why we’re together and how in love we are with each other.

In the morning, I look like death. I didn’t sleep a wink, tossing and turning, imagining the worst of the worst. Half the night, I stared at my phone and willed it to ring, hoping Liam would call just to check in.

He didn’t.

Still, I should be excited to go shopping and buy new clothes even if it’s with my mom. I hope she lets me pick out what I want to wear and not what she deems appropriate for an eighteen-year-old going off to college. If she had her way, I’d be head to toe in burlap. This is comical since for the last four years I wore a very short skirt to school almost every day. She never told me what she thought about me cheering and I’m surprised she has some of my photos up.

“Josephine,” my mom calls my name from the hallway. I grab my purse and sling it over my shoulder. When I come around the corner, she’s standing there, watching me. For a moment, I expect her to say something about me wearing Liam’s sweatshirt, but she doesn’t.

“Are you ready?”

“Yes,” she says, nodding. “Let’s go before your dad gets home and finds out I took his credit card.”

Nothing makes me hustle faster to the car than those words.