Chapter Twenty-Five Naomi

Chapter Twenty-Five

Naomi

November 2022, six months before her death

Saturday morning, after rehearsal, I take a shower in the shared bathroom down the hall. Gripped by the sudden urge to call someone, I scan through my old text messages as the hot water fills the room with steam.

My finger hovers over my sister’s name. I want to talk to her, but I can’t tell her about the Times investigation, or the break-in. She’d panic. Who else…I think about Liam, but he’d gone quiet since the night I showed up at his room.

I was hurt, but I wasn’t surprised. He always did this—one minute he’d open up, and the next he’d act like I didn’t exist.

Setting my phone on the edge of the sink, I step into the scalding-hot shower. As the knots in my back loosen, my mind drifts to the night I was tapped for Greystone Society. The night I met Liam.

—

It was one of the best nights of my life. It was February of my sophomore year and the night was unusually warm. Overhead, the moon was full and bright, and a hum was running through my bones.

I’d come so far that year: the depression I’d struggled with for years had lifted. I didn’t even need the pills to sleep. And the low simmering anxiety I always felt had nearly gone away completely. I had friends, I was doing well in classes, and I’d been accepted into Sterling Club, which I’d dreamed about joining since I was a kid.

I had gone to the terrace to get some air when I felt a hand touch my back. I turned around to find the guy I’d seen earlier. The one who was watching me dance. He was so beautiful, I could hardly stand to look him in the eye. I remember my heartbeat in my chest and the thrill that shot through me when he bent over and whispered: You’ve been tapped for Greystone Society.

It took a second to breathe, but when I recovered, I raised my chin. I’m in. He told me to follow him and led me to the crypt.

After the initiation, he introduced himself properly—Liam Alexander. I remember thinking his name was wildly sexy and somewhat dark and really suited him. I learned he was from Rye, New York, and grew up in country clubs, training with the best tennis coaches in the country, a fourth-generation Princeton legacy.

Liam, who was a junior while I was a sophomore, had been so warm in that initial meeting, I was surprised when he was cold and unfriendly in the following weeks. He’d ignore me when we passed in the halls, avoid eye contact.

But occasionally, when we were both studying in the library, or eating dinner on opposite sides of the room, I’d catch him watchingme.

—

One cold night in April—I remember it was cold, because I didn’t want to make the trek back to my room—I was studying in the Sterling Club library. I was hunched over a dense section of Paradise Lost, when someone slid into the chair across from me.

“Mind if I join?” Liam asked.

I looked up. Shrugged. “Uh, yeah, sure. I’m leaving soon.”

Liam brought out his laptop and began tapping away at the keys, and I returned to my work. Liam looked like your typical Princeton boy, like a Brooks Brothers model, so I ignored him, assuming we had nothing in common.

But then he did something that surprised me. I was underlining a passage when he stopped typing and looked up. “You like Min Jin Lee?” He’d seen the copy of Free Food for Millionaires I’d set next to my stack of required Milton, Hemingway, and Shakespeare. My sister had given it to me for my birthday.

I looked up at him. “You’ve read it? I wouldn’t have expected you to be into this kind of story.”

He nodded and revealed the book he was reading, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, which had been hidden behind his laptop. Another one I’d read.

I hadn’t expected him to be into something that tender. Clocking my surprise, he admitted, “I just started it. But…” He smiled. “I’m really enjoying it.”

I smiled too. “My sister and I always give each other books for our birthdays.”

I felt closest with my sister through this shared practice of ours. Within the pages of these books were the things we couldn’t discuss, didn’t want to. In Free Food for Millionaires, a Korean American Princeton graduate navigates her early twenties in New York City—she never feels like she fits in either.

“My mom’s a writer,” Liam said. “That’s one of her favorites.” His eyes, which were usually cold and intense, were softer in the low light and seemed to glow with interest.

In them, I felt a familiarity that wasn’t there before.

Liam leaned over, breaking the tension, and retrieved a half-empty bottle of wine from his bag. “My father sent me this bottle from the winery. It’s honestly not that good.” He raised the bottle of wine with an ironic flourish. “A full-bodied Cab with aromas of vinegar, shoe leather, and a hint of wet dog.” He stopped abruptly and grinned. “Want to help me finish it?”

I laughed, finding myself charmed by him. “The wet dog really sold it.”

—

Over the following weeks, I got to know Liam as we’d study together in the library until late into the night. Sometimes he’d walk me back across the dark, misty campus, and other times we’d run through campus in the pouring rain. There was always this tension between us, so taut it was nearly unbearable, but neither of us wanted to be the one to make the first move.

One night, when he’d walked me home and was getting ready to leave, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I leaned in, grabbed his coat collar, and kissed him. He froze for a second, and then he kissed me back. His lips were soft and his breath tasted like peppermint mouthwash. The kiss was better than I’d imagined and it felt like my entire being was melting into him.

—

For the rest of my sophomore year, we spent more nights together than we did apart. I became used to the soft cotton of his sheets, the feeling of being tucked under his arm, curled on the perfect groove of his chest.

I spent the summer after sophomore year working at a bookstore in the West Village, while he worked downtown at his dad’s fund, and we’d meet up every night after work, checking out new restaurants or going to see whatever classic film was playing at his favorite theater on Ludlow Street.

Over the course of my junior year, Liam and I fell even more in love, though we still had never said those words to each other. Still, I could hear it in his voice when we’d talk late at night, feel it in the way he’d hold my hand or brush my hair away from my face, or when he’d sit quietly in the audience at my dance shows.

But one day in mid-March, everything changed. I hadn’t heard from Liam all day, and there was a growing unease in the pit of my stomach that wouldn’t go away.

It was raining when I got to his place that night, and I found Liam sitting on the fire escape with his head between his knees.

I held the hallway door open and had to shout over the rain. “Liam.”

He looked up at me, hair plastered to his forehead, eyes rimmed red, and hung his head again.

He wouldn’t tell me what was wrong at first, but after gentle prodding, he opened up: his younger brother, Gabe, had gotten a concussion during lacrosse practice. The most important game of the season was the next day, and the coach had asked him if he was good to play. Being a sixteen-year-old kid, of course he’d said yes.

He’d gotten hit again, had a seizure, and died on his way to the hospital.

I froze, my heart breaking, and the knot in my throat twisted. He loved his brother, talked to him all the time. How could he be gone?

I could hardly stand to look at him. I could tell he was in so much pain.

Suddenly, Liam stood and pushed past me.

“Where are you going?”

“I just want to drive,” Liam said. His voice was hoarse, and I could tell from the distant look in his eyes he’d been drinking.

“Then I’m coming with you.” I followed him through the rain to the parking lot.

“Please don’t. I want to be alone.” He tried to get into the car and I stopped him.

“Look at me!” I yelled, blocking his path to the driver’s seat. “You can’t drive right now.”

“Move.”

“I’m serious. I’m not letting you do this.” It was raining harder now, raindrops beating on the metal roof. His Jeep was old. The tires probably hadn’t been changed in years. If he tried to drive in this rain, and as drunk as he was…

“Fuck.” Liam slammed the hood of the car, making me jump. “I said move. ” He had the look of someone pushed to his edge. And it scared me.

Liam yanked the door open and crashed into the driver’s seat. Adrenaline spiking, I ran around the car and jumped into the passenger side. I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking. All I knew was I couldn’t let him hurt himself. He’d said these things before…and I knew if he drove right now, he might try to kill himself.

But he wouldn’t do it with me in the car. At least, I hoped he wouldn’t.

My heart beat hard in my chest as he sped down the winding road. Rain and wind threw itself against the windows, rattling the car. The landscape was dark and unfamiliar. I didn’t know where Liam was going. I doubted he knew either.

“Liam, slow down.” My voice was pinched and thin. I swallowed hard and tried again, but he didn’t listen. His eyes were focused on the road, his knuckles white as he gripped the wheel harder, the pavement slippery beneath us. “Liam! I’m serious!”

“I told you not to come. Damn it!”

I heard a horn up ahead, and when I looked up, a semitruck was raging toward us: we were on the wrong side of the road’s dividingline. The rain was beating down so hard, the windshield wipers couldn’t keepup.

It happened so fast.

Liam braked hard, and my chest seized. My body collided with the center console as the car swerved to the right, tires peeling out with a terrifying screech as I held my breath for what felt like minutes until finally it skidded to a stop in the middle of the road.

Liam was breathing hard, ragged, animal breaths. My heart was pounding out of control. To my relief, the truck rumbled past.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. You?” My whole body was shaking, blood rushing in my ears. My throat hurt. I could barely think. Barely get out the words.

After a moment, I caught my breath, and the anger came. I screamed at him. What were you thinking? You could’ve gotten us both killed! I made him give me the keys and drove us back to campus in silence.

—

The following week, Liam left school for his brother’s funeral. He came back for a few weeks in April, and I thought he was doing okay…but one night, after finding him drunk and bruised at the bottom of the stairs, we got into our worst fight yet. While tryingto convince him to get help, the words slipped from my mouth— I love you— and he froze.

I can’t do this, he muttered on his way out the door. And that wasit.

—

The next morning he left and wouldn’t answer my texts or calls. After trying to reach him for months, I gave up, to find out later he’d gone to rehab. I didn’t realize that we’d officially broken up until I saw him in a picture he’d been tagged in with a girl from his hometown.

When he came back in September to start his senior year again, we tried to talk about what happened, but he was easily triggered. Aggressive. Everything I said set him off, and when I met his eyes, he wasn’t there. It was like looking into the eyes of a stranger.

—

The shower is running cold when I snap out of the memory, and after turning off the water, I realize my cheeks are still wet with tears. Stepping out of the shower, I wrap my hair and return to my room, changing into sweats and settling into bed with a book.

But finding myself rereading the same sentence again and again, I set the book down and check my phone. It’s one a.m . When I look at the screen, I’m surprised to see a text from Liam. It’s a simple response, but it makes my heart leap: Hey. I want to be mad at him for ignoring me.

But after the last few days, I crave the warmth of his arms. I want to be held. I want to feel safe.

Burying my face in the pillow, I try to ignore the feeling, but then my phone vibrates again, and when I look at the screen, my entire body gives in: Come back.