Page 53 of Lost & Found

Another conversation from one of my therapy sessions finds its way to the front of my brain as Liam’s hazel eyes search mine for what seems like a few minutes before I decide that I’m going to open up to a complete stranger.

But he beats me to it.

“I was hoping that I could have the chance to apologize to you.” He leans down to his haunches, still holding a beer bottle in one hand as he lowers himself to my level.

My eyes grow wide when I realize I know where this conversation is about to go and it takes me by surprise.

“I was such an asshole to you and a lot of other people all those years ago and I feel like an absolute dick when I think about how I treated people. But you, you were younger than me and you were completely innocent of any reason I felt compelled to pick on you for. I don’t know how much it would matter now, but I am really sorry for treating you that way.” Liam brings a small smile to his face as his apology swirls in the air between us.

My eyes are now dry from the tears and I still hold my knees close to my chest as I try to take in the things he’s saying to me.

If what he’s saying is genuine, then that has to mean that he’s changed.

People can actually change.

I hated Liam when I was younger. He was so rude to me and to…

“That’s all I came over here to say, but I also wanted to check up on you. You seem a little sad so…” he wavers, leaning back up to get to his feet but I stop him.

“Wait,” I say, and he pushes himself back down and waits for me to continue.

“Do you remember Jax?” I asked him, and the question that leaves my lips feels extremely foreign to speak to another person about because only two other people have heard me say his name since he left.

“Yeah, barely. But I remember him. Why?” He stays attentive as he lets me find the courage to answer him.

I lower my knees a little and tell him how this night and this party and that stupid game brings back some pretty hard memories for me. I tell him that I had a crush on Jax and how he kind of broke my heart. I didn’t go into any other details other than what this party actually means to me. He listens to me. He doesn’t show judgment. He simply lets me vent.

It feels nice and I feel better, even if he doesn’t have anything to say back. I feel a relief knowing that I don’t have to hold onto that for the rest of this party. But I wish I knew that I might have experienced a trigger so fucking soon.

After I’m done talking, I take a deep breath and Liam stands up, reaches his hand out for mine and I take it. He helps me up. I wipe under my eyes to make sure I don’t have smeared mascara under them.

“You’re good,” he says as he examines my face a little too closely. I feel heat burn in my cheeks at how silly I must have looked sitting in the corner like a child throwing a fit. But I shake it off when I see that he won’t hold it against me, he didn’t come over here to make fun of me or single me out in a hurtful way. He wanted me to know that he knows that I’m here and I’m not alone.

I really appreciate that about him, and I accept his apology with a smile before he takes off back to his friends.

I stay back for a moment before making my way up the stairs. I work through the crowd to find my way out to the front of the house and decide to sit on the steps of the front porch. No one else is out here but me and the subtle thrums of the bass from the music inside and the hoot of the owls in the trees surrounding me.

I look up at the moon, it’s almost full and tucked behind smoke-colored clouds. It looks like mystery and devotion creating an illumination of bright white light that halos around the tops of the trees.

It’s magnificent.

I pull my phone out of my back pocket and absentmindedly click on my contacts. I scroll down to the J’s and stop when I find his name at the top.

Jax.

I haven’t spoken to him since the day we found ourselves trapped in a closet, since the day he turned me down and walked away. But I wonder if he knows that I made the decision to block him. I wonder if he ever tried calling me or texting me and got upset when he realized I wasn’t going to answer him. I wonder if he thinks about me at all.

I do.

I think about him all the time. I hate that I do because it makes me miss him, the memories we had and the bond we shared. It all went down the drain the moment he stopped letting me be me. And I wonder if he’s doing all the things he said he was going to do or if he even lives in Colorado anymore. Maybe he moved to Pennsylvania for all I know.

I wonder if he’s got a girlfriend or friends at all and if they make him laugh the way he made me laugh. Is that even possible? Does he ever think about what might have happened to us if he hadn’t left?

For the past nine years, I spent my days hating every fiber of his being, knowing that he caused this downward spiral I had to recover from. I don’t ever anticipate him coming back so I decide to push it all down and just focus on moving forward…without him.

But my index finger hovers over his name, so I click on it. Underneath it reads the words unblock and I imagine what would happen if I press it. Would years of unread texts come flooding into my inbox? Would there be any voicemails that just randomly appear from him telling me that he missed me? Or would the phone stay silent because everything I might have missed from him is gone forever and I’ll never know if he even tried to stay in contact with me?

I hit the button and just as I suspected, nothing happens.

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