Page 28 of Lost in the Current of You

I swallowed, trying to find my words after that blow. I knew Liam was long gone by then, but I didn’t have it in me to care at that point. It was just Reece and the arrow he shot through my heart.

“Wow. How long have you been holding onto that one?”

And then, seemingly realising how those words affected me, his eyes softened, and he stepped closer.

“I didn’t—” he started but stopped himself, clenching his fists as if to hold himself back from touching me.

I swallowed again and took a deep breath, trying to shake off the tension that had built, thick and hazy, strong enough to choke me.

“Tell Nate I’ll be waiting near the car when he’s ready.”

I walked past him, my shoulder softly bumping into his arm.

I heard him whisper my name, but he never said anything more. I kept walking.

Nate still had the keys to the car. I didn’t have the confidence to walk into that minefield again, knowing how badly everyone probably thought of me after that display. So, when I got to the car, I sat on the ground and leaned against the front wheel on the driver’s side, waiting for when Nate decided he wanted to leave. It was too long before he appeared, enough for me to wander into my head. To my relationship with Liam and where I went wrong.

Why couldn’t I fall in love with him? He was easy, funny, and kind. Everything was good with him. But when I fell asleep at night, I couldn’t stop thinking that something was missing. A gap in the relationship that I didn’t know how to fill.

Was it me? Was I just like my mother and couldn’t find it in myself to love?

I thought about that every time I thought about Liam and me. It was the only conclusion I could make about how stupid I was for letting go of the one good person to have entered my life.

It was a quiet trip home.

Quiet, and awkward, because Nate had decided he wanted to go to the pub with his friends instead, leaving me alone to drive Reece home. I didn’t have anything to say nor did I want to speak to him. He respected the silent request as he looked out the passenger window the whole drive.

When I pulled up in front of his house, he paused with one hand on the handle and the other scrubbed across his mouth. He didn’t say anything but a quick muttered ‘thank you’ under his breath before leaving, grabbing his bag and walking up his driveway.

Then, I was left alone, with an aching feeling in my stomach and my spiraling thoughts.

10

Alex and Avery wandered into my house that next Tuesday like it was their own.

Heading straight to the kitchen, they dished out their own bowls of the pasta I had bragged to them about, and stuffed their arms full of snacks for our movie night. I watched them over the back of the couch with a raised brow, slurping up my own bowl of pasta, as they raided the kitchen before coming to settle next to me, discussing what movie we should watch.

Being friends for the past thirteen years, we automatically made ourselves at home in each other’s homes.

Movie night always happened at my house because of the 85-inch TV, L-shaped couch, and blackout curtains. My dad took pride in that media room, engineering the surround sound system and soundproofing so it felt like a home cinema. It was everyone’s favourite room in the house.

Scrolling through the movie options on the TV, we bickered amongst each other about what to watch.

“Oh, I loved that movie. Paul Walker was so sexy in that,” Avery piped up when I scrolled to the movie Into the Blue.

I hummed, my nose scrunched up. “Not feeling it. I’m thinking rom-com.”

Avery and Alex both groaned at that.

“It’s always rom-coms with you. If it’s not 10 Things I Hate About You, it’s How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. You need to broaden your watch list, Kods,” Alex said, twisting in his seat to face me like he was going to lecture me.

“But they’re classics. How can you ever get bored watching them?” I asked rhetorically, but Alex still answered as he shot me a deadpan look.

“When you rewatch them at least ten times a week.”

I held my hands up, grinning innocently. “Hey, let’s not go to that extreme. I’d say only two times at most.”

Something about watching romance movies just made me feel hope to feel that way. To feel the butterflies they feel when the other walks in the room. To feel like you’re the only two in the room. To feel my heart pound when someone touches my cheek or their breath on my mouth or their eyes solely on mine.

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