Page 26 of Unfinished

We were in Liam’s Jeep watching the second movie of the double feature and we barely talked. I couldn’t stop thinking about what it was going to take to make a long-distance relationship work. I barely paid attention to the movie and I was quiet most of the night. Granted, it was okay to be quiet during a movie night. I was procrastinating because I didn’t really want to have this conversation. It was never easy talking about my mom and I was a little scared to address the possibility of a long-term relationship.

“You aren’t actually watching the movie are you?” Liam whispered, pulling me from my thoughts.

I looked over and saw him watching me with a soft smile on his expression. I smiled in return, “Not really, no.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“A lot of things. My personal issues and maybe thinking about whether we have a future after this summer.”

“We have a future after this summer, I promise that. What personal issues?”

I sighed, “You know my mom left when I was thirteen, and it’s just been my dad and me since.”

Liam nodded, so I continued, “My mom left because we were too much for her. My dad doesn’t know that I heard the argument but she said she fell out of love with him and she never felt like a mom. She was tired of pretending to be happy and wanted to be free of us.”

“You know that’s not on you, right?” The concern in Liam’s eyes was genuine but there was a touch of anger there, not at me but for me.

“I know. But it doesn’t stop the fact that now I have commitment, trust, and abandonment issues. I’m afraid to commit or trust anyone because I don’t want people to abandon me. And I know this next part isn’t true, but sometimes my brain likes to lie to me … my own mother never loved me, so how can anyone else?”

“That’s bullshit, not your feelings but the lie. Your mother wasn’t cut out to be a mom. It doesn’t make you unlovable or not good enough.” Liam placed his hand over mine and squeezed it.

“I know that, but I have depression and anxiety on top of a whole mess of trauma that just exasperates everything. I struggle between taking the chance of something being good or protecting myself from possible hurt.”

“I understand that. However, being aware of how you cope, I feel like I have to warn you. I will fight for you, always. Even if you try to push me away to protect yourself. I can give you time, but I won’t give up on this, on you.”

Even with his dedication towards us, the end of summer would come sooner rather than later. I would need to trust him if we were going to try to make a long-distance relationship work. That wouldn’t be easy for me to do. I needed to know what he thought would happen once we returned to our schools.

“What happens after this summer?”

“I come to Pittsburgh as many weekends as I can. We spend our breaks in New York City, or I will come to visit you here. We text and call as much as we can.”

“For the next four years?” I asked, and he frowned.

“It’s not going to be easy, but I’m not going to give up either.”

“I don’t want to give up…” Liam looked relieved, which made this next part harder, “but I don’t want to take this any further if it’s not something we can make work. I don’t know if I can do four years of a long-distance relationship.”

“You’re afraid we can’t make a long-distance relationship work?” Liam muttered.

“Well, I’m on a fast track program and I have four years left with my masters. There’s a lot of classes and I spend most of my time studying. I also work to pay for an apartment, bills, and food since Ashley and I live off campus. I don’t have weekends off, and I pick up extra shifts during the breaks. I don’t know that I will have the time to keep up with a long-distance relationship too,” I explained, and saying it out loud made it clear how little time I’d have for the next four years. I was also realizing how much I really did want to try to make this work. My heart was already breaking at the idea of letting Liam go.

“Hey,” Liam started and I looked at him, concern etched across my face, “Let’s take this one day at a time, yeah? Let’s not think about tomorrow’s problems today. I’ve got three years left, you have four more planned, then we’ll both be in New York.”

“How can you be so calm when you know this is going to be unbelievably hard?”

“Beautiful, I’m not worried because I know that this is right. I know that we can find a way to make this work. It might be difficult, but we can make this work. I want you to be my girlfriend,” Liam paused, “I want to make this official.”

“Are you sure?” I whispered.

“Yes, I don’t care about anyone else. I want this, I want us. And you do too,” Liam replied, and I smiled softly and nodded even though it wasn’t a question.

He smiled widely and pulled me over the center console for a kiss. His hand went into my hair and my hand went to his jaw as he kissed me slowly. I was really doing this with him and we were going to try to make this work.

My heart was racing and I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face, because I did want this. I wanted to be Liam’s and find a way to make this work. It was going to be difficult, but at that moment, it felt like we would handle anything that came our way.

Liam broke our kiss, grabbed a permanent marker from his center console and on the wood post next to the car he wrote:

5th Date

---