Page 41 of A Series of Rooms
“We are.”
Liam bubbled out a nervous laugh at his deadpan rebuttal. “That explains the nerves, I guess.”
“Do you know where you want to go?” Jonah asked.
“Actually,” Liam said. “I did have an idea I wanted to run by you. And just to preface, you can absolutely say no.” He took a breath. “I wondered if you might be interested in coming home with me? Not...I mean, you don’t have to come back to my actual house if you don’t want to, and we don’t have to stay all night. It’s a little over an hour away, so I just thought, since we have the whole night, there’s plenty of time to get there and back. Does that...? How does that sound?”
In the quiet of Jonah’s answering stare, Liam felt the wind leave his sails. The selfishness of the suggestion was suddenly so obvious, in the way that it could only be once it’d already left his mouth.
“You’d really want to bring me there with you?” Jonah asked.
“Only if you want to,” Liam reiterated. “It could be a change of scenery. I thought maybe I could show you around? Give a little tour of the world’s most boring suburban life? I don’t know.”
“Yes,” Jonah said, nearly cutting him off with the immediacy of his response. “Let’s do it.”
Liam deflated with relief. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Okay.” Liam couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “Oh, here. Before I forget.” He crouched down to his backpack on the floor and pulled out Jonah’s usual sweatshirt, along with an old winter coat and a knitted hat. “It’s freezing out. I didn’t think a sweatshirt would cut it tonight.”
Jonah accepted the clothes with the same heartbreaking gratitude he afforded to every small kindness Liam offered.
They waited a few minutes, wanting to be sure that whoever dropped Jonah off was gone before they left the hotel. When they stepped outside, passing the bored desk attendant, Jonah pulled the hood of his coat over his head for reasons, Liam assumed, that had nothing to do with the cold. He kept vigilant watch, sneaking glances over his shoulder every few seconds until they ducked into the train station.
CHAPTER 19
Jonah
They took the commuter train toward Naperville out of Union Station. Liam paid for both tickets.
Jonah assumed he had opted for public transportation to save money on fuel, but Liam told him he just preferred the train. He said that it made him feel like he was part of the city instead of just someone who happened to live in the margins of one. Though, he assured Jonah he would be driving him back to Chicago at the end of the night. He didn’t want to risk a faulty train schedule making him late.
Liam brought the most recent of Jonah’s borrowed books for the journey, the post-it note still poking out from where he had left off the week before. Jonah held it in his lap, unopened, watching out the window as the city fell away behind them.
He wasn’t running away, he had to remind himself with each breath that the distance allowed him. This wasn’t freedom. Not beyond the scope of a single night.
Liam seemed just as entranced by the sights, though surely it was a route he was familiar with to the point of boredom by now. They sat across from each other, in seats that faced inward. With Liam distracted, Jonah allowed himself to stare. He watched Liam, the way he leaned his head against the window, the way he seemed comfortable in this space in a way he so rarely did.
Unbidden, he imagined Liam in a few years’ time, riding the subway in New York. What would he look like then? The same? Would he have grown out the bronze scruff stubbled along his jaw? Would there be a stronger sense of self-assurance in his eyes, in the way he carried himself? Would he, by then, no longer hold himself like he was taking up too much space in the world?
Jonah thought the answer was yes. That someone as fundamentally good as Liam only needed time to see it for himself.
The image made him smile, but there was a trickle of melancholy that snuck in behind it. The idea of Liam existing in a future that Jonah had no part of sat heavy in his chest. He always knew that was the plan, that it would be naive to expect anything different, but it was harder thinking about it in such concrete terms. Liam getting into art school. Liam saving up the money to move. Liam moving on, forging a future and leaving Jonah stagnant and stale, a distant memory in the past. Just part of his story; a series of Friday nights strung together during one strange autumn, and the boy he left there in the end.
Where would Jonah be then, at that point in the not-so-far-off future?
He decided he didn’t want to know.
“Hey.” The toe of Liam’s shoe knocked against his, bringing him back to the moment. “You okay?”
Jonah nodded, soothed by his concern and only a little unnerved by his ability to read him. For now, it was a reminder that they were both still here, together, and that they still had time. However much of it was left.
The ride wasn’t long, an hour and fifteen minutes from station to station, but Jonah found himself mourning the loss as they stepped out onto the platform. Liam was right: the train was nice.
Liam had parked his car near the station, so it was waiting for them when they arrived.
Predictably, his top priority was making sure Jonah was fed. They stopped at a drive-in restaurant, where servers on roller skates brought burgers and fries directly to the car. Liam kept the heat running while they ate, the radio providing them with the backdrop of soft Christmas music that played on every station.
