Page 103 of Fake As Puck
Like we’re trying to say everything we can’t put into words.
He holds me like I might disappear, like if he lets go I’ll fade away completely.
When it’s over, we lie tangled together, breathing hard, and neither of us speaks.
Because what is there to say?
That this is ending? That I’ll be on a plane back to LA soon and this will all feel like a beautiful dream?
That I don’t want to go but I don’t know how to stay?
That somewhere between yesterday and right now, I fell so hard for him that leaving feels like tearing myself in half?
Instead, we just hold each other in the morning light streaming through the windows, and I try to memorize everything about this moment.
The way his skin feels against mine. The sound of his breathing. The weight of his arm across my waist.
The way it feels to be exactly where I want to be, knowing I can’t stay.
“Liv,” he says finally, his voice rough.
“Don’t,” I interrupt, pressing my fingers to his lips. “Please.”
He nods and pulls me closer, and we lie there in silence until the real world starts calling.
Until checkout time approaches and flights need to be caught, and this perfect, impossible moment has to end.
But for now, in this bed, in this light, with his heart beating against mine, I let myself pretend that goodbye doesn’t have to come.
That this is just the beginning instead of the end.
That maybe, somehow, we’ll figure out how to make this work.
Even though I already know we won’t.
28
In the kitchen, I make coffee like it’s any other morning. Two cups, because West is showered and dressed and checking his phone with the kind of focus that means he’s avoiding conversation.
“Thanks,” he says when I hand him his mug, but he doesn’t quite meet my eyes.
“No problem.”
We drink our coffee in comfortable silence, or what I’m choosing to interpret as comfortable silence. He’s quieter than usual, but that’s fine. People process things differently. Some people need to talk everything to death, and some people need space to think.
I’m definitely a space-to-think person.
“Ready?” he asks when I finish my coffee.
“Ready.”
The drive to the airport is mostly quiet, with music filling the spaces between his occasional comments about traffic or my flight time. Normal stuff. Practical stuff.
Nothing about last night or this morning or what any of it means.
Which is good, because I’m not sure I know what it means either.
We had a moment. Several moments. It was nice, but it doesn’t have to be anything more than that. We’re adults. We can handle a weekend of chemistry without turning it into some grand romantic gesture.
