Page 57 of Fix Them Up
‘Devoted.’
Liam gave me a curious look. ‘Did you pick it? The words.’
‘No, I let Uncle Brian pick it.’ I rubbed my forehead. ‘Our relationship – if that’s what you could call it – well, it wouldn’t have fit on the granite.’
‘It sounds… complex,’ Liam said, his voice uneasy.
Was I making Liam uncomfortable?
‘Sorry, I’m drunk. A morose drunk, apparently.’
‘It’s fine, Kat.’ He said my name softly, almost reverent. It was nice to hear my actual name from his lips, not the nickname I’d become familiar with.
‘Tell me.’ Liam inched his hand around my arm. He placed his hand on my arm tentatively, reassuringly. We both ignored how I leaned into that touch, my head resting on his shoulder. And we both ignored how Liam’s arms tightened around me.
‘I’m fine.’
‘We’re a little past “fine”, don’t you think?’ Liam asked, and I turned up to see him looking down at me. He was right. He’d already seen me cry. He knew my family. It wasn’t like he was some random stranger asking me. He wasn’t just a builder I’d hired.
Liam was… more.
‘It’s so fucking complicated,’ I whispered, as if worried I’d wake the dead. ‘People say that grief is love with nowhere to go. But what happens to all the anger and longing and frustration or the crippling disappointment? Where does that all go? What happens when it’s not as simple as just “love”?’ I glanced down at the grave. ‘He left me again. And he didn’t even make it right before he left.’ My eyes began to burn. I took a deep breath, trying to hold myself together.
I didn’t want to fall apart for the second time tonight.
‘How do I make it stop?’ I sniffed. ‘Every time I think I’m over it, it all comes rushing back.’
The streetlamps from across the street illuminated Liam just enough to see the hard lines of his clenched jaw. His pinkie finger moved against my skin, back and forth. I could feel his reassuring warmth standing next to me.
‘I don’t know, Kat,’ Liam answered after a pause, his voice low. ‘I think you have to feel it all. It’s like a wound. It has to bleed to heal.’
‘I don’t want to feel it,’ I complained. ‘I want it gone.’
Liam huffed. ‘If it were that simple, everyone would do it. You can drink through it – I’ve tried that. You can suppress it for a while. But it will come back, and it will come back harder. And grief – grief is the trickiest of them all. It can hit you like a fucking train out of nowhere. A smell or a place sparks a memory, and that’s it – you’re in the trenches, just trying to climb out.’ He was looking ahead, his eyes soft with… sadness.
Pure sadness.
‘You lost someone too?’
‘I lost my mum when I was twelve. Breast cancer.’
I frowned. ‘But Dot mentioned –’
Liam looked away. ‘Dot doesn’t remember. She came to thefuneral before she was diagnosed. But she doesn’t remember now. And it would be cruel for her to have to hear it again and again.’
‘I’m sorry.’
I couldn’t imagine losing someone that young. When I was that age, at least I knew my dad was alive, even if he was AWOL. Or did that make it worse? I wasn’t sure, but I knew we couldn’t have a ‘who had it worse’ contest.
‘It’s fine –’ Liam’s mouth shut quickly, but it was too late.
I raised an eyebrow. ‘I thought we were past “fine”. And that certainly doesn’t sound like feeling it.’
‘Have you heard of the phrase “do as I say, not as I do”?’
‘Hypocrite.’ I tutted.
We stood a little while longer, side by side. I figured the conversation was over and that, in a few seconds, we’d trail back to the van and go home.
