Page 154 of The Design of Goodbye
I balled the tissue in my hand. “Thanks.”
“You wanna talk about it?”
I wanted to, but I needed to let what’d happened at the park sink in a little longer. “Soon.”
“Okay.” She crawled to the other side of her bed. I rolled over and watched as she grabbed an embroidery hoop off her nightstand and got to work. “I’ll be here.”
I watched her. It calmed me. When I was certain I was finished crying, I wiped my tears away and sat up. I pointed to her project. It was a half-finished pair of ballet slippers. “Is that for Amy?”
“Yup.” She slid off her bed and picked up two framed pictures. One was of a ballerina, the other a bouquet of flowers. “They’re for her dorm.”
“They’re beautiful.” Taylor had rarely brought up Amy since she’d told me about her. And neither had I. Had she wanted me to? Was she waiting for me to? A familiar resistance pressed against my chest, but I fought against it. “I’m sorry.”
She narrowed her eyes in confusion. “What for?”
“Amy.” I picked up my tea and blew on it. “We’ve barely talked about her.”
“You ask how she’s doing every time I see you.”
“That’s different. I meant the deep stuff.” She sat back on her bed, focusing intently on me as I asked, “Did you ever talk to her about trying the long-distance thing?”
She smiled softly. “I did.”
“It went well,” I guessed.
She nodded. “As well as it could. We don’t want to break up, so we’re going to try to make it work.”
“I’m happy for you guys,” I said. “But I wish you would’ve told me sooner.”
“I wanted to,” she admitted. “But Amy and I talked last week, and it didn’t seem right since...”
“Liam was missing.”
“Yeah.” She eyed me up and down. “Is that why you were crying? Because of Liam?”
Earlier this week, I’d told Taylor about Liam’s dad and what he’d done. I hadn’t given her too many details because they weren’t mine to give.
“He’s leaving tomorrow.” I sucked in a shaky breath. “And he asked me to not contact him.”
Her embroidery hoop fell onto her lap in surprise. “Why would he ask you to do that?”
It was hard to explain why when I didn’t really understand myself. “He says he needs space away from me to heal.”
“From what happened with his dad?”
I clammed up. I hadn’t thought this through. To talk to her, I had to tell her about what had happened to Liam and his mom. I’d already told my dad, and it didn’t feel right to tell another person when Liam was so desperate to keep it a secret. But I needed someone my age to confide in, especially after Liam left. I couldn’t do that without giving her some details.
“No,” I said, already feeling guilty. “It has to do with what happened to him last year.”
She tensed, preparing herself. “What happened?”
I braced myself because saying the words would never be easy. “He and his mom were involved in a shooting a town over.”
“No,” she whispered, gaze lowering as she processed what I’d confessed. And then she brought a hand to her mouth. “His mom died, didn’t she?”
“Yeah.”
Her eyes misted over. “I understand why he didn’t tell anyone, but I wish he would have. He must’ve been so alone.”
