Page 99 of The Design of Goodbye
I was reminded of the spill on his porch. Would it stain? Would it be a constant reminder of what I’d witnessed?
I frowned. “I dropped it.”
“That’s not why you’re crying, is it?” He gave me a hesitant butadorablesmile. “Because seeing you is all I need.”
My heart soared. Maybe hedidhave feelings for me. Maybe he wanted to bemineas much as I wanted to behis. But now really wasn’t the time to wonder those things.
“It wasn’t,” I answered. “Even though I’m very devastated twenty ounces of pumpkin spice are now on your front porch.”
“That’s pretty devastating.” He leaned his head against the wall.
I needed to leave soon so he could rest, but I wanted a little more time with him. I hopped off his bed and walked around the room. It didn’t take long because it was very small. Only a nightstand with a lamp, an alarm clock, and a knocked over picture frame.
Just as I righted the frame, Liam said, “Wait—”
But it was too late. The frame was upright, the picture visible.
“Is that”—I swallowed thickly, not wanting to upset him but knowing we couldn’t ignore it—“you and your mom?”
“Yeah.” He wouldn’t look at the picture.
I’d been lucky enough to witness a few of Liam’s breathtaking grins, but the one in this picture rivaled any he’d ever given me. Picture Liam was a completely different person than the boy in front of me, and I couldn’t take my eyes away.
“Why don’t—”
“Most days, I can’t look at it,” he admitted. “But, sometimes, I need to, so I leave it there in case.”
He placed the picture, so it was face down again, and the old Liam was hidden as quickly as I’d discovered him.
After my mom had left, I’d taken down every picture of her. I packed the pictures up and stored them in the back of my closet, along with my old wedding dress binders. Only twice since then had I opened that box to glance at a picture to make sure she’d been real. That, at one point, I’d had a mom. Because, sometimes, I questioned if she’d ever existed.
“I didn’t mean to,” I said. “I thought it’d fallen over.”
“I know. It’s okay.”
I glanced around his room again. It was so empty I felt like I was missing something. Other than the nightstand, his room contained a bed, bare walls...
A lonely boy.
“You don’t have much stuff in here,” I said. “Don’t you get bored?”
“I have stuff to do.”
“Um...”I gestured my hands to his empty room. “Like what?”
He got off his bed. I followed him, breathing a sigh of relief that his lack of mobility had been short-lived. He opened his closet and pulled out a huge plastic storage box. Inside were over a dozen puzzles.
I kneeled on the floor and started going through the box, enjoying this moment of getting to know him more. “I didn’t know you liked puzzles,” I said.
He kneeled next to me, picked up a puzzle box that had a picture of some swirly optical illusion, and shook it. “Especially challenging ones,” he said, dropping the puzzle back in the bin. “I’ve done these a lot, though, so they’re easy for me now.”
I glanced into his closet. “What’s in the other one?”
“My art stuff.”
He pulled the bin out. This one was organized with sketchbooks, brushes, and paints.
I pointed to a sketchbook. “Can I see one?”
