PART II : LOST
• chapter twenty-three •
So, in September of 2010, I packed my bags.
"Have you got everything?" she asked.
I nodded. "Yeah. Bags, ticket, money, cheap phone, Liam's book, jacket. What else do I need?"
She placed her hands on her hips. "I don't know. Face cream?" She stared into the distance, thinking.
"You'll be okay, won't you?" I asked.
She rolled her eyes. "Of course, bitch. I was alive before you came and I'll be alive after you go. More than alive, actually. You helped me post my videos online. I could get a proper job now. I might even get an offer to record my own song," she said dreamily.
I smiled, and hugged her tightly. "Keep in touch, okay?"
"Okay," she said. "I love you."
"Lesbian," I teased. She pinched my bum. I slapped her hand away.
I had the window seat in the plane, and for half a second I had a flashback of my first flight, when I was going to Louisville and Sam had told me that the window seat was for me.
Sam. I had more than 50 messages from her on Skype. After I had come back here, I hadn't really bothered to check my messages. My phone was gone; my laptop, which was given to me by Window to the Soul had been taken away after my scholarship ended; and Sana's laptop had virus, so it had become too slow. Moreover, she couldn't afford a good wi-fi connection. Initially, I had opened Skype with it (it took ten minutes just to turn the computer on) and there was one message from Sharon, saying that she had reached NY and asking for my address. I told her that I was living with Sana.
And then I never bothered to open that stupid, slow laptop again. Who would send me messages, anyway? But when Sana and I went home that day after eating burgers in the washroom, I opened Skype and found that there were more than 50 messages from Sam and more than 200 messages from...Liam. Both of them had started messaging me 4 months ago. Liam never had Skype. Looked like he'd made an account specially for me, just so he could find me. I cried, but I didn't reply— I was going to surprise him. I went to his profile. He had put up our prom photo. For one hour, I read all his messages. They were mostly where are you, I'm alive, I've been looking for you, please come back, I miss you, I love you. I cried more. I read Sam's messages, and they were along the same lines: where the hell are you, your boyfriend is looking for you etc. etc. And when I opened my mail, well, again there were a hundred of them from Liam.
God, I had been so stupid! If only I had opened the computer before, I could've been able to meet him 4 months ago. I could've looked into his grey eyes, could've touched him, could've kissed him 4 months ago. I shuddered upon thinking what would've happened had I not gone to the bookstore that day.
The only mystery that remained was, where had he been for the seven months before that?
I took out Frozen Hearts from my bag and started reading.
When my flight landed, I took a cab to Brooklyn and checked into the cheapest hotel I could find— Hotel Indigo. The room was small and colorful. But the room didn't matter. I wasn't going to spend much time here anyway. I put my suitcases down, locked the room and went downstairs to take another cab.
"Where d'you wanna go?" the driver asked.
"Union Avenue." This was all I could remember about our apartment.
"Where in Union Ave?"
"Uh...Starbucks," I said randomly, and the car moved forward. I had no idea what I was going to do when I got there. When the car stopped, I paid the driver the exact amount he asked for. He raised his eyebrows. "I'm sorry," I said. "I would love to give you a tip but I really don't have any money."
He nodded and drove away.
I was trying to save as much as possible. I only had the money which I'd earned by selling paintings to neighbors, (some of which I'd spent on a phone) minus the cost of the plane ticket and the expenditure of my stay at the hotel. It turned out I had saved enough money to buy four phones, but I hadn't been paying attention. And Sana had lent me some. This was all I had.
I didn't know how long I would have to stay at the hotel. It depended on when I would find Liam. I smiled. Thinking about him filled me with this happy, warm, hopeful feeling. I was going to see him again after one year.
I looked around. I could vaguely remember this place. Liam and I had come here when we were buying the apartment. I had given all the money from my exhibitions, Liam had taken some from his dad, since he wasn't earning on his own, and even Ash had given us money— since her parents gave her a big, fat cheque whenever they had to travel. Then we both had gone to Starbucks to drink coffee and had made out in the boys' washroom. I felt butterflies in my stomach.
I started walking. Maybe if I walked around enough, it would trigger something in my memory about the location of our apartment. I looked at the pretty brown buildings and the clean footpaths.
I walked and walked. I touched the rough stone buildings, feeling their bumpy texture with my fingertips. I walked all along the footpath, walked on all the roads nearby, did everything I could think of, waiting for my moment of déja vu — but I still had no clue where our apartment was. My stomach grumbled. It was already evening. I bought the cheapest sandwich I could find and took a cab back to the hotel, where I spent a sleepless night, crying after every 5 minutes. But I wasn't going to give up so easily. There was no way I was making the same mistake again.
The next day when I woke up, I opened the last page of Frozen Hearts, hoping there would be something in the "about the author" section, maybe his address, but I found nothing. So again I took a cab to Union Ave.
This time I did something different. I took off my locket and showed our prom photo to every pedestrian I could, and asked if they had seen this boy around somewhere. All of them shook their heads. Some laughed. One raised his eyebrows at me, probably thinking I was psycho. A girl accused me of being a crazy stalker. I didn't have enough patience to argue with her, so I ran away before she could call the police. Finally someone told me that this boy in the photo probably lived on Hope Street. I thanked him and walked to where he pointed.
I reached a building and looked up at it. Was this it? I still couldn't remember. How frustrating. Ugh.
Then I remembered. There was an art gallery right in front of our building. That was where I was standing right now. I was sure because there was graffiti on the walls. My breathing quickened. This was it. This was the place. This was it!
I looked around. I didn't remember the number of the apartment. Sitting down on the footpath near the entrance, I ate the donuts and coffee I'd bought. I hadn't had breakfast. People passing me by probably thought I was a starving homeless, because someone deposited a coin in front of me and a kind old woman gave me a cheese croissant which she had in her purse. I accepted it gratefully.
Whenever my legs fell asleep, I got up, walked around, and sat down again. My heart nearly jumped out of its cage each time a tall boy passed me by.
In the evening I spotted two boys jogging. I squinted to focus my gaze. One of them had brown-blond hair. And he was tall. I started to walk towards him.
Just then I felt a hand on my shoulder. The hands were gentle and warm, yet I froze. Who could it be? No one knew me and I didn't know anyone. Unless that girl really had called the police. The person slowly turned me around.
I found myself looking into stormy gray eyes.
"Hazelnut?" he asked.
I couldn't breathe. I couldn't answer back. I couldn't even move a finger to touch him, I was so shocked. We continued looking at each other. He looked different from how he had looked when I'd last seen him. His hair was so messy that it looked like he'd just got up from bed. There was a two-day stubble on his cheeks. A fading burn mark started from his left ear and ended on his neck, which he must've got during the fire. It pained me to even think how much it would've hurt when the fire was burning his cheek. Thank God his whole face wasn't burned.
It gave him a scary appearance: like he was someone who had been scarred by war and had seen horrible things, bloodshed and murder. And then his stubble. If I had been seeing him for the first time, I would've thought he was a gangster. But how could he ever be dangerous? Just looking at him filled me with warmth. He was different, but he was still my Liam.
"Were your eyes always so... blue?" he wondered aloud, running his thumb over my dark circles. His fingers lightly brushed my cheek, making my skin tingle, bringing me back.
He was real. It was all real.
I threw myself into his open arms. The force almost knocked him over, but he balanced himself somehow and hugged me back so tightly that my feet lifted off the ground. I wrapped them around his legs. He stroked my hair as I snuggled my face into his shoulder and cried. I inhaled deeply. He smelled of honey soap and sweat, just like I remembered.
"Shh. It's okay. Everything's okay now," he soothed.
I sobbed harder. "I thought you were dead."
"Yeah. I know you did."
Something seemed wrong with his voice. It shook a little. I peeled my face away from his shoulder to look at him. His cheeks were wet. "You're ... crying?" I asked.
He smiled a little. "Can't I?"
I'd never seen him cry before. Maybe it was a good thing, because watching him cry was just ... heart-wrenching.
He rested his forehead against mine and slowly, very slowly — as if he was trying to make as much of this moment as he could — bent down to kiss me. I melted in his arms. The kiss was so soft, so loving. I'd forgotten this feeling. His lips were salty from the tears; probably mine were too, but I couldn't care less. His kiss tasted better than the sugar donuts I'd just had.
His fingers found my hair and the kissing turned urgent. I reciprocated, hungrily pulling him closer to cover the gap of millimeters between us.
I gently pulled away and caressed his scar. "You got this during the fire." He nodded. I kissed it. "I wish I could heal it somehow."
He smiled softly. "It's alright, Hazel. It doesn't hurt anymore."
I reached up and wiped his tears. He loosened his grip a little, allowing me to put my feet back on the ground and stand comfortably. My voice cracked. "Where were you, Liam? I looked everywhere. I went to every hospital I could. I showed them your photo, I visited every room I could, looked at all the patients they let me see— and I did all this for one month. Where were you? Why didn't you identify yourself? Do you even know what I was going —"
"I was in a coma."
I stopped babbling. "What?"
"I was in a coma. For around 7 months. And...when I woke up... I... I'd lost so much time." He bit his lip. "And you weren't there. And...I didn't know... where..." He stopped and inhaled sharply. He was holding back tears.
"It's okay. We'll talk about this later." I stood on my toes and kissed him. I couldn't get enough of this feeling.
He wound his arm around my waist. "Let's go see our apartment, shall we?"
I nodded eagerly. We went up the stairs. I watched his beautiful hands as he took out a key from his pocket and fumbled with it. He had gained weight, I noticed, presumably because the coma had stopped his morning jog. It didn't make him fat; it subtly affected him. His jawline wasn't as sharp and though he still looked thin, there was probably a layer of fat over his abs. The door opened.
There were only one couch and one table in the living room, and they were wrapped in plastic, as if they had just been delivered a few days ago. The living room looked empty and lonely. It was like Sana's apartment. Why did people who lived alone live like this? Like... like there was nothing to live for. They just didn't bother to beautify the place where they lived. I had definitely not lived like that when I lived alone. I had made most of the golden opportunity.
There were huge windows, looking over all the buildings. He took me to the bedroom, and it was the same: there were just one bed and night-table, on which stood two candles. One of them was reduced to a stub, with a pool of frozen wax around it. The other was untouched.
The walls were completely white. There were balled-up clothes on the floor. I smiled. He hadn't changed at all. He hugged me from behind and kissed my neck softly. "I'm sorry. This place sucks."
"It's okay. It's our place." I turned around to face him. "We can clean it up, can't we?"
"Mmm." He pulled me closer. Then he suddenly looked at me. "When did you come here?"
"Yesterday," I said. "And I've been staying at a hotel, if that's what you were going to ask me."
"Then we should go and get your stuff."
"Okay."
∞
We hauled the two large suitcases into the apartment. "Damn," he huffed. "You were pretty confident that you would find me. This looks like you planned to live here forever. I wouldn't be surprised if a guy comes to this place to ask where he should keep your furniture."
I laughed and stopped for a second, and looked at him, bent down, his muscles straining against his t-shirt. I wrapped my arms around him. "I really missed you."
He hugged back. "I did too."
"I love you."
"Me, too."
I punched his arm. "Say the whole thing."
"I love you, too," he said. My stomach grumbled loudly. "Haven't you eaten anything?"
"I had donuts and coffee."
"And?" he prompted. I didn't answer. "That's it? You're jet-lagged, in a completely new city, and all you've had is donuts? Do you want to faint?"
I winced. "Don't get angry."
He exhaled. "Come with me. I'll make something for you."
I laughed. "Please, spare me."
"Aw, come on. I've actually improved now. Ash taught me some stuff."
"Ash?" I asked. "She's... alive?" We reached the kitchen. I sat down on a stool.
"Yeah. She got away with just a broken leg. Some stones or something fell on her. It was bad, it took almost a month to heal." He opened the fridge and took out cheese. The fridge was almost empty. Jeez, I had so much to do. "So after that she stayed there in Louisville, to finish the senior year of school. Zack took a gap year to stay with her. Now both of them will come here to New York, in another week, probably."
I sighed with relief. "So all four of us are okay."
"Yeah. Thankfully." He put a glass of chocolate shake in front of me. I took a small sip. "Wow. Did you make this?" I took another.
"Yeah. Yesterday." He sat down across from me. "Dad is okay too. Still in Louisville."
I held his hand and squeezed. "I'm glad."
He smiled. I finally decided to ask what had been bothering me. "Liam... do you... um..." I looked down. I couldn't meet his gaze. "Do you still love me as much?"
He laughed. I looked up. "I'm serious."
"I don't know. I'm not sure," he replied. That cracked my heart a little, even though I could see a grin playing across his face.
"I'm very serious."
He bent forward, looked straight at me and took my hand. "I love you even more," he said, "now that I've realized how important you are to my existence."
I stood up to hug him. He got up and ran away. "What are you doing? I want to hug you."
"Yeah, so who's stopping you?"
"Oh yeah?" I chased him all the way to the bedroom. He embraced me and we fell on his bean-bag together, laughing. He kissed my forehead. "Why don't you go and take a nice, long shower? I'll try to clean up the place a little."
My fingertips were busy caressing his lips. "I want to stay here," I mumbled, eyes closed. He nestled his head into my neck.
An hour later, he told me that we could watch a movie after I showered.
"Beautiful," I said. I went into the tiny bathroom. I realized that I'd left my clothes in my bag. But I didn't turn around to fetch them. I didn't think I would need them tonight. I didn't want them.
The flooring was of black tiles. I walked into the shower cubicle, and let the water run down my body, washing away all the grime of two days. Liam's honey soap was in the soap-dish. I picked it up and smelled it happily.
When I was done, I wrapped a towel around myself, took a couple of breaths, and opened the bathroom door.
∞