Get Your Kicks

There was only an hour left until the boys had to leave to get ready for their show that night, and I knew that was the last time I’d see them, because there was no way in hell I was going to go to that concert. I couldn’t imagine myself surviving it without punching some screaming preteen in the face. Let’s be honest.

Ellie had already said her goodbye, and they’d either gone really, really well or were a total disaster, because I hadn’t seen her since. Come to think of it, I hadn’t really seen that much of her since we arrived in Vegas, but that was a topic for another day.

Knowing this was my last chance to say goodbye, I got the hell out of dodge as quickly as I could. I had never been good at goodbyes. In fact, they were one of my least favorite things in the world, so I went down to the pool, knowing none of the boys would be there before their show.

As luck would have it, the pool was completely empty aside from me, and I silently thanked the lord for finally giving me some peace and quiet. I thought I deserved that much.

The first thing I did was slip off my shoes and dip my feet in the water. It was the perfect temperature: cool, but not freezing.

When I dipped my legs in and sat at the edge of the pool, I felt instantly relaxed. It was like I forgot all about problems and how Liam had confessed his feelings for me. I forgot all about the fact that he was leaving in just a few short hours, and that I’d probably never see him again. I could just sit by the pool and pretend that nothing else existed.

“Tay?”

I recognized his voice the second he spoke, and all of the relaxing feelings left my body. How had he found me here? Someone had to have told him.

“Liam, what are you doing here?”

He walked towards me, moving away from the entryway, and rolled up his jeans to dip in his feet beside me. In my opinion, he sat just a little too close, so our thighs were touching and it made me want to shift a little to the left.

“I wanted to talk to you,” he said simply, looking out at the water. I watched the way his eyes moved between the waves the small waterfall created until he caught me and I looked back at the water myself.

For some reason, I was nervous then – more nervous than I had been in a long time – and it felt absolutely terrifying to be sitting there with him. Now all of our feelings were out in the open, and I couldn’t just pretend like they didn’t exist. Whether I wanted to or not, we would have to address them, because chances are we wouldn’t be able to do it again.

When I didn’t speak, Liam took it upon himself to say something else, looking at me while he spoke. “I’m leaving soon, you know.”

“I know.”

“Are we –” He paused, rubbing his hand against the back of his neck. “Are we going to talk about it?”

There it was. There was the question that didn’t let me ignore things any longer. I didn’t want to talk about it, because talking about it terrified me, but I didn’t have a choice anymore.

“I – I don’t know what you want to talk about.”

“I want to talk about us, Tay, about what’s going to happen after this.”

I bit my lip, shutting my eyes as tightly as I could. He’d called us an “us” now, so there was no more running away. I had to face my problems once and for all, which was something I’d never been good at doing.

“It would never work, Li. You’ll be on tour and I’ll be back home.” I paused, taking a deep breath. “I’m not the type for long distance relationships. I’m not the type for relationships at all.”

“We could find a way. We could talk on the phone, and I’d visit whenever I could.”

“We can’t, Li.” I looked over at him for the first time since I’d started speaking and saw the hurt look in his eyes. I’d never meant to hurt him, but things had just gotten so out of hand. “We’ve spent a week together. That’s hardly enough time to get to know someone. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a great time with you, but we would never work outside of this – this place. We’d never work in the real world.”

There was something about the look in Liam’s eyes at that moment that told me that he knew everything I did. He knew, deep down, that we could never have a future together. We weren’t a good match for something like that. We were hardly even a good match for friends. We’d gotten so caught up in what we were feeling in the moment that we forgot to look ahead.

Liam sighed as he kicked his feet in the water, watching the waves that it created. He stayed like that for a few moments, and I was unsure of what he’d do until he finally looked over at me again.
“You have to promise we’ll stay friends. That you’ll text or call at least once a week.”

Was that a promise I could make? Was that I promise I could keep? Probably, but that didn’t mean it would be easy. We’d fall out of touch for certain, or we’d run out of things to talk about. We both knew that, but promising it was easier than pretending we’d never speak again.

“I promise.”