Me, You

“Lou?” John gently shook me awake, “It’s time to get up.”

I shot up and jumped out of bed before he could kiss me. Running to the bathroom, I shouted a ‘good morning.’ I hastily brushed my teeth and hair. The sooner I could get out of the apartment, the better.

The past week since Liam’s cold scare consisted of avoiding John at all costs and today was no different.

Something about losing John so easily made me want to stay miles away from him. In my head it made sense. Instead of being near the person that could easily make everything hurt, keeping a distance made coping with the fact much easier.

“Avoiding me is going to be hard since I’m driving your ass to the lake today.”

Liam’s release from the hospital called for Independence Day celebration in the means of roadtripping to Lake Placid, something that’s been done since Sophia and Liam’s wedding.

Of course, this meant being in close quarters with John for a week.

I opened the door, staring down at my feet.

“Please tell me you’re not pregnant,”

“Oh shut the hell up, John,” I lightly shoved him.

John laughed, “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. C’mon, tell me what’s going on.”

He took my hands and rubbed them gently.

“I’ve just been feeling weird since Liam’s cold scare,” I slipped my hands out of his fingers.

“Feeling weird? Lou, I promise you. Liam’s never going to let you go at this point. He loves you too much-”

“It’s not him I’m afraid of losing...” I took a deep shaky breath, “I think it’s you...”

He didn’t narrow his eyes at me and call me crazy or laugh. Instead, he sat me down on the bed and took my hand again, “What makes you afraid of losing me?”

“I don’t know, I just get this gut feeling that if something happened, it could cost me you and just the thought of it makes me want to-”

“You know what, though?” John paused, “Everything is so fragile that it could happen to anything and anyone. That’s just life.” He looked into my eyes and continued, “I promise I’ll use everything in my power to always be here with you. I’m not going anywhere.”


The car was eerily silent.

While Sophia manned their station wagon, John and I followed closely behind in the white truck.

John reassured that he wasn’t going anywhere, but something still didn’t feel right. Was it because I didn’t believe him? No. John wasn’t the kind of person to make promises very lightly. But, something about what he said didn’t make me feel any better... maybe slightly worse than before.

“I can’t believe summer is almost over,” John spoke up, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

“Yeah,” I mumbled, looking out the window.

“Soon, we’ll be returning to Arizona, getting our asses handed to us by our parents,” He grinned at me, “Then we’ll be off doing bigger and better things. You, a million miles away from me in Boston. And me, planted in Arizona.”

“You’ll visit me right?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

“Of course.”

It felt very weird talking about the future with John. Our future. I always saw him in it, but not like this. We never defined what exactly ‘this’ was. But, it was going to include his friends, my friends, his family and mine. It wasn’t just going to be us anymore, travelling the US in a truck for two and sharing motel beds in different states.

“What exactly are you going to do when I leave for college?” I asked, remembering our conversation from Columbus after the Weird Al concert.

He stared straight forward, thinking, “I think I’ll go to ASU as planned...”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah... it’s just that I had a talk about it with Liam one day,”

“What did he say?”

“Same thing as you. He told me I should be doing whatever you love,”

“And playing music is what you love-”

“But, he also said that I should be doing whatever feels right,” He paused, “And going to college feels right.”

I shook my head vigorously, “No, John. Doing what you love is more important and you know that-”

“What I love to do is be with you, Lou,” He interrupted me, “Everything else is secondary to me, it always has.”

There was that familiar pang in my chest again. I reached over the console and gripped his free hand, trying my best to shake off that feeling.


We got to the cabins late, much to Liam’s dismay.

He spent most of the past month babbling about how he could not wait to hike in the area, only to find the place very dark and asleep. He grumbled from the front desks all the way up to our cabins.

“Maybe, we should’ve left early,” Liam said.

“Oh please, with the amount of pit stops we made to take pictures, we could’ve left at four in the morning and still not make it in time,” Sophia snorted.

“I wanted to remember everything,” The corners of his eyes crinkled, “Remember the times I spent my daughter and my should-have-been god son.”

John chuckled at Liam’s comment. He rested a hand on my hip and I flinched.

“We rented two gorgeous cabins,” Sophia started walking ahead of us, “One for Liam and me and one for the two you. It’s right by the lake so we’ll get a beautiful sunrise here.”

Sophia and Liam left us to unpack and get ready for bed.

Our conversation from this morning replayed in my head again as I dried my hair... crawled into bed... and fell asleep. Something about his words- and my words- made my stomach turn.

In the midst of tossing and turning, a hand gently shook me awake, “Lou?”

“What time is it?” I rubbed my eyes and groggily lifted my head.

“Two am,”

“John,” I groaned, pulling the covers over my head.

“C’mon, just hear me out,” He ripped the covers off me, “Why are we wasting our time sleeping when we have a perfectly good bucket list to finish?”

“What do you have in mind?” I yawned.

“Number 1,”

1. Go skinny dipping... at night.

“If you wanted to see me naked, O’Callaghan, you could’ve just asked,”

He chuckled and I knew he was blushing, “Can we just go for a walk then?”

“That sounds more like it.”


“I don’t know how I’m going to deal with being so far from home next year,” I sat on the pier, toes barely touching the water.

“I don’t know how I’m going to deal with you being so far from home next year,” John on the other hand was ankle deep into the water, “Who’s going to keep me out of trouble?”

I laughed and kicked up some water, “I guess we’re both on our own for that one.”

“When I’m rich and famous with my internationally known band, I’ll fly you in every moment I can.”

“Is that where you see yourself in a few years?” I chuckled.

“Not really, but I would like to be in a band though- famous or not,” He scooted closer, “What about you?”

“I hope to see my name in big name newspapers like the Washington Post or New York Times,”

John asked quietly, “Will I be in your future?”

And that’s when it dawned on me. The moment where everything perfect fell apart. The sick realization that I knew the twist in my stomach wasn’t from John’s faithfulness in the relationship. It was mine.

Because in the end, it was my mother’s reflection I saw in the lake, not my father’s. I saw her facial structure, idiosyncrasies and bad habits. She was independent and cynical. The key reasons she let Liam leave. Despite their history and memories together, she wasn’t ever going to be ready to lie bare in front of Liam to let him in.

And no matter what Liam said, I was everything like my mother and was always going to be.