Left My Heart Out

Every morning, I wake up with my legs all tangled up with Liam’s, and I remind myself that he is not my boyfriend.  Liam has not been my boyfriend for 715 days, twelve hours, and eight minutes, which is how long I’ve known him, and he will continue to not be my boyfriend for the rest of our lives, probably.  

Every minute of every day, Liam is not my boyfriend.  Liam is not my boyfriend when he pulls me closer instead of letting me go.  He is not my boyfriend when he whispers, “don’t get up, you’re warm,” in my ear.  And he is not my boyfriend when I listen.

It’s not like I meant to fall into bed with my best friend, and then do it again, and again, and again.  I’ve seen the movies.  I know that it never works out, because those mushy gushy things called hearts get in the way.  I like to ignore my heart.  I like to ignore it when it skips a beat whenever Liam smiles at me, and I definitely like to ignore it when beats a little bit too fast when I catch Liam scanning me up and down as I’m getting dressed, which is what he’s doing right now.     

“You’re going to freeze to death,” he says to me as I hook my bra behind my back and struggle into one of his flannel shirts, much too bleary-eyed to do up the buttons properly.  “It’s practically snowing outside.”

“And whose fault is that?” I ask, pulling the duvet off of him in search of my socks.  It’s absolutely Liam’s fault that I’m going to be late for class this morning, and it’s also his fault that I left my coat at a pub last night, which I was only at because of Liam.  Liam Payne is the bane of my existence.  

He yanks the blanket back, and it drifts downward to cover his bare chest again.  I’m definitely not staring.  “I’m flattered you think I can control the weather.”

I roll my eyes and turn away from Liam.  I know that if I look at him too long, he’ll dart his tongue out of his mouth and run it along his upper lip, and I’ll be a goner.  All the clothes I just put on will end up on the floor, and I’ll end up back under the covers, and underneath Liam.  

My mobile beeps, alerting me to its dying battery, but I don’t have time for that.  I also don’t have time to find matching socks in Liam’s dresser drawer, so I just grab the two closest to my hand.   

“You should at least wear one of my jackets,” Liam says, smirking at me as I balance on one foot to put the socks on.  “Since it is my fault and all that you left yours at Rusty’s.”

“It is your fault,” I say as I sit on the edge of the bed and pull on my boots.  If Liam were my boyfriend, he’d extract himself from the duvet and crawl up behind me and push my hair to the side and kiss my neck, and he’d say something like, “Have a wonderful day,” or “I’ll see you tonight,” or “I love you.”  But Liam isn’t my boyfriend, so when I hear movement behind me, I’m not surprised when, a second later, a jumper lands on my head.  

“Thanks.”  I barely look at it, just pull it over my head.  Then I grab my bag off of the desk chair and slam out of the room without looking back.  

Well, that’s a lie.  I actually do look back, just for a second, just to make sure that the door I’ve let fall shut stays shut.  

It took me approximately three minutes and thirteen seconds to fall in love with Liam Payne.  It was an accident, all of it – meeting him, falling for him.  Everything’s an accident when it comes to me and Liam.  Or maybe just when it comes to me.

I stumbled into him in one of the practice rooms in the basement of the theater building – at least, that’s what I tell people if they ask.  In reality, I was spying.  The walls are paper thin down there, and I could hear Liam playing through the walls from my own practice room, where I sat at the piano with my head in my hands and my frustration at an all-time high.

And then I heard him: voice of an angel, let me tell you.  And so much better at playing piano than I’ll ever be.  

“I wrote it for my girlfriend,” Liam told me a few minutes later, after I’d forced my way into his practice room and introduced myself.  “But I’m not sure it’s right.  Do you think she’ll like it?

That was the first time I saw Liam’s tongue dart out of his mouth to draw a line across his upper lip, and that was the first time Liam Payne broke my heart.

We were 18 and fresh-faced then, and we woke up every morning to see the city spread out below our windows like something out of a dream.  London was my dream – get out of the north and into the city, and make it onto the West End.  And now, well, now all I really want is to stop loving somebody who will never love me back.

Liam’s flatmate, Niall, raises an eyebrow at me from the kitchen, where he’s drinking from a coffee mug that I wish was in my hand right now.

“Nice jumper,” he says.  A wave of coffee scent hits me.  If Liam were my boyfriend, I’d be able to hang around and have coffee with his roommate.  Except Liam’s not my boyfriend, and I’m already late.

“I’m late,” I say, to show Niall that I absolutely do not have time for his shit today, none of his “Why don’t you just tell Liam you loooooove him?” or “Why don’t you and Liam ever fuck at your place?”  Every time I leave Liam’s room, Niall is there, just waiting to taunt me in his ridiculous cartoon accent.  Honestly, if I didn’t like Liam so much, I’d never come around.

“As usual,” Niall says, and I leave the apartment just in time to hear him laugh at his own joke.

Outside, I pull up Liam’s hood, shove my hands into the sweatshirt’s kangaroo pocket, and head into the howling wind.  Sometimes I wonder if London is trying to tear me apart.  It gave me Liam, who breaks my heart every day, and it has the worst weather in the entire world.

It’s a 12 minute walk from Liam’s apartment to my architecture history lecture, the one I’m taking to fulfill a bullshit requirement that music majors should not have to do, and when I finally reach it, I can barely feel my fingers, but I’m sweating under my shirt.  The professor is already lecturing at the front of the room, so I slip in the back door and spot Lila near the back of the room.     

“What’s up?” Lila whispers as I slide into the seat next to hers.  “You’re late again.”  

“Overslept.”  I pull my notebook out of my bag and then dig deeper for a pen.  While I’m sure that architecture history is absolutely the most boring thing ever, I have to pass the module in order to graduate, which means I do take notes on occasion.  

“Sure,” Lila whispers.  Her own notebook page is covered in doodles of hearts.  “Nice jumper.”  

I shoot her a glare.  “Hush, I’m trying to listen.”

I turn my eyes to the front and focus on Professor Humes, who is using a laser pointer to gesture at various parts of the blueprint being projected on the screen.  Renaissance churches, again, same as last week.  We don’t even have any of those in London.

But nonetheless, I start copying the floorplan down into my notebook.  Apse here, knave there.  It’s only when Prof Humes changes the slide to another, nearly identical church that I let myself zone out.  

Today’s daydreaming topic: Liam Payne.  As I do whenever I’m particularly annoyed at myself for getting into this mess,  I go back to the very beginning, to the night it all started.  I remember exactly how it happened, despite how intoxicated I was.  I remember every little detail.  It comes down to two things: alcohol is an excellent lubricant.  So are, it turns out, friends who are, in their words, “tired of you withering away in some pointless unrequited love.”

“You need to get some,” Harry had suggested, tapping his plastic cup full of beer against mine.  “You’re going to get all shriveled.”

“Shriveled?” I repeated.  I remember the shirt I was wearing that night – it was a stretchy purple tank top thing, and despite the crowd in Liam and Niall’s flat, my arms were covered in goosebumps.  I kept taking sips of my bitter beer in the hope that it would warm me up.  “Do you know how girls work?”

Harry does not, in fact, know how girls work, as evidenced by his hair, which hasn’t had a trim in months.  But he does know how alcohol works, and he kept pouring it into me until I pulled Liam out of the room and kissed him full on the mouth.

The chance that this would turn into my most embarrassing moment ever was high, but I was too drunk to care.  And Liam kissed me back, and took me by the hand into his room and kissed me again and again, and there was no time for regret.

And in the morning, as I pushed through a pounding headache to put on my bra, he said, “We should do this again sometime.”

I nearly flashed him, which might’ve been redundant by this point.  “What?”

Liam shrugged.  “I mean, why not?  It was fun, and we’re friends.”

“Friends,” I repeated.  This was about the twelfth or so time in the history of our friendship that Liam Payne broke my heart.

“Yeah,” Liam said.  “Just think about it, okay?”

And think about it I did – for about two seconds before I gave up on my bra and climbed on top of him.  I mean, I couldn’t help it.  He did the thing with his tongue.      

It was only afterwards, when I was putting my clothes on again and going home to an empty flat and cooking macaroni and cheese from a box in the hopes that it would cure my hangover, that I realized just how much it hurt.  It was, and still is, just sex for Liam.  And it’ll probably never be anything more than sex for him – at least I can admit that to myself.  I’m not naive.  I’m not sitting here hoping for the day when he falls for me.

As far as I can tell, I’ve got two options.  The first is to break it off, stop the sex, cold turkey.  I know that’s what I should do: take a step or twelve back from Liam and let my heart heal.  And I’ve tried.  Trust me, I’ve tried.  Every time I leave Liam’s bed, I tell myself it’ll be the last time.  And it never is.

And then there’s the second option.        

“Why don’t you just tell him?” Lila always says.  “He already likes the sex, and you’re best friends.  That’s the perfect start to something more.”

I always shake my head, but I’m never able to put it into words.  It’s this fear, you know?  I can’t tell Liam I love him, or even that I like him as more than a friend, because he might not say it back.  And that could end everything.  

I’m bad at endings.  I’m bad at goodbyes and leaving and not looking over my shoulder as I go.  I’m bad at losing things and getting over it, at tearing down old bridges and building new ones.  And I’m really fucking bad at metaphors.

So meanwhile I’m just floating along, fucking Liam a few times a week and waiting for him to suddenly wake up, see me drooling in my sleep, and realize he’s in love with me.  As you could expect, it’s not the best plan.  Harry thought the lack of sex was going to make me shriveled, but I think it’s actually the lack of love.  To put it in words that Harry would understand, it’s like I’m giving Liam lots of really good blow jobs, but he hasn’t gone down on me once.  

I mean, he has, and it’s been great.  That’s not the point.  The point is that loving him and not getting any love back (the really, ooey gooey heart-stopping love, not the sex kind) is really, really unsatisfying.  And no earth-shattering orgasm can make up for that.

When class ends, I’m in desperate need of caffeine, and I loop my arm through Lila’s and pull her out the door with me.  She smells like lavender, and I’m sure I smell like sweaty boy.        

“So Liam gave you his hoodie?” Lila says first thing.  I drop her arm and bump her hip before dashing ahead of her to skip down the stairs.  She catches up to me in a second, though, grabbing onto my arm, her sharp nails digging into me.

“I left my coat at Rusty’s last night,” I say with a shrug.  “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Sure it doesn’t,” she taunts.  I wish that were true: I wish it did mean something.  That Liam gave me his hoodie because he wanted me to keep it, so that he’ll always be near me when we were apart.  But Liam’s not cheesy, especially when it comes to me.  I used to be a good friend, but now all I am to him is a good shag.  So the hoodie really doesn’t mean anything.  All it means is you’re cold and I’m a nice guy.  Just not the kind that loves you.      

“Whatever,” I say.  “I need caffeine.  An IV, stat.  Plug that shit into me.”

Lila wrinkles her nose.  “That’s gross, Q.”  

“You’re gross,” I say.  There’s a little coffee shop a couple buildings over, and now that I’ve set my sights on it, there’s no way I’m stopping until we get there.  “Listen up, Lila.  I’ve made a decision, and I need your help.”  

“A decision?” she repeats.  “You never make decisions.”  

“I do so.”  There was the time that I decided to cut off 10 centimeters of my hair before year 10, and then I did (and regretted it for 10 months afterward, but that’s irrelevant right now).  There was the time that I decided to come to London for uni, and then I did.  And then there was the time that I decided I was going to kiss Liam Payne, and then I did that too.  How was I supposed to know when I made the decision that it was going to royally backfire on me?  “I’m a great decision maker.”  

“Sure you are,” Lila says, yanking me to the right so that I don’t run into a nearly-bald bloke handing out Bibles outside the coffee shop.  She pulls the door open for me and pushes me inside, where I’m hit with a wave of air so hot I’m sure it’s ripping all the moisture out of my skin.  

After we order our drinks, we grab a table near the window, perfect for staring at all the passers-by in their coats and scarves.  In the warmer months, this is the best spot on campus to gawk at the bizarre fashion trends all the girls are trying out, but right now, everyone just looks like a snowman.

“Okay, go ahead, then,” Lila says, tapping her long fingernails on the table.  I’ve always been jealous of her nails; they’re long and shapely and always painted a nice, calming color.  They’re the nails of a girl who’s got gumption.

Me, I’ve got nails bitten to the quick, and no gumption to speak of.  

“So?  What’s your big decision?” she asks, waving her nails in front of my face.  

“Right,” I say, sitting up straight in my chair, and crossing my legs.  There’s a hole in the knee of my jeans from that time I tried to hop a fence with Liam last year, but I pretend I put it there on purpose.  “I’ve decided to stop being in love with Liam.”

Lila’s jaw drops.  If it could, it’d be on the floor.  But instead, it’s hanging open, revealing her perfectly straight, pearly white teeth.  

“You’re going to stop being in love with Liam,” she repeats, saying the words slowly as if to make sure I’m hearing them.  

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”  It’s right after I say this that a coffee shop employee shows up and puts our drinks down on the table in front of us and tells us to have a great day.  On any other day, I might return the greeting, but I’m so desperate for caffeine that I just pick the thing up and tip it back.  The hot liquid flowing down my throat makes me feel instantly better, and also reminds me that I didn’t brush my teeth this morning.  Shit.  

Once I finish guzzling, Lila leans across the table toward me and lowers her voice like I’m a child throwing a tantrum and she’s my mum who needs to calm me down.  “You can’t just stop being in love, Q.  That’s not how it works.”

“I didn’t say it was going to be easy, did I?” I ask, rolling my eyes at her patronizing tone.  “But I have to stop, because Liam’s never going to love me back, and all I’m doing is floating along waiting for him, and that’s crazy.”

She raises an eyebrow.  “What makes you think that?”

“That I’m crazy?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you tell me that every day,” I say.  I can tell this is the answer that she’s looking for, because she grins and leans back in her chair, her arms crossed over her chest.  

“Okay, fine,” she says, as if she’s doing me some huge favor.  “I’ll help you.  And you know what the first step is.”

The first step?  I haven’t really thought through this plan, considering I only realized that I need to snap out of being lovesick over Liam when I was sitting in lecture half an hour ago.

“I don’t think I do,” I say, sticking my nose into my coffee and inhaling its scent.  “You gonna tell me, or what?”

“Yep,” she says, raising a conspiratorial eyebrow.  “You have to stop sleeping with Liam.  Cold turkey.”

“Cold turkey?”  That’s what they make drug addicts do.  Oh God, I’m addicted to Liam.  I’m addicted to Liam, and I didn’t even realize.  Oh my God, is this an intervention?  My heart beats faster and faster in my chest, and I feel myself start to sweat.  Oh my God, am I having withdrawal symptoms already?   

“Yeah, cold turkey,” Lila affirms.  She ordered tea, and she picks up the dainty cup and holds it in her dainty fingers and takes a dainty sip of it.  “That’s the only way this is going to work.  Pinky promise.”

She holds out her perfectly manicured pinky to me and stares at me until I take it in my own.  

“Cold turkey,” I say, nodding my head in agreement as we shake even though I’m feeling a bit nauseous.  And then I pick up my mug and tip it toward my mouth and spill a big splash of it right on Liam’s sweatshirt.  It bleeds through the fabric quickly, going right through my bra to my skin.  “Shit, ouch!”

Lila smiles at me like I’m pitiful and holds out a wad of napkins, and suddenly I feel like getting over Liam is going to be a lot like wiping scalding hot liquid off of my boobs: painful and very, very difficult.