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Hoping for them.

The only sound is that of our apartment door closing.

He doesn’t come.

32

Liverpool is rainy.

My flat is smaller than it looked in the pictures, and there is a giant gaping hole in my heart that aches whenever I think about Mackenzie.

I text him as promised once I’m moved in and settled. He texts back a single “I love you,” which I cling to throughout the entire first month of school as I meet my new professors, advisers, and fellow PhD candidates.

As the weeks roll on, I develop a strategy. Whenever I think about him, I distract myself by reading journal articles. When I glance at my phone, hoping for a text, I open my laptop and instead work on my thesis. If I see a passing cab and consider taking it straight to the airport to catch the next flight to Nashville, I walk to the library or the lab and throw my emotions into my books.

By the spring, I am at the top of my class, but the rest of me is hovering just above rock bottom.

In early June, I am talking to Koko on the phone as I leave a copy shop in town, the latest draft of my thesis in hand.

“What are you doing tonight?” she asks as I step out onto the sidewalk, the late-afternoon sun still bright and warm.

I consider my lack of plans. “Probably heading home and watching a movie. You?”

There’s a sound of honking horns on her side, leading me to suspect she’s also walking outside.

“I’m heading over to Ramone’s now,” Koko says. “There’s a band he wants to check out later.”

The word band shoots a sharp pain through my body. “Oh…that sounds fun.”

I haven’t socialized much since I moved to Liverpool. In the beginning, I used the excuse that I needed time to heal from Mackenzie. Then, the cold temperatures and rain gave me a reason to hibernate through the winter months, but now that it’s almost summer, and people are out and about, I’m regretting those decisions a little.

“You know, they have bands in Liverpool, too,” Koko says, as if reading my thoughts.

“Yes. They do.”

“And I’m pretty sure it even works the same as it does here,” she teases. “You buy a ticket. Sometimes all you need to do is show up.”

“Koko.” I try to sound annoyed, but she’s right.

“Don’t Koko me,” she says. “I just want you to be happy.”

“I am happy,” I counter with a laugh, but it’s met with a long pause.

“Are you?” she finally says.

I don’t answer. Mostly because the real answer, the truthful one, is complex. I like school, but I am homesick. I know it’s the right thing for me to be here, but—

“I know you miss—”

She can’t finish the sentence, because I cut her off with a “Don’t.”

She sighs. “I could have been saying I know you miss me.”

She could have, but we both know she wasn’t.

“I do miss you,” I tell her, admitting to that.

“I miss you, too,” she says. “But hey, we have less than two months until I’m there for an entire week, and we are going to have a glorious time.” Her side of the line quiets as if she’s stepped back indoors. “But until then I think you should try and go out a little more.” Her voice softens. “Find your people. Have fun.”