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When the doors finally slide open, I stroll in the hallway confidently, making my way toward his apartment door. Taking a deep breath, I rap my knuckles against the door and wait anxiously, trying to hear if there’s any sound coming from the inside. I hear nothing for a few seconds, and so I just knock again.
I’m almost ready to give up after my third try, but then I hear footsteps coming from the other side of the door. My heart picks up the pace once again, and it does it so fiercely that I feel myself growing slightly lightheaded.
And that’s when the door swings open.
“Liam, I --” I start to say, but then I shut up real quick as I realize that the man facing me isn’t Liam.
“You must be Cara,” the man tells me with a smile. He’s tall and handsome, his sleek brown hair combed back, and he’s wearing dress pants and a white button-up shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He’s probably the same age as Liam, but he doesn’t seem to be part of the Donovan family: the lines in his face lack that ruggedness, and the twinkle in his eyes doesn’t have the same intensity that shone in both Liam and his father’s eyes.
“I am,” I reply, surprised. “Who are you?”
“My name’s Connor,” he says, offering me his hand. “I’m a friend of Liam’s. And his attorney as well.”
“Uhm… Where’s Liam? I need to see him,” I tell him as I shake his hand awkwardly. Something in his eyes, though, tells me that I won’t like the answer he’s going to give me.
“Liam isn’t here,” he replies, one hand of his still grabbing the door. “He was here with me a while ago, going through some paperwork, but then he left. You just missed him.”
“Where did he go?” I insist, even though whatever hope I had of finding Liam has already been crushed into a million little pieces. Even if this Connor knows where Liam is, I doubt he’ll tell me.
“I have no idea,” Connor shrugs, looking at me with an expression of pity. “I’m sorry,” he then adds. “You gave him a lot to think about, Cara. He’s probably just clearing his head right now.”
“Oh,” I say, averting my gaze as I feel tears flooding my eyes. “I see. I’ll… I’ll just come back later,” I continue, already turning on my heels to leave. I walk toward the elevator as if I’m in a daze and, the moment I hear Connor closing the door behind me, I feel my heart tightening up into a fist.
Like Connor said, Liam’s just clearing his head. Which probably means that he’s clearing me out of his head. Oh, I’m such a fool. What the hell did I even come here for? Just like my foolish clients, I went after an illusion… And it’s my fault that whatever future I had with Liam became an illusion.
Oh, what if I ruined things for good? What if there’s no turning back the clocks? I don’t know if I can keep my head up without Liam by my side. I know, I’m acting like an heartbroken fool right now… But that’s exactly what I am: an heartbroken fool.
Maybe this is why I avoided love like the plague - it wasn’t because I didn’t believe in it, despite what I told myself. Instead, I was afraid. You see, love is like fire - it can warm you, yes, but it can also consume you whole, leaving nothing but ashes behind. And I was afraid of that… Afraid of the pain that walks hand-in-hand with unrequited love.
“I miss you, Liam,” I whisper to myself as I step inside the elevator. The doors close behind me, and I press my forehead against the full-body mirror. Closing my eyes, I let the tears stream down my face, dark sorrow wrapping itself around my heart.
Oh, please, God - tell me I didn’t screw it all up.
Just give me another shot.
Cara
“I don’t get it. What is it with airports?” Renee asks me, grabbing a handful of popcorn and taking them to her mouth. She does it without taking her eyes off the screen, almost as if she were afraid of missing something important.
“It’s part of the formula, I guess,” I tell her with a shrug. We’ve spent the whole afternoon watching old (and bad) romantic comedies and, somehow, it seems that every movie we chose has an airport scene where the man must hurry in order to stop his true love from leaving forever.
Maybe that’s what I should do - book a one-way seat to Paris and then cross my fingers and hope that Liam will race against the clock to make me stay in New York. Yeah, right. Like that would happen.
“C’mon, Cara, cheer up!” Renee tells me suddenly, turning around on the couch so that she’s facing me. Grabbing the popcorn bucket, she shoves it into my hands. “You’ve been gloomy all day. It’s not like that will help.”
“I know,” I sigh. “It’s just driving me crazy, you know? Sitting here and waiting for a miracle. I just wish there was something I could do to make things better,” I tell her, that feeling of frustration taking over me once more. If I wouldn’t look like a maniac, I’d just hurl the popcorn bucket against the TV and howl in frustration. Thankfully, I still haven’t lost my mind completely.
“He’ll come around, you’ll see,” she says, but I can tell by her tone of voice that she’s not entirely sure of what she’s saying. How could she be? It’s not like she knows what’s going in Liam’s mind.
“I don’t know, Renee… Maybe this is it. Maybe I’ve blown things.”
“Oh, stop saying that. Just like you told me… Liam is clearing his head. Sure, he might be a bit pissed, but that doesn’t mean he hates you now. I doubt it that he’ll simply brush aside everything you guys went through.”
“And what exactly did we went through? It was all a lie. None of that was real,” I say, gritting my teeth as I remember every single moment I spent with Liam. How he opened up to me, how he made me want to surrender my body to his… No, I’m wrong - it was real. More real than everything else in my life. But maybe if I pretend that it wasn’t… Maybe that will make the pain go away.
“It was real, Cara. You know that. Sure, it was all a bit unorthodox, but that doesn’t mean that your feeling wasn’t real. And you know men… They get all bitchy and pissed after a fight, but that doesn’t mean they hate your guts. Maybe he is just blowing off some steam,” she continues, doing her best to drag me out of the depressed state I’m in.
“What if blowing off some steam means he’s in some bar right now? He’s probably with another woman already. Maybe he doesn’t even remember my name anymore,” I reply, looking at the screen while my brain rushes through all these hellish scenarios. God, it hurts to just think of Liam in another woman’s arms.
