AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She gasps, then puts her hands on her hips and looks at me like I’m silly. “Annie, you’re supposed to answer the phone when someone calls and you want to talk to them!”
I nod a third time. “Yeah,” I say stupidly.
Her little eyebrows go up. “Wellll….”
For a long moment, I just look at her. Then I decide she’s right.
I snatch up my phone, stand, and rush out, “I’m going to step into the hall for a minute, okay?”
Her expression is bright again. “Okay! Tell him hi! Tell him I send a big, big hug!”
Nodding more yet, I stride to the front door. Only when I’m in the hall with the shut door at my back do I dial his number.
My hand shakes as the phone rings.
Allof me shakes when he answers with, “Hey,” because his tone is gentle and kind and warm. Not impatient. Not distant.
Then unbidden tears are filling my eyes.
All the things that have been twisting up in me today loosen so rapidly it makes me dizzy. I drop forward, and as I catch myself with my hand on my knee, a pitiful sob bursts out of me.
“Liv?” he asks worriedly. “Am I bothering you? I just wanted to know if we’re still on for tomorrow. I’m so—”
“I’ve missed your voice,” I blurt out tearfully. “I’ve—I’ve wanted to talk to you all day, but I was so—so embarrassed and—”
A ding sounds from down the hall. I hastily straighten up as I glance that way, not wanting whoever’s exiting the elevator to—
But it’s him. He’s just now getting home.
I hear him say, “I’ve wanted to talk to you all day, too,” through the phone as he comes this way. His eyes are closed in the relief I hear in his voice. He hasn’t seen me yet.
The reliefIfeel from seeinghimpulls another sob out of me.
I hang up the phone and watch him look confused at the sudden silence on the line, then watch him register why he can still hear me crying, watch his eyes find me.
“Liv!” Stuffing his phone into his pocket, he hurries to me.
I take a few wobbly steps toward him, and then he’s close enough for me to grab, and that’s what I do—I throw my arms around his neck and yank him into the hug I’ve been dying for.
He immediately bands his arms around me, but not so tightly that I can’t get tear-thickened words out.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I was mean to you this morning. I was humiliated you saw me like that. I felt so pathetic, and I—I had those memories in my head and I felt like I’d relived them touch by fucking touch and I just didn’t—I didn’t know what to do! I’m—Landon, I’m, like, broken into pieces on the inside and some of me was so happy to see you, but the rest of me was stuck in that corner of hell and I—God, I’mnotafraid of you, I’mnot, I swear, but—”
“Shh, Liv-Andria,” he whispers against my ear. “Everything is okay now. Take a breath, sweetheart.”
If he wasn’t holding me, I think I would melt right into the floor.
While I cry quietly and try to breathe, he kind of sways me back and forth, making the hug that much more comforting. Time slips away from me, and—bit by bit, but all the same—so does the disquiet that’s been roiling in me all day.
I was right: he was what I needed to feel better.
Why did I wait so long to get to this place? Why did I make myself suffer?
After a minute, he says, “Don’t apologize to me. You weren’t mean to me.”
Having gotten the worst of my crying out of the way, I sniffle and reply, “I ignored you.”
“Yeah….” He pauses and goes still. “Honestly, it bummed me out, but I understood. You were in the middle of something that was uglier than you wanted me to see. I wasn’t mad or anything.”
