The next morning, I woke up in a strange bed, wrapped in a hoodie that didn't belong to me, in a hotel room I never meant to stay in longer than a night. For a second, I forgot where I was. Then I saw Liam's hoodie draped over the chair and remembered the waffles, the walk, the way he'd looked at me like I wasn't broken glass he had to step around.
I sat up slowly, my head still a little fuzzy from yesterday's emotional hangover.
This wasn't the plan.
The plan was to run—quietly, completely. No detours. No unexpected brunches with charming strangers. Definitely no second nights in the same town where everything had gone wrong.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. A text from Melanie, my cousin and the original bride of the chaos-wedding-that-wasn't.
Mel: "You still in town? Just checking you didn't throw yourself into a lake."
I stared at the screen for a second before replying.
Me: "No lake. Just waffles."
A second later, she sent back a string of question marks, then:
Mel: "Wait. Waffles with who??"
I didn't answer.
Instead, I got up, showered, and tried to look like someone who hadn't been emotionally bulldozed by her own life lately. Which meant: clean jeans, mascara, and a ponytail that didn't scream I slept in emotional chaos again.
At exactly 9:02 AM, my hotel phone rang. That weird old-school landline thing that usually only rings when it's bad news or a wake-up call.
I picked it up.
"Morning," said Liam's voice, cheerful but not overdoing it. "Still feel like doing something wildly unproductive today?"
I blinked. "Are we talking, like… getting matching tattoos or loitering in parking lots?"
"Somewhere in between," he said. "I've got coffee and a half-baked idea."
I hesitated for exactly half a second before saying, "Give me ten minutes."
---
He took me to a flea market.
It was tucked behind an old warehouse, with crooked folding tables and booths run by people who looked like they'd lived seven different lives and survived them all. The air smelled like kettle corn and old paperbacks. Music drifted from a tiny speaker someone had duct-taped to a metal pole—Fleetwood Mac, scratchy and perfect.
"What are we doing here?" I asked, taking the coffee he handed me.
"Trust-building exercise," he said, deadpan.
"Involving overpriced vintage mugs and questionable taxidermy?"
"Exactly."
I followed him through rows of antiques, handmade jewelry, dusty books, and more ceramic clowns than anyone should own voluntarily.
At one booth, he picked up a weird little snow globe with a broken Eiffel Tower inside and handed it to me.
"For your troubles," he said.
"What troubles?"
"The whole… betrayed-by-love, accidentally-crashing-a-wedding thing."
I rolled my eyes but smiled. "Thanks. This'll really help the healing process."
We wandered for over an hour. He bought an ugly hat he swore was "ironically cool." I found an old Polaroid camera that still worked and took a blurry photo of us mid-laugh.
And somewhere between a cracked lava lamp and a rack of faded band tees, I realized something I hadn't wanted to admit until that moment:
I was having fun.
Not distraction fun. Not pretend-I'm-okay fun.
Real fun. The kind you don't even notice until your stomach hurts from laughing too hard.
After we left, we ended up sitting on the tailgate of his truck in the parking lot, drinking the last of our coffees and watching some kid try to convince his dad he needed a neon pink skateboard with "Born to Cry" scrawled across the bottom.
Liam leaned back on his hands, looking up at the sky.
"Do you ever wish you could just… disappear for a while?" he asked.
I glanced at him. "Like, fake-your-own-death disappear, or take-a-sabbatical disappear?"
He smirked. "Somewhere in between."
"Yeah," I said. "More often than I'd admit."
He nodded, not surprised.
"I think that's what I'm doing right now," I added. "Disappearing. Just temporarily."
He looked at me then—really looked—and for a second, I felt like he could see the exact storm inside me.
"Sometimes," he said, "those disappearances? They're not escapes. They're resets."
I didn't say anything.
Mostly because I didn't trust myself to.
---
Later that afternoon, we sat on a picnic table near the lake. Not the metaphorical lake I'd almost drowned in yesterday—the real one. Quiet. Glassy. Empty but not lonely.
Liam skipped rocks like he'd been doing it his whole life. I watched the ripples disappear into the water and thought about everything I'd left behind—and what I hadn't told him yet.
"My mom thinks I'm in therapy," I said suddenly.
Liam stopped mid-throw and turned to me. "Are you?"
"Nope. I mean, I probably should be. But I told her I was taking time off to 'find myself.' It just sounded easier."
He laughed. Not in a judgmental way. Just amused. "So what do you tell her you're doing all day?"
"Journaling. Meditating. Working on myself."
He grinned. "And instead you're here, making questionable purchases with a near-stranger and drinking gas station coffee by the gallon."
"Exactly."
He tossed another rock. "Sounds like therapy to me."
And maybe it was. Not the clinical kind. Not the polished, couch-sitting, tell-me-about-your-childhood kind. But the kind where someone sits beside you and doesn't ask you to be okay. Just… there.
I felt the words before I heard myself say them.
"I was going to marry him. Even after I found out. I was still considering it."
Liam didn't move. Didn't flinch.
"He said it was a mistake. A one-time thing. That he'd never do it again. And I wanted to believe that so badly, I almost said yes."
I looked down at my hands. "What does that say about me?"
Liam was quiet for a beat. Then he said, "That you loved him. And that you're human."
It wasn't the clean answer I wanted. But it was the right one.
By the time the sun started dipping behind the hills, I felt like I'd lived a week in just one day.
I sat with Liam in the back of his truck again, our legs dangling over the edge, the quiet of early evening settling around us like a soft blanket. The air had cooled, and the sky was that kind of purple-orange blend that looked too perfectly filtered to be real.
"I don't remember the last time I let a day just… happen," I said quietly.
Liam turned his head to look at me. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," I paused, picking at the edge of my cup, "everything in my life was always planned. Structured. Down to the last minute. I didn't even realize how much I needed a day like this until it was already happening."
"You sound surprised."
"I am. I thought I'd spend the next month crying into a pillow and avoiding people forever."
"Well," he said, bumping his shoulder lightly into mine, "you still have time for that."
I laughed, and for once it didn't sound forced or hollow.
Then he asked, "What made you stay last night?"
It wasn't an accusation. Just curiosity.
I opened my mouth, then shut it again. The answer was simple. But I didn't want to say it out loud.
Because I liked him.
I liked him in a way that was inconvenient and badly timed and made me feel like the floor was tilting under me. And I didn't know what the hell to do with that.
So I shrugged. "Didn't feel like driving in the dark."
He didn't call me out on the lie. Instead, he just looked forward again, his fingers idly tracing the rim of his cup.
We sat there a while, not talking. Just watching the sun sink lower, turning the water into melted copper.
Eventually, he said, "I think people come here when they're stuck. Or running. Or trying to figure out who they are when everything else gets stripped away."
I glanced at him. "That sounds… personal."
He nodded. "A few years ago, I needed a break. Got tired of the noise. Thought I'd stay for a week. Been here ever since."
I looked at him, surprised. "You're not just visiting?"
"Nope. I live just outside town. Work at the repair shop in the mornings. Fix up bikes, old trucks. Whatever needs fixing, really."
"You're serious."
"Dead serious."
I tried to imagine that—leaving the city, the expectations, the rush—and starting over somewhere no one knew you. It felt like a fantasy. Or a challenge.
"Did people think you were crazy?" I asked.
"Absolutely. Still do."
"And you don't regret it?"
"Not for a second."
I didn't know what to say to that. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to think it was possible to burn everything down and start from scratch and not carry the smoke with you forever.
Instead, I said, "I should go tomorrow."
His expression didn't change. But something in the way he sat shifted, barely noticeable.
"Yeah?" he said. "Where to?"
"I don't know yet. Somewhere new. Farther. I just… I can't stay too long. That's not the point of this."
He nodded, like he understood.
But he didn't try to talk me out of it.
And that somehow made it harder.
---
Later that night, back in my hotel room, I laid awake in bed staring at the ceiling.
My suitcase was still open in the corner. Clothes half-folded. Like even my belongings weren't convinced I was staying.
I replayed pieces of the day like film reels: the flea market, the laugh that slipped out before I could stop it, the way Liam didn't push for more than I could give.
He hadn't kissed me.
And that mattered.
Because it meant he was actually listening.
Still, it didn't stop my stomach from twisting every time I thought about leaving.
Somewhere around midnight, I grabbed my phone and pulled up the map app. My finger hovered over the screen, zooming out until the whole country shrank into a patchwork of places I could disappear into next.
A knock at the door made me jump.
It was soft. Not urgent. But not casual either.
I stared at it for a second before climbing out of bed.
When I opened the door, Liam stood there, hands in his pockets, looking like he hadn't totally convinced himself this was a good idea.
"I was halfway home when I realized I forgot to say something," he said.
I waited.
He exhaled. "You don't owe me anything. You don't have to stay. Hell, you probably shouldn't. But—if you decide to leave tomorrow, and you find yourself somewhere that doesn't feel right, or you need a place that's just… quiet for a while, you can always come back."
I blinked.
Not what I was expecting.
He pulled something from his jacket—a Polaroid. The one I'd taken earlier, slightly blurred, half of his face out of frame.
"You dropped this," he said.
I took it from him slowly, my fingers brushing his.
We stood there in the silence, the hallway dim and too intimate.
Then he added, voice low, "Or, if you stay one more day, I'll teach you how to make real coffee. Not that powdered gas station garbage."
I bit my lip.
"You make a compelling offer," I said.
His smile was quiet. Careful.
"I'll let you sleep on it."
He turned and walked away before I could say anything else.
I looked down at the photo in my hand.
It wasn't perfect.
But neither was I.
And maybe that was the point.