I didn't sleep much after that call.
I laid in bed staring at the ceiling, the fan clicking in uneven rhythm, like a slow countdown. Kara's voice kept looping in my head—"they're not going to wait forever."
Neither was the rest of my life, apparently.
I'd left everything in the middle of something—my book, my agent, my apartment. I hadn't even told anyone except Kara that I was coming here. Not my editor, not my mom, not my ex-best friend who still followed me on Instagram like we were fine.
And the truth was, it had felt good. Like slipping into an old hoodie that still smelled like high school. Familiar. Private. Mine.
But the longer I stayed in this town, the harder it was to pretend I could just hit pause on everything else and not expect consequences.
Still, I didn't move. I just stayed there under Liam's quilt, letting the daylight creep in around me.
---
By the time I dragged myself into the kitchen, the house was empty. Liam had left a sticky note on the fridge, written in blue pen and half-cursive.
At the garage. Left the truck keys. Take it if you want. Don't get pulled over. - L
I smiled despite the heavy lump in my throat.
The man had the emotional range of a boulder, but he left notes. That had to count for something.
I poured myself a cup of coffee and stared out the kitchen window, watching a squirrel tear into a bird feeder like it owed him money. My laptop sat on the table, the screen dark. It might as well have been judging me.
Write, it whispered.
But my fingers didn't move.
Instead, I sat down and opened a blank document, just to feel like I was trying. The cursor blinked. My brain didn't.
I thought about the characters I'd left hanging—people I had created but hadn't spoken to in weeks. Did they miss me? Were they stuck in some kind of fictional limbo, waiting for me to pick up the thread?
I didn't even know if I cared anymore.
That scared me more than anything.
---
The diner was mostly empty again. I brought my laptop, thinking maybe a change of scenery would help. It didn't. I ordered eggs and poked at them until the waitress asked if I wanted a to-go box. I said no and left a bigger tip than usual.
Then I drove to the lake.
Not because I thought I'd find inspiration or clarity or some kind of epiphany—but because it was the only place that didn't make me feel like a total fraud.
I sat on the same bench where Liam had kissed me two nights ago. The water was calmer now, the surface like glass. A few ducks floated near the edge, indifferent to my inner turmoil.
I pulled out my phone and stared at Kara's last text:
Agent still waiting. I'm buying you a planner for your birthday.
No pressure. Just a reminder that the world hadn't stopped spinning just because I had.
And yet… I didn't want to leave.
---
Around noon, Liam found me there.
I didn't hear him at first. He didn't say anything, just sat down beside me, a quiet kind of presence that didn't demand anything. We sat like that for a while. Me watching the ducks. Him watching me not watch the ducks.
Finally, he said, "You disappeared this morning."
"I didn't feel like being seen."
He nodded like he understood. "You talked to Kara?"
"Yeah."
He waited, like he knew I wasn't done yet.
"She reminded me that I have a life. One I've been actively ghosting."
"And do you want to go back to it?"
I hesitated. "I don't know."
That was the honest truth. I didn't know what I wanted. I only knew what I didn't want—to go back to the version of myself that felt like a hamster on a wheel, running but getting nowhere.
Liam leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "You don't owe anyone an answer right now. You're allowed to be undecided."
I looked at him. "Even if I've been undecided my whole life?"
His mouth twitched. "Especially then."
---
Later that day, we worked on his truck together.
Well—he worked. I handed him tools and asked dumb questions like, "What's the difference between a flathead and Phillips again?" He answered them all without mocking me, which I appreciated more than I let on.
At some point, grease ended up on my cheek. At another, he wiped it off with his thumb, and I forgot how to breathe for a full five seconds.
It wasn't dramatic. Nothing about Liam ever was.
But it was warm.
Steady.
Like something I hadn't realized I'd been craving until it was there, tucked inside the space between ordinary moments.
---
That night, I opened my laptop again.
Not because I had to.
Because I wanted to.
The words didn't come easily—but they came. A sentence. Then another. Not perfect. Not polished. But alive.
I didn't write about love. I wrote about searching. About standing still when the world tells you to run. About old towns and older wounds and the kind of grief that doesn't scream, just lingers in the hallways of your heart.
And somehow, it felt closer to the truth than anything I'd written in years.
---
Just before midnight, I got a text from Kara.
Your agent loved the sample. She wants the rest. She says take your time—but not too much.
I stared at the screen for a long time, heart strangely calm.
This wasn't over.
The deadline. The decisions. The chaos of whatever came next.
But for the first time, I felt like I might be okay with that.
I closed the laptop.
I turned off the light.
And I let myself hope that whatever this was—me, Liam, the town, the work—it was just the beginning.
The next morning, I woke up before the sun.
It was that strange hour when everything is too quiet—before birds start making noise, before cars hum down the road, before the world remembers it's supposed to be alive.
I stood in the kitchen barefoot, the tile cold against my skin, a mug of coffee cradled in both hands. The smell was comforting. Familiar. Something stable, finally.
Through the window, the first streaks of light were painting the sky in faint pinks and soft grays. A new day, and I was still here.
Not in New York. Not answering emails. Not checking word counts or schedules or worrying about falling behind.
Just… here.
And the weirdest part was, I didn't feel guilty about it.
---
By the time Liam came in from the garage, the sun was up, and I'd made toast and eggs—burned the toast, obviously. I was scraping off the black edges when he walked through the door, covered in grease and sweat like it was part of his skin.
"Smells like something died in here," he said casually, dropping his keys on the table.
"Thanks," I replied. "Nice to know my effort is appreciated."
He smirked, walked over, took the knife from my hand, and grabbed the better of the two slices. "I said it smells like something died. I didn't say it tasted bad."
I rolled my eyes, but I didn't argue. For once, it felt easy being teased. Less performative. Less loaded.
We sat at the kitchen table, eating in silence, except for the occasional crunch or clink of fork on plate. It was nice, being able to share space without pressure to fill it.
After a few minutes, he looked at me, serious now. "You slept okay?"
I shrugged. "Better than I thought I would."
Liam nodded like that made sense. "You needed it."
There wasn't any pity in his voice. Just fact. Just someone who saw me and didn't feel the need to fix me.
And that, maybe, was why I'd stayed longer than planned.
---
Later that afternoon, we drove into town.
He needed a part from the hardware store. I needed a reason to get out of the house. Small town errands with someone like Liam felt like the closest thing I'd had to normal in months.
When we got there, he knew everyone. Of course he did. The cashier, the older man who owned the shop, a teenager stacking cans—Liam said hi to them all by name. And every single one of them looked at me like I didn't belong but were too polite to say it.
That was the thing about small towns. No one had to tell you you were an outsider. You could feel it.
I trailed behind him as he walked through the narrow aisles, stopping to examine things that looked like medieval torture tools to me.
"I still don't know what half of this stuff is," I admitted.
Liam didn't look up. "That makes two of us."
I narrowed my eyes. "Liar."
He shrugged, lips twitching. "Alright, maybe one of us used to know, and the other is pretending not to."
---
When we left the store, we didn't go straight back.
He took a detour, steering us toward the outskirts of town. Eventually, the road turned gravel, and trees began to outnumber houses.
"Where are we going?" I asked, resting my head against the window.
"You'll see."
Normally, that would've annoyed me. Today, I let it go.
Eventually, he pulled off the road and parked beside a field—just open space, gold and green and quietly humming with wind and bugs.
We got out.
It didn't look like much at first. Just grass and sky and quiet. But then I saw it: a rusted-out truck, halfway buried in weeds, sitting like a memory no one had bothered to clear.
"My dad's old Ford," Liam said, walking ahead. "He used to bring me out here when I was a kid. Said the sky looked bigger here."
I followed him, the sun warm on my face. "It does."
He hopped onto the tailgate, gestured for me to join him. I climbed up awkwardly, careful not to scrape my leg on the rust.
We sat side by side, looking out.
There wasn't much to say. So we didn't.
Just let the breeze carry whatever needed carrying.
---
After a long stretch of silence, I asked, "Do you miss him?"
Liam didn't answer right away. His jaw tightened, just slightly.
"Yeah," he said eventually. "Not every day. But yeah."
I nodded, tracing a pattern on my thigh with my finger. "I miss my dad too. Not in the ways I expected, though."
"What do you mean?"
I thought about it. "I don't miss the sound of his voice or his jokes or even the advice. I miss the idea of him. Like... the version I needed him to be."
Liam let out a slow breath, like something clicked.
"Yeah. That makes sense."
We sat with that thought between us. Not heavy, just there.
Then he said, quietly, "I think I miss the idea of myself, too. The one I thought I'd be by now."
That hit deeper than I expected.
Because God, wasn't that the truth for so many of us?
---
We stayed until the light started fading. The sky turned orange, then purple, then that deep navy that makes everything feel like it's holding its breath.
When we finally drove back, the silence in the truck wasn't awkward—it was full of all the things we didn't have to say out loud.
And maybe that was enough.
---
That night, I sat on the porch, wrapped in an old blanket, watching the stars.
Liam had gone to bed early. Something about an early shift. I didn't ask.
I opened my laptop.
This time, the words didn't come slow.
I wrote about a woman who ran away and found herself somewhere unexpected. Not because a man saved her or a miracle dropped out of the sky—but because she paused. Because she listened. Because she stopped pretending she was fine when she wasn't.
And maybe that was the truest kind of romance. Not just falling in love with someone else—but finally choosing to stay with yourself.
Even when it's hard.
Even when it's quiet.
Especially then.