The Status of All Things: A Novel Page 24

  “Not anymore.”

  “Which one?”

  “Either. Both. Whatever. Nikki and I are done. Tonight was all for show. Even though there was a part of me that still thought she’d change her mind.”

  “The boy bander?”

  “True. All of it.”

  “But you told Jules the press got it wrong.”

  “I wanted to believe they had. But then she admitted it to me this morning and begged me to still come as her date.” He closes his eyes for a moment, as if remembering their conversation. “I don’t know why I agreed—guess I’m just a sucker.”

  “Or a nice guy.” I rub his back, suddenly ashamed of the things I said. “You’re too good for her anyway, Liam.”

  “That’s what Nikki said too.” He smiles sadly. “Right before she dumped my ass for a guy who has a swagger coach in his entourage.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, and mean it. I might have not liked Nikki, or the way she changed Liam, but I never wanted to see him hurt.

  “No, it’s okay, really,” he says. “Honestly, I got caught up in it. I think I liked the lifestyle more than I liked her.”

  “Still, it never feels good to be dumped.” Especially not for someone else, I think, remembering the rehearsal dinner as if it were yesterday.

  Liam looks at me. “I know Max really hurt you.” He points to where Courtney and her date are still wrapped around each other. “That he’s still hurting you.”

  I start to defend him, but Liam puts his hand up. “Don’t make excuses for him. Please. I know he’s not a bad guy, but it’s not him I care about.” He gives me a long look, his eyes fixated on me, the things he wants to say swirling in them.

  I stay silent, staring at my engagement ring, remembering the night Max asked me. Had it been a proposal like something out of the movies? No. But it had been special and I had said yes without a second thought. But now it was like Liam was shining a spotlight on Max, forcing me to look at him in a way I hadn’t wanted to before. The night Max asked me to be his wife, I knew he was as excited about our future as I was, but it was possible the not-so-subtle hints about my age I had dropped pushed him down a road he hadn’t truly been ready for.

  Liam leans his head down toward mine. “Remember, right after college, when I was up for the lead in that sitcom? I went through, like, thirty auditions. It was down to me and one other guy and they called my agent to tell me the part was mine? And then, when we were expecting the contract to be sent over, we got a phone call that they chose him?”

  I nod, cringing inside at how devastated Liam had been, how humiliated he was when he had to call his friends and family and tell them they’d retracted their offer.

  “Do you recall what you said to me after I told you I was going to quit acting? When I said it wasn’t fucking worth it anymore?”

  I shake my head, my eyes filling with tears.

  “You said the only way to get through something is to go straight through it. Not hide from it. Just feel it, learn from it, and then pick up the pieces and move on with your life.”

  “I said that?” I smile weakly as Liam nods, touched that he’s held that advice with him all this time, but my chest feeling hollow at the thought of following it myself. “It’s solid advice, Liam. But I can’t.”

  “Why not?” He frowns.

  “Because I’m not like you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Liam’s shoulders tense.

  “I can’t compartmentalize my feelings like you do.”

  “Is that what you think I do?”

  I sit up straighter so I can meet his eyes. “You give everyone these small scraps of yourself, always careful not to get too involved, too attached. You never let anyone hold your heart long enough to hurt you. But you think I should just dig in and feel the pain?” Liam’s eyes glisten but I can’t stop, thinking again how he’d judged me for not wanting to let Max go. That he inferred that I didn’t love him enough. “What do you even know about love anyway?”

  “I know more than you think,” he says cryptically before whispering, “I know what it’s like to have the person you love be in love with someone else.”

  “What?” I say, confused. “You mean Nikki?” I whisper back, our faces so close that the tip of his nose grazes mine.

  Liam laughs. “God, you’re so dense sometimes,” he says before tentatively placing his lips on mine, almost like his kiss is a question he’s looking for an answer to. My eyes widen in shock and I instinctively try to pull away, but he holds me close.

  “Liam,” I murmur.

  “Shhh,” he says, holding my chin gently in his hand. “Stop thinking so much. Just follow your damn heart for once in your life.” He kisses me again, his lips so soft and welcoming that I have to force myself to pull back a second time.

  “I can’t. Max—”

  “Your fiancé who is clearly in love with someone else? Does he really get a say in this?”

  I pull even farther out of his embrace at the mention of Courtney. “That’s not fair. If I do this with you, then I’m no better than he is.” I stand abruptly, my purse falling to the ground. Liam picks it up and our hands brush.

  “I’m not going to apologize for kissing you. I’m not going to spend one more day pretending I don’t care—even if it means I get hurt.” He stands and grabs my shoulders, but his eyes soften quickly when he looks into mine. “Don’t go back in time again. Don’t marry Max. Stay here and be with me.”

  My mind spinning, I watch him as he chews his lower lip, his eyes squinting at me so hard it’s as if he’s trying to see inside of me. Liam is in love with me? The question materializes in my mind like skywriting as we continue to lock gazes, neither of us ready to break eye contact or the palpable silence. I loved him too, of course, and would do anything for him, but I couldn’t give him this—not when I had fought so hard to make things work with Max. “I can’t do this right now,” I say, and his shoulders sag. “I’m sorry.” I reach for him, but he moves away from me.

  “I’m sorry too . . .” He finally averts his gaze, staring out at the crowd of partygoers oblivious to the drama unfolding between us. “But I had to tell you. I needed you to know there’s a life here, with me. If you’re brave enough to take the leap.”

  “I’m sorry.” I shake my head, thankful that the darkness is helping to conceal my watery eyes, the disappointed expression I imagine in his eyes, suddenly remembering his words before the rehearsal dinner—that I didn’t have to go through with the wedding. He had quickly laughed it off, but I wonder now if he had been harboring a sliver of hope that I really would call it off. I hear Nikki’s voice echo from the main stage as she thanks everyone for coming tonight—wondering suddenly, as the sound of thunderous applause fills the air, if the real reason I had fought against Liam’s relationship with her had nothing to do with her celebrity and everything to do with my own feelings for him. I think back to how unsettled I was when he began to choose Nikki over me, how my heart had felt vacant as I’d stared at yet another unanswered text message on my phone, and wonder if the idea of losing him had sparked something inside of me that I hadn’t let myself realize was there, or more likely, was too afraid to acknowledge.

  “I have to go back,” I say more to myself than to him, deciding that I still owed it to myself to see things through with Max.

  “Then I have just one request,” he says, his voice low and scratchy. “Don’t tell me when you get there.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t tell me about coming back here, about what Max did to you the first time. About what I just confessed to you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want to know—I won’t want to know.” He stands up and starts to walk away, then stops himself and turns back abruptly. “Have you ever thought about why I haven’t gotten serious with anyone?”


  I think of his last string of girlfriends: Daphne, Erica, Janie, or was it Jamie? Many of whom I’d never even met, but had, of course, heard about. After a month or two, he’d inevitably announce their departure, then tell me why it would’ve never worked. I’d listen as he explained why he’d broken things off with her—always wondering about the real reason he wasn’t settling down, guessing it was a commitment issue because of his absent father. But I never pried. I figured he’d eventually find the one who would rise above the rest and weed through the bullshit and ultimately get to his heart despite his greatest efforts to tuck it away. And all along that person was . . . “Me,” I hear myself say. “It was because of me? ” I ask, the words sounding strange as I say them out loud.

  He rubs the stubble that’s lightly dotting his chin and nods slowly. “I compare them all to you,” he says quietly. And suddenly, I flash back to that night in college Liam kissed me and I blew it off. Has he loved me since then?

  “You really shouldn’t,” I say. “Clearly, I’ve got issues!”

  “That’s just the way I like you,” he says, and we both laugh awkwardly. “Here’s the thing—the man you marry should find your issues endearing. The guy you spend your life with needs to understand you—needs to know you don’t come with a manual, but you’re pretty damn easy to figure out if he knows how to get inside your mind.” He raises his eyebrows. “He needs to accept that you can and will piss him off like there’s no tomorrow—­especially when you are trying to make everything around you so damn perfect. But ironically, he should also realize that you have an incredible ability to make him feel like his imperfections are the best part of him.” He looks away for a moment and I don’t speak. I can’t speak—my throat is thick with tears as I absorb his words. He grabs my hands and pulls my face close to his. “Does Max get you? Does he know not to try to stop you when you are obsessing over taking the perfect photo or that you always think the book is better than the movie? Even The Godfather?” Liam shakes his head. “Does he know that short of your boss or your mother hiring a plane to pull one of those banners that says KATE IS FUCKING AWESOME, you will never be satisfied with what their opinion of you is? Does he know you might cry like a blubbering baby over something seemingly innocuous—like the series finale of How I Met Your Mother—and he should just let you? Does he know you hate running and only do it to impress him? Does he know how insanely smart you are? How beautiful? Does he even know the real you?”

  I suck in a deep breath and release it slowly, processing his words, realizing they represent so much more than friendship. He really loves me. In a way I never realized was possible.

  “I don’t know—I thought so, I think so . . .” I stammer.

  “Because if he doesn’t, then that’s not true love. And you will both be settling.”

  “And you are the expert because?” I ask, but I already know what he’s going to say.

  “Because that’s how I feel about you—how you make me feel.”

  I cross my arms over my chest, trying to warm myself from the chill running through me as I try to make sense of his confession. It was true, he knew me in a way that Max never had, but I wasn’t convinced that was reason enough to throw everything with Max away, not after all I’d done to repair our relationship. “I’ve come this far with Max. I need to see what happens with him,” I say, rubbing my hand along his arm to take the sting off my words.

  He flinches slightly, but finally nods. “Can’t knock a man for trying, right?” He half laughs. “I guess you’ve dragged me to so many of those rom-coms that I got caught up. Who was I to think I could give you some big speech and you’d fall into my arms and say you felt the same way?”

  “Liam.” I hold my hand out to him, but he doesn’t take it.

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to feel sorry for me. I love you, but I want you to be happy.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut, afraid the tears that are brimming behind them will spill over if I don’t, not wanting to think about what might or might not make me happy.

  “But I meant what I said earlier—please don’t tell me any of this if you go back, especially not this conversation.” He looks down. “Kicked to the curb twice in the same night,” he says under his breath. “I just want to live my life like there’s no opportunity for second chances.”

  “Okay,” I say, reaching for him again. This time he accepts me into his arms. I hug him tightly, not wanting to let go. He grips me hard, like he might not see me again, and I resist the urge to stay, knowing I need to get back to Max. “I have to go.”

  “Okay,” he says, and sinks back down in his seat, picking up the bottle of tequila again.

  “I’m sorry,” I say again, not sure if I’m apologizing for leaving or for not loving him back the way he wants me to.

  “It’s okay—it’s all going to disappear soon anyway, right? None of it will matter.”

  “It’s for the best. For everyone.”

  “Keep telling yourself that, Kate,” I hear him say to my back as I walk away, into the lights of the party, gripping Max’s hand firmly when I find him, hoping our bond is just as strong.

  • • •

  “You want to talk about what happened tonight?” Max says as I crawl into bed later, and for a second I think he means Liam, but then I realize he’s talking about Courtney. I’d been quiet on the way home, my mind spinning like a tornado with the memory of Liam’s words and the visual of Max’s face when he saw Courtney, whipping around and around. I lay my head on the pillow, not wanting to talk, especially because it was all going to be pointless once I had made my wish.

  “We just can’t seem to escape her,” Max says, and curves his body around mine, laying his arm over my waist and pulling me closer.

  “No, we sure can’t,” I say softly.

  “I’m here for the long haul,” he whispers into my ear.

  His words comfort me—I can tell how much he wants to mean them. But is he staying because it’s the right thing to do, or because he wants to spend the rest of his life with me? Last time, I’d been so caught up in the wedding planning that I’d made it easy for him to convince himself that my love had faded too, that he had been doing us both a favor by ending things before we were legally bound. But the difference this time is that I have fought like hell for it—but is the sentiment still the same? Should it be this hard?

  “Me too,” I whisper, all at once terrified to go back in time and start over again, but even more scared to stay and try to make something out of the mess I’ve made here.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The first time I saw my wedding dress, it didn’t look like much on the hanger. But I’d been drawn to it anyway—I’d loved the gray sash wrapped around the waist that tied into a bow in the back and the way the organza felt between my fingertips. I’d handed it to the sales associate and figured it would most likely be one of the dozens I’d end up rejecting, because, as Jules and I agreed on our way into the boutique, who finds the dress on the first day she starts looking? Between the anxiety of finding the gown and the fact that my pear-shaped body didn’t cooperate with a lot of styles, I knew the odds were stacked against me. But when I’d stepped onto the platform in front of the three-way mirror, Jules walked up behind me and nodded her head, and we’d both started to cry before falling into a fit of giggles, because we were officially those people we’d made fun of so many times on those bridal reality shows.

  As my mom and I walk into the boutique for my final fitting, my breath catches at the memory of being here for my final fitting last time, when I’d still been wearing my engagement like it was a neon sign above my head. I catch my reflection in one of the large mirrors as I pass through the showroom and hardly recognize the look in my eyes this time.

  I’m still not sure why I decided to come here, why I didn’t post the status that would send me back further in time after I got home last night
. I had sat on the toilet in the bathroom, clutching my phone, unable to press my finger down, determining that I needed more time to figure out why, despite all of my efforts, Courtney and Max remained intertwined in each other’s lives. Maybe the only way to prevent them from falling in love would be for them to never meet—for me to go back in time to before I first introduced them. A twinge of concern tickles the back of my mind—would the universe have them meet another way if I didn’t facilitate it?

  I had also thought that seeing myself in my wedding gown one more time, feeling the way the fabric swayed as I walked, memorizing the way it made me feel to pull it up around me, would help bring me clarity. But as I stood here now, I was unwilling to believe that my decisions didn’t hold any weight. What about free will? I imagined there were going to be some pretty pissed-off philosophers when they heard about this development—that some things may be predetermined, no matter how much we try to change them.

  “I can’t wait to see you in your dress,” my mom says, her eyes brimming with tears as she watches a young redhead walk into the back room to retrieve my gown.

  “Are you going to cry?” I ask, pulling her down beside me on a pale pink velvet-covered bench.

  “Maybe just a little.” She smiles, blinking back the moistness in her eyes and hugging me tightly. “I’m just so happy for you. They say the day your little girl gets married is one of the best of your life.”

  You didn’t get to enjoy it last time, I think, recalling the look etched on her face as Max told everyone there wouldn’t be a wedding—the disappointment coupled with sadness had only added to the pain I was feeling.