Page 44 of Liam

Addie

Vegetarian.

Liam

Gross.

I giggle at that—a reaction that contrasts how I was feeling only moments ago.

Liam

Favorite place?

I reach over to my side table and switch off the lamp, ready to settle in for the night.

Addie

There’s this junkyard about an hour north of here. Roman used to take me there when I was a little.

Liam

A junkyard?

Addie

Yeah. I know it sounds strange, but when he moved out, he worked at this auto shop, and sometimes his boss would ask him to go to the junkyard for parts. If it was a weekend, he’d take me with him. We’d get food, then walk the aisles of cars until we found what he needed. He showed me how to remove certain parts or asked me to hold his tools if it was too hard for me.

Addie

The best part was when we were done, we’d find an already broken piece of a car, and he’d let me take a hammer to it so we could collect all these different colored paint chips. I kept them all in this glass jar, and whenever I missed him, I just looked at them.

I hit send, then dry the unexpected tears on my pillow. Some nights, I’d fall asleep hugging that jar. Then, one day, I came home from school and it was gone. When I asked my mom about it, she told me it wastrash, that it didn’t belong in the trailer.

I stopped collecting paint-chips after that.

Liam

Will you show me?

I hold the phone to my chest, a million emotions flowing through me. Then I blindly reach for my journal tucked under my pillow and bring it closer. Slide my finger in the gap between the pages left by my pen, and tear out the page I’d just written.

I don’t want to trash Liam Preston.

I may just want to keep him.

Close.

Addie

Anytime. Just say when.

18

Addie

The loose gravel crunching beneath my feet seems rougher than usual. Maybe because the world is quieter today. Or maybe the thoughts in my head aren’t so raging. Or it might be the boy sitting on the porch steps, his smile crooked as he watches me approach. Maybe it’shimsilencing the world around me.

Liam waits until I’m close enough and nods toward the skateboard held to my front. “You skate a lot?”

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