Page 143 of Missed Sunrise
“Even worse, I can’t stand when people let me go. On the occasions when my mother would leave on the weekend, I would leave too. Some small part of me hoped that she’d come back and panic to find me gone and feel an inch of what I felt.”
It was beyond my comprehension. I may have had free rein growing up, switching to a hybrid of homeschooling and online school young and graduating early, leaving at any hour, but my parents always knew where I was. Not to control me, but because it was automatic. Their love and care were intrinsic, as a parent’s should be.
“When I asked her if I could go live with my dad, she agreed. Like, instantly, LL. No questions asked. I didn’t lie then, not to Bree. I told her the truth. That living with Dad, who was practically a stranger at that time, but being near her and the casino, was better than what was happening at home. Dad kept a rigid schedule, and I always knew where he would be and when. And even though he wasn’t home a lot, he always did comehome. And when I went to the casino, I knew I could find Bree… and food.”
I would simply sink into the sand if this was going where I thought it was, but I wouldn’t let him brush past that. “Food?” I asked quietly.
He grunted. “I always knew I could get a meal at Fortuna. My dad used to load me up with comps for the buffet and Dawn’s, always making sure Bree and I had them in our pockets when we were set loose, which was always. That wasn’t always the case at home. Knowing that I’d have something to eat.”
The pace of his braiding increased, going from achingly slow to hurried.
“What was the second one?” I asked, my voice cracking. “The second lie?”
“The answer I gave to nearly every single question Bree asked me from September to February, Liem. Every time she asked me how I was.”
My heart was in agony. Was this what it was to love someone? To feel their pain like this?
He tied off the braid instead of letting it unravel this time and then slowly, so slowly, came to stand in front of me.
We looked at each other for a long moment, the lap of the tide just as loud as his pain.
“Like I said before, I remember the first time I heard your voice. LL’s voice,” he started hesitantly, licking his lips. “I remember the first time I saw you, what you were wearing, how your shoulders moved. How you breathed. The color of your eyes.” He took my face in his palms with aching tenderness, something almost like despair in his eyes. “And I told myself the worst lie of all. I told a version of it to Bree, too, when she saw the way I looked at you.”
His eyes closed shut briefly as he sank into memory, but then he opened them, the greens blooming under his confession.“That the dazzling creature in front of me, the one who was my quiet solace for so long, wasn’t meant for me. That I should leave, distance myself before I tarnished his shine with my dark clouds.”
Trailing a single finger over my face, he paused at my cheekbone, the same side from which he’d brushed the flour, and stared at it before speaking again.
“I want to know all of you, Liem, and I mean that. I have a notebook full of questions about you. Some of them have answers now, but so many don’t. That notebook that is also full of plans, reasons that the third lie could actually be a lie.”
“Anything,” I assured him evenly even as butterflies flew and fireworks erupted. “Anything you want to know, you can ask.”
“I know,” he replied, then added with a knowing look, “especially after this afternoon.”
My cheeks heated, not with embarrassment, but as an automatic physiological response to any allusion to our joining.
I hoped they always would.
“I wrote down every question I’ve ever had about you so I wouldn’t forget any of them.” He took my hand again and walked us to the water, our shoes long forgotten by one of the bridges. His eyes grew distant as he stared out at the Gulf. “I’m not good at remembering things, Liem. Except when it comes to you.” He brought his gaze back to me and grimaced. “I left that fucking notebook at the restaurant.”
I laughed, wild and free, the mounting tension receding enough to allow it. “So, then, what exactly would someone find if they opened it, besides those questions?”
“Harebrained plans, mostly,” he replied. “Ideas I’ve had with my dad. Business goals, hopes, dreams, ideas. A future. A few possible futures.”
He sounded so wistful, but hopeful too.
I was glad he’d forgotten the notebook. Any future with Cody would be the one for me.
Silence spread between us, and we let the tide wash over our feet for several minutes before I asked, “Do you want to ask me one of those questions?”
Biting into his lip briefly, he nodded, then turned toward me. “I do, but every time I look at you, Liem, or even fucking think about you, I can only remember one of them. And I think I’m starting to know the answer. I… I may not need to ask it anymore.”
“Ask me anyway.”
His eyes turned glassy as he swallowed thickly, and after several false starts, he finally did.
“If I love you, Liem, will you ever let me go?”
My eyes filled with tears. Tears of hope, of heartache, and of joy as I took his face in my hands and let it show, hoping he saw all of it as I answered.
