Here Comes the Sun | ✓

Chapter Twenty-Nine - Liam

Chapter Twenty-Nine - Liam

"What movie is this from again?"

My voice echos down the street as I speak, my mind searching for the right things to say in such an intimate moment as this.

We're lying in the middle of my street, the cement cool against our backs as we look up to the night sky. No stars, just black. Her hand is intertwined with mine between our bodies, and I can't help but to smooth my thumb back and forth over her palm. 

"The Notebook," she whispers, as if we were speaking in private and she didn't want the night stars to hear. "The most overly-dramatic romance novel that exists."

"Isn't it a movie, though?" I ask dumbly, and she just laughs. I squeeze her hand. "Hey, laughing isn't allowed when the last movie I've seen was some soap-opera shit I watched with Jimmy." But this only makes her laugh harder.

"What were you doing watching a soap-opera with Jimmy?" she asks in shock, and I can't blame her being appalled. What kind of man watches the cable network?

"Long story," I mutter, but she just shakes her head back and forth on the cement.

"I'm pretty sure I can keep up."

A groan tickles the back of my throat and I throw my free arm over my eyes. The saran wrap is no longer suffocating my arm, and my tattoo is as fresh (and sore) as ever.  Libby finally let me see hers. It was an outline of black birds on her right ribcage, and they were as beautiful as I'd thought. Both the size of a Gatorade bottle-cap - small enough to where no one can really make a big deal out of it being on her body permanently, but big enough for it to matter and serve its purpose.

Liv was now one with her.

"You never told me why you had birds drawn on you, and not her name," I commented, hoping that it'd change the subject and distract her just enough for us to move on.

She heaves out a heavy sigh, but there's a small smile that lingers on her lips. "We use to pretend we were birds," she starts, and a small chuckle escapes her. "We would jump off of swings, hoping we would fly instead of fall, and would jump off of cliffs (recreationally, of course) into our neighborhood lake to see how high we could get to the clouds.

"When she was dying, though, she would talk about Heaven all the time." Her eyes are getting teary the more she talked and I want to ask for her to stop, but I find myself being too selfish to. I want to hear more about the girl that made me meet this beautiful woman lying next to me.

"She didn't believe that she would live there (Heaven, I mean) forever," Libby continues, shaking her head. "She'd visit God, she said, and then he'd send her off as a reincarnation of a bird. She'd look over me and whoever else she and I loved."

She stopped then, staring off at the sky. I watch as a tear slides down the side of her face and dissolves into her hair. I turn on my side and untangle my hand from hers, curling my now-free arm under my head and using my other to hold her cheek. I gently pull her head to where she's facing me and I see tsunami waves pooling at her eyelids.

"Oh, Libby," I whisper, my chest aching at the sight of her crushed state. I brush my thumb on her cheek, subconsciously tracing the light freckles that made their home there. Her bottom lip wobbles but she tries to cover it up with one of her hands, trying to brush off the oncoming tears with the wave of her hand.

"Look at me," she laughs breathlessly. "I'm crying!"

Her laughing catches me off-guard, although I've been halfway expecting it this entire time. "There was a Days of Our Lives marathon - like always - one Sunday, and Jere was already asleep upstairs. The following Monday was a holiday, although I can't remember which one," I ramble, "so I had nothing to look forward to besides going to sleep."