London

1 - "Welcome home, baby."

Alex

"Are you nervous?" Liam asks me and I sniffle a bit. I should be the one asking him considering we're on a plane and he's afraid of flying.

"A little bit," I admit. "Are you?"

"Only for the flight, but I think I behaved nicely at take-off," he says. "Still you have to talk me through it for old times' sake."

"What am I supposed to say?" I wonder, slouching in my seat a bit. "I was planning on watching a movie while you hit on the fly attendant."

"You do realize that I'm going back to England to be with someone I love a lot?" He emphasizes the last two words and I know he's not even kidding.

"Don't make me barf," I say, rolling my eyes.

"What? You are going back for the same reason. Aren't you?"

"Yes," I say after a while.

I do love Harry, with all my heart. It's something I've never felt as clear before as when I was in England for Sage's wedding. The days we spend after we were caught making out by the priest in the chapel were magical and just like in the old days when we just got together. Maybe even better than our time spent on the cruise. It almost seemed as if nothing had changed and in those three years that passed without seeing or speaking each other, we came out the same. I'm just not as sure about that now that Liam and I are moving back.

"Why does it feel as if you're not happy with the decision to leave Palas?" Liam asks and he's been wondering since I told him I was coming with him.

Liam found a job while he traveled to London with me- like I thought he would. He's going to work in a large hospital in the North of London. Which also means that he won't be living close to me for the first time in years.

"Because I'm not," I tell him. "I find it sad to leave Palas and go back without a job or you near me."

"Awh," he whispers, leaning his head against my shoulder. "That really would choke me up if I wasn't so drugged out. I'm feeling no emotion at all."

"Do you have some spare ones?" I ask him as a joke, but honestly it would be great to not feel a thing if only for the short period of our flight. To not worry and overthink my hasty decision.

"Not for you." He snuggles against me some more and I've never seen him so relax on a flight before. It must be some good medicine. "What is it that you don't want to feel?"

"I wish that all I could feel is my love for Harry."

I know that by saying that he knows exactly what I mean. That I am in love with Harry and we are happy again, but leaving behind my home just to be with him doesn't feel as right as it feels for Liam. And it should feel the same. It should be all that's on my mind. I should be able to tell my best friend that I'm quitting the lifeguards and moving back because I'm happy in love and there's nothing left for me in Palas.

But it was Liam who told me that and the thought of staying in Palas without Liam to fall back on just felt pointless. Yet it was his decision that made me quit too and not the tempting thought of spending more time with Harry. Flying back one weekend a month and calling everyday seemed enough, but I couldn't stay behind. Not with the entire team falling apart and Ava who is a going to be a new mom soon with no attention left for me.

So it is with mixed feelings that I'm returning home. It is the place where Harry is and where my family lives. It's where Liam will be too. But I won't have a job and Harry's busy with his work.

"Is he happy that you're coming?" Liam asks after a while of fidgeting with the hem of my shirt, just to do something. "Last time I talked to him he seemed thrilled."