have so much that I want to tell you. So much that you need to know about me.” I’m scared at the prospect of telling Emily the untellable.
“Start where it doesn’t hurt,” she tells me, and I instantly think of Liam and his exact words to me only hours ago. Our time together feels like centuries ago.
“‘If I Could Turn Back Time’ by Cher,” I instantly say, which makes us both smile through the tears. When shit gets real, we go ‘80s. I take her hands in mine and I begin rewinding to that night I first met the man I thought would be my everything.
“What Kind Of Fool” by Barbra Streisand & Barry Gibb
Emily and I have spent the last hour huddled in bed under the covers, making up for years of me being a stupid cow and keeping shit from her. I’ve described for her like I did for Liam how I first met Jeffery that night Eddie took us out to that club. I told her how I attacked him when he came to my room that night, and I then confessed to lying about having any interaction with him until he came to my sweet sixteen party a year later. I’ve told her everything up to my eighteenth birthday.
I then described club Lunna and that night I decided to celebrate alone and make all my lies a reality. I even told her about Phillip Dashell, which made her cringe thinking that I could’ve been involved with him.
“Such a small world we live in. You encountered one of Louis’ then best friend over a year before he and I ever met.” She still hasn’t asked me anything about Liam and I don’t want to go off course and start describing that train wreck, yet. We need to deal with one disaster at a time. Louis has peeked in twice already and sent in sandwiches with full tea service for us, which we devoured. I guess getting all worked up emotionally builds up a good appetite.
I continue telling Em what happened once Phillip put me in a cab to go home, and I remember one of the most important nights of my life.
I finally got home that dreadful, cold night. After the way I’d spoken to Jeff on the phone, I was sure he’d already left and would want nothing to do with me, but I was very wrong. My response must’ve fueled him; he was a man on a mission.
When the cab pulled up to my house before I could get out, Jeff opened the door and got in. He gave the cab driver an address and off we went. I remember that cab ride like it was yesterday. Even after my traumatizing evening with Phillip, I was still excited to be this close to the boy that I’d lied and fantasied about for years. He looked furious with me, but he was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. He was all mine; he just didn’t know it yet. I replayed in my head the things he and I did in the fictional world I’d created for us. This was only the third time I’d seen him in three years, yet I felt like I knew him better than I knew myself.
I remember Jeff finally speaking, and the first thing he said to me was, “Am I too late?”
I looked at him, not understanding his question one bit. What was he too late for my birthday? So I said, “Yes, you’re too late.”
He closed his eyes as if I had just said the worst thing I could possibly say. I couldn’t understand what he was freaking out about, but then it hit me! He was asking if I slept with Phillip. I started panicking and got closer to him to make sure he didn’t think that I had just had sex.
“NO! NO! I didn’t have sex with him! I pushed him away, I didn’t want him—he wasn’t you! I just want you.” I remember frantically trying to make him understand.
He looked at me and I looked at him, and I guess you could say that was the beginning of the end for us. From that moment on, I haven’t made it through a single day without thinking about him. When we finally came crashing down on each other, we were like two starving animals. That kiss in the back of the cab was beyond intense, it was a hunger three years in the making. I