“At first, I was so angry,” I told him. “But everyone else was too, so I kept defending him all the time. Then, everybody started missing him, so I kept reminding them of what a great guy he was and how it was okay to miss him. Eventually, they all started moving on—”

“And you?”

“I was still angry.”

He smiled with such warmth.

I let my eyes go back to the wall, spotting a photo of Liam and me on the day he graduated from high school. “You know, everyone thinks he was going to go to Brown, like Dad. But he wasn’t.”

“No?”

I shook my head. “He had this car he made me go look at with him. He was going to buy it, hit the road with Emma, and drive to California, where they were both going to Berkeley—after getting married, that is.”

“No way!”

“They were going to leave just a few weeks after graduation.”

“What would your parents have done, you think?”

“Mom would’ve probably been okay with it, after the initial shock subsided,” I said. “Dad would’ve been pissed though.”

“I can imagine. In my house, it would’ve been reversed. Dad would be chill; Mom would go berserk.”

“So, you’re saying we can’t run away?” I joked.

“Oh, I’ll run away with you.” He raised both eyebrows and looked at me, serious.

“She was pregnant, they thought. Emma.”

“No!” he whispered as if someone could somehow overhear us.

“I had to go in with her after he died, to find out. It was horrible.”

“Jesus, Tom.”

“It’s funny.” I furrowed my brow. “I keep finding pictures I didn’t even know he had.”

“I love you in these. Especially this one.” He leaned forward and put the tip of his fingers on a photo of me, sitting on the asphalt with my legs stretched out and a cigarette in between my lips.

“I remember that one. We were coming back from some club, and there was this huge line at a pizza place we stopped to eat at. I got bored and sat on the street.”

“You look hot,” he said, smirking.

“I look drunk, actually. But, speaking of which, what do you say we order some pizza?”

“Are you planning on getting drunk again?” he asked, standing up.

“After last night? No, thank you.”

Before reaching the door, he turned, waiting for me. I looked at Liam’s mural for a few moments, then carefully removed that photo of me from it. I stretched out my arm, handing it to him.

“What’s this?” he asked, looking at but not taking the picture from my hand.

“Didn’t you like this photo?”

“Yes, but—it was his.” He reluctantly took it.

“Now, it’s yours,” I said before walking out of the room.