I wait and I look and I move forward a small step more, thinking that if it’s meant to be, he’ll see me. If it’s meant to be, he’ll find me.

But he doesn’t.

With a final pull at his travel bag, he ducks into the car and closes the door. The taxi pulls away and I still don’t move. My stomach drops as I wonder if I just made a life-altering mistake. Maybe. Or maybe I just saved myself from another brutal heartbreak in the making. Still not knowing which side the coin will fall on, I disappear deeper and deeper into the crowds, silently hoping that I’ll disappear completely.

22

After I don’t appear in the courtyard for our usual breakfast the next morning, I’m not surprised when I hear knocking at my apartment door bright and early. Still in my pajamas, I cross the faux white marble floor of the entryway and pull the door open, finding Liam outside. He’s holding our pizzas and looking concerned.

“I don’t know what happened, but I do know that only something horrific would keep you from breakfast.”

“Come in,” I say, pushing the door back and stepping aside.

“I have to warn you, the pizzas are now cold and slightly soggy. I don’t think that will stand in your way, but I feel morally obligated to tell you.”

“I’m not deterred in the least.”

“I expected as much.”

Ten minutes later, Liam and I are settled in the living room. The space is minimally decorated with just a couch, a coffee table and a chair in front of the TV that I never watch. It’s on par with what you would expect from a pre-furnished apartment. Occupying the not-quite-as-comfortable Italian version of my reading chair, I’ve just finished explaining why I’m moping around inside instead of sitting out in the sunshine. Liam sits at one end of the brown upholstered couch and is holding the journal, minus the letter, which I just told him about.

“Well,” he says, leaning forward to place the journal on the rounded coffee table in front of him, “and who says people don’t make grand gestures anymore?”

“I wish Ryan didn’t make this one,” I mutter, pulling my knees close to my chest.

“Liar.”

Liam continues to regard me in that problem-solver way of his. “So just to clarify,” he goes on, “because he didn’t make magical eye contact with you in a highly dense and somewhat chaotic intersection during rush hour...you believe that was the universe saying you shouldn’t be together?”

“It was an emotionally trying moment and I needed a tie-breaker.”

“Wow. You’re worse off than I originally thought.”