Set somewhere after the laptop incident between Liam and Annie. How I might have had the scene play out instead.
What had just happened? Had Liam even seen that? 'How could I have been so stupid?' thought Annie.
Liam had opened the untitled document in complete innocence; she had seen red and grabbed the laptop off him. He had left awkward after she'd made some lame excuse to get rid of him. It wasn't his fault, she knew that and now she was left wandering if that was even what she really wanted, for him to go...
Ever since the incident at the fountain and maybe even before that, they'd grown closer. She wasn't sure what it was or why she was drawn to him, but she was. Maybe she was just curious about him, a thought that caused a light smile to tug at her lips as she remembered his exact words from one of their earlier encounters, 'maybe I'm just curious about you...' She closed her eyes lost as to what she was even thinking, let alone what she was even meant to do. Maybe if she just sat here and shut out the world with her ipod in, the world would shut her out to and all of this would go away.
She didn't know how long it had been that she'd been sitting there when the lyrics started playing out to her, but it felt like long enough and suddenly she knew what she needed to do. The voice in her heart outshone her head and she was reminded that Liam had been nothing but honest with her lately. He'd told her the truth about things that she was pretty sure no one else in the world had been privy too, even Naomi. Unconsciously he'd opened his heart to her (or at least a part of it) the least she could do was the same to him, no matter how hard it would be. If anyone was going to understand, she was beginning to realise it could be him.
She'd walked home from school, after trying to find Liam with no success, tossing her things on her bed she wandered whether she'd get the chance to apologise for earlier. The day had turned to night outside and she decided any conclusions and twisted explanations of sorry would probably have to wait until tomorrow. She tossed and turned, trying and failing to ignore the worry of what Liam may or may not have seen; of what she had managed to keep hidden in the shoe box under her bed for so long now. Rolling over she noticed that the clock hadn't changed at all in what felt like the last hour, realising that sleep was not looking like an option,(at least while her heart had begun to feel weighted like a lead balloon), she did the only other thing she knew to do, she walked.
At first she didn't know where she was going, her feet just carried her in a direction that only they seemed to know the way to. It was only when she found herself face to face with an all too familiar door that she realised they had carried her to the place her heart had already lead her more than once over the last few weeks. Seeing no light on she pushed the door gently open and called out 'Liam...Liam...'Nope he was nowhere to be seen...She turned to walk away, as raindrops began to trickle from the twilight sky. 'Great' she thought 'I walk over here to an empty boat house and now I'm going to get wet!' Just as she was about to give up hope she saw him, a dusky silhouette of a person sitting by the waves. She kicked herself for not realising sooner that that was the only other place he would be. Slowly and cautiously she walked towards him, metres feeling like miles and each footprint matching a pound of the heart in her chest. This was Liam, why was she being like this? Finally she reached him, the sand wet beneath her toes and sat down beside him, close, but not too close. For what felt like forever neither one of them said anything, they just sat staring out at the vast immensity before them.
When she couldn't face the silence anymore she turned cautiously to him, readying herself for words she didn't know would come. She felt tears falling freely with the tangled mess of rain around them, though she wasn't sure when they had even begun, only that they were there.
But he was the first to speak, 'I tried to call...I need to...' he stopped mid sentence as he took in the broken brown-eyed girl that sat before him, breaking him from his own thoughts and a tiny piece of his heart with each tear that she silently let fall. 'Annie...what...what happened?' he asked.
Taking a deep breath she tried in vain to brush some of the tears away and compose herself. 'I, I...' she began. 'I couldn't sleep, after earlier...I'm sorry for the way...the way I reacted, I just...'
She looked down, unsure of whether she was really ready to unlock that shoe box under the bed just yet.
'Hey, its, its, okay,' he sought, seeing her struggle 'I shouldn't have gotten in your business, I'm sorry...' He continued to stare at her, as somehow she broke his heart a little bit more. Annie looked up slowly, calming now that she saw he wasn't going to push anything out of her (even if right now a small part of her wished he would). He waited, looking at her and brushing a stray hair away from her face, like he had at the fountain, only this time she didn't pull away.
'It's okay.' She finally said. 'I just, I'm just so scared Liam, I did something that I can never undo, and I, I didn't know where else to go, but I'm here now, again (she was rambling now) and I don't know what that means, or even if it means anything, but I'm here...' Only when she had stopped rambling did she realise that something in her words had triggered him to drift back to his own thoughts, it was then that she remembered what he had begun to say earlier, he had tried to call her...but why? Turning in the sand so she was closer to him she began again, 'Liam you said you called... why?'
The roles had reversed and now it was his turn to look down at her with eyes a little lost. 'So am I Annie, so am I' was all he said ignoring her question about why he had called and answering another she had silently asked, before she felt his arms wrap tightly around her.
So there sat two souls searching for something in the darkened twilight, and two hearts opening to the slight possibility that in amongst the mistakes of their own realities, they may just have found it, even if they didn't quite know it yet.
