Disclaimer: I'M NOT ASSOCIATED WITH LIV AND MADDIE IN ANY WAY BECAUSE IF I WAS LOLDEN NEVER WOULD HAVE BROKEN UP!
▲ five time holden thought about kissing liv…
i.
Holden thought he'd had his heart broken before, but it's nothing compared to the agonizing pain of losing Liv Rooney.
As soon as he's broken up with her, he wants her back, and he walks up her porch a hundred times before turning around and going back to his.
His heart feels heavy every second of every day, and all he wants is to fix things between them. So finally he decides it's time to try. He can deal with just being one of Liv's things, as long as it means he still has her, and he heads over with a chocolate lava cake and anything as part of his apology.
The conversation starts out so promising; she's driven by his house six times, she's as sad as he is. He wants to tell her that they can make it work, that it'll be okay… and then she says the words that crush him impossibly more. She says that he was right, that she doesn't have time for this, for them, and whatever pieces of his heart that were still intact shatter.
He hands her the cake, and as she opens the door to go inside, he wants so badly to kiss her goodbye… But he can't, because their goodbyes have already been said.
He turns like he's going to go, but instead when she closes the door, he slumps back into the porch swing and buries his head in his hands.
ii.
Still going to school with her is hard.
They said they'd be friends again someday, but right now he knows that he's not ready for that. Right now he doesn't know how to be around her without thinking about what they had – what he wishes they still had.
But it seems like Holden sees her everywhere he goes, even when she's not really there. She's around every corner, she's outside every door, she's just… all he can think about, and it's driving him crazy.
She notices, too. He knows she does, because one day they literally bump into each other outside the lockers and she reaches out and grabs his hand before he can scurry away.
"Holden, are you okay?"
He just shrugs and says, "Yeah, Liv, I'm fine," because she seems to be moving on with her life just fine, and how can he admit that he's hurting so much inside still?
She nibbles on her bottom lip, like she's not sure she believes him – like she's trying not to frown – and then she asks, "Are we okay?"
They're not, they're so far from okay that he wants to laugh or cry in response, but instead he says, "Of course, Liv. We're fine. Friends someday, right?"
She looks so relieved that she throws her arms around him in a hug, and she smells so good and she feels so right pressed against him that he wants to bend down and kiss her, like it could fix every problem in the world just to feel her lips against his, but instead he draws in a deep breath and nods yes as she asks, "Can we be friends now? Because I really, really miss you."
iii.
Being friends now means that when Liv misses school for what he assumes is a Voltage recording, and Maddie misses school for a basketball tournament and Parker misses it for a science competition and Joey's there but NOBODY trusts Joey, Holden, as the dutiful neighbor, gets the responsibility of bringing Liv her homework to catch up on.
Except that Liv's not at Voltage rehearsals; she's sick and home alone, trying to take care of herself while her mom's stuck in meetings all day with upset parents.
Even lying in bed with her hair stuck to her forehead from sweat, and with a pile of tissues next to her bed from blowing her nose, she looked beautiful, and as soon as he sees her, Holden knows he can't leave. He makes her soup and practically feeds it to her, and then he puts on old Sing It Loud reruns and watches with her (singing along, of course, because it wouldn't be them if they didn't) until she finally falls into a restful sleep.
Mrs. Rooney finally gets home to take over sick Liv duty and thanks Holden so much for staying with her, and if she notices that Holden's holding Liv's hand, she doesn't say anything. He casts one last look at Liv, sleeping peacefully, and he wants to kiss her on the forehead before he leaves… but that's a boyfriend thing to do, and he's not her boyfriend. Not anymore.
A sharp pain strikes his chest as he walks down the stairs and heads back to his own home.
iv.
Liv's on a filming break from Voltage, and they get the band back together… 's like she doesn't know what to do with her free time on the rare occasion she has it – or maybe, he hopes, she misses him as much as he still misses her, and wants the excuse to spend time together. He's not sure, but Holden is sure that if there was any chance of forgetting about her, it flies out the window as soon as they start rehearsing again.
They've already booked their first gig: prom, so they've only got so much time to prepare new songs to work on. That's how Holden and Liv find themselves sitting at an all too familiar piano, workshopping the new lyrics he's written while Andie and Willow take care of their equipment set-up.
Liv's voice sounds perfect on the song – just like he knew it would, because he wrote it with her in mind. They start singing together and Holden feels that electricity still crackling between them, and for the first time since they broke up, he wonders if maybe, just maybe, Liv is still feeling it too.
She's staring at his lips, he's staring at hers, and he doesn't even know if they're singing the lyrics anymore. Instead, their faces are inching closer together…until Andie bursts in and says everything's all set up and they can start their rehearsal now, and they jump apart, shocked by what had almost just happened.
v.
It's prom, and Holden always imagined himself being here with Liv. Even since he was a little kid stealing her pen… he imagined himself being here with Liv. So now that he is here, with the band, performing for the audience, with Liv but also not, he doesn't really know what to do.
They're on a break and they're just standing there, shuffling awkwardly as a slow song plays because being too close to each other is still hard. It still makes his body scream to get closer, to hold her the way he used to when things were good and easy and right, but she's the most beautiful girl he's ever seen and she doesn't deserve to be standing on the sidelines as her senior prom passes her by.
"May I have this dance?" Holden asks her, leaving off the 'my lady' that he would have added just a few months ago.
Liv hesitates, and he thinks she's going to say no… But then she says, in a squeak, "I'd love to, Holden," and he leads her out onto the dance floor.
She rests his head on her shoulder, and Holden feels like that crushing weight on his chest every time he's around her is gone for a few seconds. This is close to the perfect prom night he always imagined – it would only be more perfect if he could actually kiss her, and call her his girlfriend again.
As the song ends and they pull back, the magic of the evening and the ambiance make him consider it for a moment, but then Willow's waving them back towards the stage for their next song, and the moment's lost.
…and the one time he did.
It's graduation. It's an end, and a beginning, and Holden knows he should be thinking about the future, or about the past, but all he can think about is Liv Rooney.
She's standing on stage, as their class speaker, and she's talking about how she's headed to LA next year to film Voltage there instead, while Maddie goes to SCSU to play basketball with Willow, and her dad moves out there to coach, and the whole Rooney family's uprooting themselves and leaving all of this behind. Leaving him behind.
She looks so beautiful, even in her goofy graduation cap. and he thinks she should look thrilled about this new chapter in her life… but there's a tinge of sadness there, too, and Holden recognizes it because it's what he's been feeling ever since it sunk in that he won't be seeing her every single day anymore. They may not be together, but she's still everything to him, and he's not ready to lose her. He's not ready to say goodbye.
She comes back to her seat after her speech – which is next to him, apparently whoever did the seating arrangement doesn't understand the alphabet – and he whispers, "Great speech, Liv," while the ceremony comes to a close.
"I'm going to miss you," she says at the same time as he says, "I'm going to college in L.A.," a decision he hasn't told her about yet. He'd been waiting for the right time, but it's them, which means there's never a right time. He's always waiting, waiting for something, and he doesn't want to wait anymore.
He's spent the last few months missing her, wanting her, loving her, and now she's right here, her green eyes wide in surprise, her lips parted in a slight smile, and as they announce the Ridgewood Class of 2016, and everyone around them stands up.
Everyone except for Liv, who can't tear his eyes off of him. Maybe it's their time, or maybe it's not, but Holden leans forward and finally kisses her, feeling his heart thundering against his chest as graduation caps that have been tossed into the air rain down on them.
He thinks maybe Liv is going to push him away, or tell him that they can't do this, or remind him that the timing's not right for them – but instead, she says, "Ow!" as she swats away a cap that's landed on her head, giggles slightly, and goes right back to kissing Holden.
Maybe it's a goodbye, a chapter closing, or maybe it's a hello, a new beginning… but it's all Holden wants, and they can figure out the rest later.