So I had one of those moments where I thought about the couple, and then a page just wrote itself. Here is a speedy update.
Just after midnight, she gets a call, a local unknown number. Liam? He just left her, less than an hour ago, to tell her parents about the accident. And he also told her he was there for her, to pick up any pieces she left behind, though in not so many words.
"I need you to come pick me up. I'm at the station and I don't know who else to call."
She was there in 11 minutes, according to her car's analogue clock. She bailed him out, no questions asked, until back in her car. As he told her of his former boat, now a charred and blackened remnant of the once white, beautiful vessel he labored over for the more than a year, his eyes shone. She wasn't certain whether they shone with unshed tears, or with the few precious memories of the finished boat. But, for whatever tears he held back, she compensated for with her own.
And even as he recalls to her at how he lost his temper, how he beat her former boyfriend and stalker to a bloody mess, she keeps her hand clasped on his shaking wrist, never letting go, never even momentarily exerting less pressure. She makes an internal promise not to visit Jasper in hospital – Hell, not to talk to him, look at him, or acknowledge him. He had inflicted more pain on Liam than any amount of physical pain, and it was for this, more than the stalking, or the lying, or the manipulating, that she could never forgive him.
She drives to the car park of the now deserted pier, and they begin to talk, looking straight ahead without risking eye contact. When she asks him why it was her that he called, he tells her of his break-up with Naomi, and she tries to show no reaction. But there are sirens in her head, colouring her vision red and telling her to get out now. But like any half-decent masochist, she remains with him in this painful equilibrium between desire and comfort. He didn't answer her question. She asks him again why it was her, not why it wasn't Naomi. He turns his head now, and after a moment of wonderfully intense stare she falters and looks down, unable to hold his gaze.
She then tells him of her parents' reaction – they were shocked, but final understanding of her behaviour in the past year helped them a lot. They told her to go to the station and make a confession, but, on the verge of breaking down, she tells him of their decision not to accompany her. He immediately takes control, and all of a sudden he is holding her, albeit awkwardly across the gap between the car seats. He promises she won't be alone; he will make sure of this.
Tears and angst fade away as she tells him of Dixon's escape to Australia, and there is laughter and bids of 'good luck' to Dixon, though he cannot hear their encouraging words, which heralds more of her laughter. She is not upset anymore, yet he still holds her nearest shoulder, squeezing tightly once in a while which sends unexpected jolts to her toes. They smile and talk, with minimal moments of silence, until the sky reaches a powder blue hue and the sun surfaces slightly above the water, across the vest expanse of ocean that reminds them of water they won't be sailing on.