“People like me?”
“Yes. People like you. People with zero morals and way too much money!”
“Why are you here? I’ve offered to buy your half about a thousand times.”
“And I said no, so you could have spared yourself about nine hundred and ninety-nine of them. Liam, there is no reason for you to want to live in this house.”
“This is my family’s house!”
“It was Helena’s house as much as it’s yours, and—”
“Helena is fucking dead.”
It takes a few moments for Liam’s words to fully register. He abruptly turns off the stove and then stands there, half-naked in front of the sink, hands clenched around the edge of the counter and muscles as tight as guitar strings. I can’t stop staring at him, this—this viper who just mentioned the death of one of the most important people in my life with such angry, dismissive carelessness.
I am going to destroy him. I’m going to annihilate him. I am going to make him suffer, to spit in his stupid smoothies, to break his vinyls one by one.
Except that Liam does something that changes everything. He presses his lips together, pinches his nose, then wipes a large, exhausted hand down his face. All of a sudden something clicks inside my head: Liam Harding, standing right in front of me, is tired. And he hates this, all of this, just as much as I do.
Oh God. Maybe my broccoli stir-fry really did stink, and I should have put it in a Tupperware. Maybe the Frozen soundtrack can be a tiny bit annoying. Maybe I could have signed for that stupid package. Maybe I wouldn’t react well to someone coming to live under my roof, either, especially if I didn’t have a say in the matter.
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes. Maybe I am the asshole. Or at least one of them. God. Oh God.
“I . . .” I rack my brain for something to say and find nothing. Then some dam inside me breaks, and the words explode out. “Helena was my family. I know you don’t get on with your family, and . . . maybe you hated her, I don’t know. Granted, she could be really grumpy and nosy, but she . . . she loved me. And she was the only real home I ever had.” I dare to glance at Liam, half expecting a sneer of derision. A snarky comment about Helena that will make me want to punch him again. But he’s staring at me, attentive, and I force myself to look away and continue before I can change my mind. “I think she knew that. I think maybe that’s why she left me this house, so that I’d have some kind of . . . of something. Even after she was gone.” My voice breaks on the last word, and now I’m crying. Not full-on bawling like when I watch The Lion King or the first ten minutes of Up, but quiet, sparse, implacable tears that I have no hope of stopping. “I know you probably see me as some . . . proletarian usurper who’s come to take over your family fortune, and believe me, I get it.” I wipe my cheek with the back of my hand. My voice is rapidly losing heat. “But you have to understand that while you’re living here because you’re trying to prove some point, or for some sort of pissing contest, this pile of bricks means the world to me, and . . .”
“I didn’t hate Helena.”
I look up in surprise. “What?”
“I didn’t hate Helena.” His eyes are on his half-made omelet, still sizzling on the stove.
“Oh.”
“Every summer she’d leave California for a few weeks. Where did you think she went?”
“I . . . she just said she spent her summers with family. I always assumed that . . .”
“Here, Mara. She came here. Slept in the room next to yours.” Liam’s voice is clipped, but his expression softens into something I’ve never seen before. A faint smile. “She claimed it was to check up on my world-pollution plans. Mostly, she nagged me about my life choices in between meeting with old friends. And she kicked my ass at chess a lot.” He scowls. “I am positive she cheated, but I could never prove it.”
“I . . .” He must be making this up. Surely. “She never mentioned you.”
His eyebrow lifts. “She never mentioned you. And yet you were in her will.”
“But . . . But, wait. Hang on a minute. At the funeral . . . I thought you didn’t get along with your family?”
“Oh, I don’t. They’re pretentious, judgmental, performative assholes—and I’m quoting Helena, here. But she was different, and I got on with her. I cared about her. A lot.” He clears his throat. “I’m not sure where you got the idea that I didn’t.”
“Well, you not coming to the funeral fooled me.”
“Knowing Helena, do you think she’d have cared?”
I think about my second year. The one time I organized a small surprise party for Helena’s birthday in the department, and she just . . . left. Literally. We yelled Surprise! and dropped a handful of balloons. Helena gave us a scathing look, stepped inside the room, cut a slice of her birthday cake while we stared in silence, and then went to her office to eat it alone. She locked herself in. “Okay. That’s a good point.”
Liam nods.
“Do you know why she left me the house?”
“I do not. Initially I figured it was some kind of prank. One of her chaotic power plays. Like when she’d guilt-trip you into watching old shows with her?”
“God, she always picked—”
“The Twilight Zone. Even though she already knew all the twist endings.” He rolls his eyes. Then his expression changes. “I didn’t know her health had gotten so bad. I called her two days before she died, exactly two days, and she told me . . . I shouldn’t have believed her.”
My heart sinks. I was there. I know the exact conversation Liam is referring to, because I heard Helena’s side of it. The way she fielded questions and minimized the concerns of the person on the other side of the line. She lied her way through an hour of chatter—it was obvious that she was happy about the call, but she wasn’t honest about how bad things had gotten, and I felt uncomfortable about the deception. Then again, she did that with everyone. She’d have done the same with me if I hadn’t been her ride to doctors’ appointments.
“I wish she’d let me be there.” Liam’s tone is impersonal, but I can hear the unsaid. How painful it must have been to be kept in the dark. “But she didn’t, and it was her decision. Just like leaving you the house was her decision, and . . . I’m not happy about it. I don’t understand it. But I accept it. Or at least, I’m trying to.”
For the first time, I realize what my arrival in D.C. must have been like from Liam’s perspective: Some girl he’d never even heard about, some girl who’d had the privilege to be with Helena during her last few days, suddenly showing up and forcibly wiggling her place into his home. His life. While he was trying to come to terms with his loss and mourn the only relative he felt close to.
Maybe he acted like an asshole. Maybe he never made me feel welcome or wasn’t particularly nice, but he was in pain, just like me, and . . .
What a total mess. What an obtuse idiot I’ve been.
“I . . . I’m sorry for what I said earlier. I didn’t mean any of it. I don’t know you at all, and . . .” I trail off, unsure how to continue.