Where I Should Be

chapter 3: broken like stitches

Liya had been at home for a week, buried under the covers in the comfort of her bed. She hadn't checked her texts or calls after she'd sent a message to all her friends and family telling them she'd be MIA for a few days and since then, her only human interaction had been with the delivery people that had brought her food up to her place – which, not good for her bank account.

She knew there wasn't actually anything that would help the ache in her heart, but right now, all she could think of doing was drown her sorrow in Netflix binging and burgers.

She knew she had so many missed calls from Steve and James, she'd even seen Charlie's name flash across the screen a few times, but she couldn't bring herself to pick up the phone, in fear of seeing Andrew's names in the list of people who'd tried to contact her.

She couldn't trust herself with what she would do if Andrew called while she had her phone in her hand. She probably would answer, and knowing herself, she'd agree on meeting Andrew again, "to talk things up".

Because the truth was, even though Liya was so very mad, even though she wanted to bash Andrew's head in, even though she couldn't quite shake away the heart wrenching feeling she got when she heard Andrew tell Amara he loved her and when she saw them kiss in the middle of their bedroom, the truth was that Liya missed Andrew.

She missed Andrew's face, his laugh, his dumb jokes, the drawling in his voice, his painted nails, she missed Andrew's tickles against her ribs, she missed Andrew's obsession over Friends, she missed spending evenings curled up against his broad chest on the sofa and talking about life.

Liya missed the way only Andrew understood her truly and entirely, she missed how Andrew would know exactly when and how she needed him. She missed the sex too, how Andrew kissed and licked and fucked, she missed the roughness and the closeness and the way Andrew would feel on her tongue and she missed all the things Andrew would whisper in her ear when he was deep inside her.

She missed knowing that no matter what happened, she would always have Andrew by her side. Because now that the worst thing she could imagine happened to her, Andrew wasn't by her side.

Andrew was with his fiancé, the girl Liya had for so long hated and thought of as a simple phase Andrew was going through before coming back to Liya like he usually did.

When Andrew first told Liya about Amara, they were at lunch, and the news had been brought up so casually Liya would have never guessed things would get so serious between them. Andrew had met Amara at her workplace while he was there picking up flowers for his mum, and they'd flirted and she had asked Andrew out.

Andrew hadn't even talked about her again until a few weeks later, so long after Liya had kinda forgotten about her. Apparently, they had been seeing each other quite steadily without really putting a label on things, but Andrew seemed to like her enough, so Liya had decided to make an effort and had agreed to meet her.

The first time they met had gone terribly wrong, expectedly. Amara had stayed quiet all along, only smiling tightly at Liya's attempts to make jokes, and when Andrew had gone to pay for their drinks, she had simply ignored Liya for the benefits of scrolling through flower Instagram accounts.

Liya was not stupid. She knew how she and Andrew's relationship looked to a random person who didn't know them. They were touchier than the average best friends, they talked with their eyes and when they did talk, sometimes they would just get lost in each other and ignore the people around them.

They were soul mates at least, and the love of each other's lives at best. Liya liked to think they were both. Even when they were both seeing people, even when Liya had been dating Candy – the woman she was pretty sure she would've ended up having children with – she always had that nagging feeling in her heart that the person she belonged with was Andrew.