Can't Let You Go

Chapter 15

***HONEY/TALLY***

After I end the video call with Zayan, Liam and I discuss his proposal.

"Are you really sure you want to make this offer to me? It's a lot."

"I'm sure. We've gotten along so far and you're a hard worker. It's not a financial burden for me to pay for your school. Besides, you'll pay me back some day."

"I will. I promise I will." I rub my hands together the way I see people doing in K-dramas when they're praying extra hard or pleading their case to someone.

"Of course you will because you'll be signing a contract saying so."

"Contract or not, I'd still pay you back."

"I'm sure you would, but I like to have everything laid out crystal clear. We'll terminate the old contract and I'll write a new one." He ruffles my hair before standing up and leaving my bedroom. An hour or so passes before he joins me on the couch, papers in hand.

"Read over this and then sign it."

"This is pretty long," I muse as I flip a page. Liam just raises an eyebrow as if telling me I should have expected that.

It's quite a detailed contract so both of us know what to expect in terms of our roles in the house and for each other. He won't compromise on anything, but it's not like I really have any other choice and it's not a bad deal. In the end I sign it. The following Saturday he drags me out of the house after getting a text. A funny little van is parked in the alley. I don't recognize the Korean words written on it.

"What's this?" I ask as he opens the passenger door for me.

"We're going shopping."

"We can't take a taxi? What kind of shopping requires us to have a van?"

"Furniture shopping."

"Really?" I raise up on my toes. I've never gone furniture shopping; it seems grown up.

"Yep. We're taking a little retail trip to Sweden."

I look at him puzzled for a moment then smile when I understand his reference to the international brand of inexpensive, flat-pack furniture and home goods.

"Oohh. What are you buying?"

"A dining table and chairs, a few more towels, a dresser for you, some lamps, maybe some curtains." He ushers me into the vehicle.

"You don't need to buy furniture just for me."

"Fine, I'm getting a dresser to put in my guest room." He laughs as he closes the door. "I never bothered to really furnish my place, but now that we're both settling in for the long term, it's time to upgrade from bare essentials."

It takes a few days for us to assemble the furniture together and put everything in place, but doing so makes it feel like I belong here. With him.

School starts not long after and we fall into the routine he outlined in the contract. The college is fairly large and has a decent number of foreign exchange students. Experiencing abject loneliness has made me a bit more outgoing, so I join activity groups and soon start hanging out with new friends outside of school. 

For the most part, my friends and I are studious and take learning seriously. But whether it's college life or Korean life, when we have time to go out, all bets are off. Which means I started drinking again after having stopped when I moved in with Liam who I've never seen buy alcohol anywhere.

"You're joining everyone tonight aren't you, Love?" Alfie, a British exchange student, slings his arm over my shoulders when he catches up to me.

"There's a lot of people going tonight. It will be hard to keep everyone together." Word had spread between a couple of school groups with overlapping members so there would be a mixed group of Koreans and foreign exchange students, men and women.