Life is Liz (LiL, #1)

Chapter 55: Part 2: More Firsts

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You can heal broken bones; you can't heal a broken mind. ~Dia Reeves

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"Tell me more about your friends," I said, trying to distract myself from the nervous mess my body had become the minute we entered his truck.

"Hmm," he said as he reached out and placed his free hand on my left thigh. "So, you know about Val. Then there's Maxx..."

I nodded for him to continue, curious to know more.

"I'm gonna be honest with you and tell you that you'll probably hate him."

I almost choked on my own spit. How could he say that? He should know better than to think I was so easy to judge. "What? Why?"

"Well for one, he's a real manwhore and therefore he only thinks of girls as objects and play toys which is totally wrong. And because of all this he takes relationships as a joke so it wouldn't surprise me if he gives you a hard time. Overall, he's a total asshole." I swallowed hard. His description of someone he claimed was one of his closest friends made me wonder why they were friends to begin with. "We kind of have a love-hate friendship."

"Very reassuring," I mumbled under my breath. He heard.

"Hey." He glanced at me before his focus was back on the road, his hand squeezing my thigh. "I won't leave your side, okay? If he gives you shit I'll be right there to defend you."

"My knight in shining armor," I teased.

He grinned, but remained serious. "Damn right, I am. Nobody's touching my girl if I'm around."

For some reason, my stomach got all fluttery at his words. Or were that just my nerves acting up again?

The drive wasn't long, maybe fifteen minutes, however, in the little time we had left Sam managed to fill me in on the rest of his group of friends. There was Ash, the quiet one of the squad, more observer than talker. I liked him instantly.

And last but not least, Reese, Maxx' best friend. Apparently, he was also a jerk but not quite as much as Maxx.

I'm so thrilled to meet his friends, I thought.

Once the car was parked, Sam turned to me. He looked me over before taking my clammy, left hand into his' and pressed a kiss to my knuckles. I was grateful for his affection but sadly, it did nothing to diminish the ache in my tummy. My mind just didn't work that way. I wish it would.

If all the problems I had with my mental health could be solved by the touch of someone I cared about, a hug or a kiss, life would be so much damn easier. But life wasn't meant to be easy, was it? No, unfortunately, Alex was right, the way he'd put it that night might have been drunken talk, but the message behind, he got all right.

"What did you mean when you said Life is Liz?"

"It means that although life can be sad, feisty, fearful or lonely there's more to it than what meets the eye. If you dig deeper you can find elation, selflessness, bravery and security. It means, Elizabeth, that although life can fuck you up sometimes, it's still so damn beautiful."

Sometimes, all we could do is accept the bad in order to be able to embrace the good. That I knew better than anyone. If I didn't push myself to go through something that caused me fear I would pass up a lot of great experiences and a lot of fun. But there always were things that I knew would bring me mostly joy, like meeting friends or people in general, and those I knew would either just embarrass me or end in a horrible disaster, like trying out new things that required certain skills I lacked.