What We Choose to Live With
894 Words
[LIAM – PRESENT]
She was asleep again.
Not peacefully — no one bruised like that sleeps in peace. Her eyes twitched behind closed lids, and every few minutes, her fingers curled like she was gripping something invisible. Or someone.
Liam sat across the room, leaning against the wall, watching the storm outside fight with the sunrise.
He should call the police.
He should take her to a hospital.
He should do a thousand things except feel this fragile hope.
He ran a hand down his face and exhaled.
“Damn it, Sofia… why did you come back now?”
[SOFIA – FLASHBACK, 3 YEARS AGO]
She knew something was wrong the first time he raised his voice.
Not the volume — the weight behind it. Like his words weren’t meant to warn her, but to own her.
“You don’t need to go out with them again,” Matteo said, folding his arms. “Wives stay home.”
Sofia laughed nervously, thinking it was a joke.
It wasn’t.
He didn’t hit her that day. Not yet.
That came later — months later — with an apology and flowers and promises.
The first time she thought of Liam again was that night, curled up in the bathtub, hiding from a man she swore she knew.
[LIAM – PRESENT]
He opened a drawer in the kitchen and stared at the phone inside. One call. That’s all it would take.
But he knew cops like Matteo.
They closed ranks.
Even if he was abusive — especially if he was abusive — they’d protect their own.
And Sofia? She’d be back in hell before nightfall.
He slammed the drawer shut.
[SOFIA – FLASHBACK, 2 YEARS AGO]
“You still talk to him?”
Matteo held up her phone.
She didn’t know what he’d seen. Maybe an old photo. A text from her sister. A saved number he didn’t recognize.
She reached for it.
He slapped her.
Her ears rang. Her eyes watered. But worse than the pain was the shock — not of the hit, but of how fast he became someone else.
“You don’t need friends,” he said. “You have me.”
That night, she dug an old letter from the back of her closet — one Liam had written years ago but she never sent back.
It still smelled like lake water and longing.
[LIAM – PRESENT]
Sofia stirred.
He moved to the doorway again, keeping a careful distance.
Her lips parted. “Are you angry?”
He hesitated. “Yeah.”
She nodded, not offended.
“I deserve that.”
“Damn right you do,” he muttered. Then softer: “But I’m still not letting him hurt you again.”
Tears slipped from the corner of her eye. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
“You knew,” he said. “You just didn’t want to believe I’d still open the door.”
And yet — he had.
He placed a glass of water and a warm plate of food on the small table beside her.
“You need to eat,” Liam said softly. “You have to keep your strength up.”
Sofia didn’t move right away. Her gaze drifted toward the window, where the rain had finally slowed, but the sky still flickered with lightning, casting shadows across the room. The quiet hum of distant thunder rolled like a heartbeat under the silence.
Then, in a voice barely above a whisper, she said, “Thank you for letting me in. You’ve always been there for me… even when I didn’t deserve it.”
Liam didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He just looked at her — bruised, broken, and still achingly familiar — and felt the old ache swell in his chest.
[FLASHBACK – TEN YEARS EARLIER]
The first time Liam saw her, she was sitting alone under a tree, clutching a spiral notebook like it was armor.
It was the third school he’d transferred to that year, and he was used to silence. Used to being the new kid. Used to not being seen.
But Sofia saw him.
“Hey,” she said, brushing her hair from her face. “You draw?”
He blinked. “What?”
She nodded toward the sketchbook under his arm. “Your notebook. I saw you doodling in math. You’re good.”
He didn’t know what to say. People usually teased him for that.
Sofia scooted over without waiting for him to answer, “I write. Maybe we can make something together.”
And just like that, they did.
For the next few years, they became inseparable. Every late-night call, every broken curfew, every secret they didn’t know how to say to anyone else — they said to each other.
She was his safe place. And somehow, he became hers too.
He was there when her mom left. When her dad got sick. When she almost gave up writing for good because someone told her she wasn’t good enough.
He was there when she started dating Matteo — even though he smiled through it with a mouth full of broken glass.
[PRESENT]
Liam looked down at Sofia now, her face partially hidden by the blanket he’d wrapped around her shoulders. So much had changed, and yet…
He was still here.
Still choosing her.
Even when she never chose him back.
- Writer
