If the four weeks between the previous ‘taco Tuesdays’ had been an eternity then the following week had only been a second. Everything seemed to pass by in a blur as I continued to avoid living life. 

Liam approached me again Tuesday as I exited the school building, after the previous week I had given up on trying to avoid Liam and had simply gone back to my usual routine. He hadn’t approached me and whatever spark had been ignited the previous week slowly dwindled once more. 

That afternoon though he approached me and instead of his pulling me with him or my walking away I found myself falling in step beside him, walking to the parking lot together. Like everything else in my life, it was just easier to allow the flow of things to take over and propel me. Silence still hung between us but it didn’t feel as oppressive as it usually did with other people. The silence between us continued until we were seated at the Taco Bell again. 

The table he picked was right up against the window overlooking the busiest street in our small city. It wasn’t until I was halfway through my second taco that he spoke.

“Is you not talking how you deal with stuff?” he asked. 

I turned to face him and saw that he was staring right back at me. Liam still looked like crap but his eyes were different than last week, the color had returned to them and he was now pinning me with the full force of them. It was easy to lose myself in his eyes and they were such a deep rich blue I could almost imagine myself drowning in his gaze.

Without looking away from him I shrugged my shoulders.

“Are you still dating that guy?” Liam switched topics causing my breath to hitch slightly.

Trying my best to hide the fact that the change of subject had startled me I reached into my pocket and took out my phone. I slid it across the table to him before finally breaking eye contact with him and returning my focus to the food in front of me. I heard him pick the phone up and I held my breath as he unlocked it. 

“Can’t believe you haven’t broken up with him,” he said after a few minutes obviously finding the answer he was looking for. I couldn’t figure out what his sudden interest was in my relationship if that was even what it was now. My boyfriend had thankfully not visited me in a while and I couldn’t remember the last time I actually talked to him though he continued to send me strings of texts as he carried on one-sided conversations in my inbox.

Instead of questioning Liam's interest, I continued to eat my tacos until I ran out at which point Liam pushed his remaining nachos towards me, which I accepted mostly to give myself something to do. Once everything was done Liam pushed my phone back towards me. I waited until he left the table to dispose of the trash before picking it up and unlocking the screen again.

Liam had left my texts open and after a quick glance, I saw that there was a new message in the conversation with my boyfriend.

‘We are breaking up with you.’ it said simply. The phrasing confused me though since it seemed to be a weird merging of ‘I’m breaking up with you’ and ‘We are breaking up’. I felt Liam’s warmth come up to stand beside me and when I turned to face him he looked a little bit worried.

“I should have asked first, your not mad though are you?” he asked me the concern over my feelings bleeding into each word.

Was I mad? I don’t know if I could even tell what anger would feel like anymore but I knew that I hadn’t felt anything in weeks and now was different somehow. The spark that had been ignited the previous week had been kindled again leaving me feeling something but not sure what it was other than warm and pleasant. 

 It had never been my idea to start the relationship so this seemed to be the kind of ending it deserved. Maybe it wasn’t the nicest way for it to be done but I was so disinterested that I couldn’t even feel guilty about it.

The phone vibrated in my hand and when I turned to look at the screen again a new message had appeared under the one Liam had sent.

‘What?!? Baby you can't be serious I lovvvvve you so much!! Please tell me what's wrong and I will make it right!’

I didn’t love James, I wasn’t sure if I even ever liked him. His personality was similar to his texting style, loud and obnoxious. 

Raising my thumb up over the screen I let it hover over the messages for a few minutes before dropping down and copying the text from a previous message and pasting it into the box at the bottom of the screen before hitting send.

‘We are breaking up with you.’ still a weird mashed-up phrasing but it made more sense now that we both sent it. 

Turning to look at Liam again I saw that he had obviously been watching me the entire time. The worry on his face had been replaced with a small smile and seeing it pulled the corners of my own mouth up. Somewhere deep inside of me the small ember grew slightly making me feel warmer than I had in a long time. 

If this was what feeling things were going to be like then I might not mind it.