NOVEL WEB Chapter 11: Unexpected Réunion
Ava's building had a sleek and minimalist lobby which seemed almost constrictive. As always, Ava dashed down it: a whirl of smartly tailored suits and brisk strides. Tonight, however, the well-tilled marble floor seemed to stretch its entirety out before her, each step resounding the nervous thump-thump of her heart.
She had seen him the moment she stepped out of the cab - Liam, her ex-boyfriend, somehow looking even more devastatingly handsome than she remembered. He stood against a pillar, the way of a casual elegance that just screamed, "I haven't aged a day, and neither has my impeccable taste." A wave of nausea - an age-old cocktail of anxiety and regret - washed over her. The last thing she wanted to deal with was an encounter with Liam. Their charade with Ethan was already on shakier ground than she could ever take; Liam, with that boyish charm of his and uncanny ability to sniff out any deception, could be the final blow.
She thought she'd successfully locked him away in the past, yet here he was: a ghost haunting her from a relationship she'd buried deep, now about to lead her to exhuming all those carefully suppressed feelings of insecurity. A text from Ethan appeared on her phone: "Everything okay? You're taking forever." The calmness of his message felt almost cruel, juxtaposed with the maelstrom raging inside. She hurried typed: "Slight delay. See you soon." Liam caught a glimpse of her phone vase minding it had lit up.
He smiled knowingly. "Ava," he said, his voice low, steadily rumbling like an approaching storm, sending chills along her spine. Years melted away, replaced by the customary warmth - and dangerous pull - of his particular presence. It was as if time had ceased, leaving the two of them alone in the deafening silence of the lobby. "Liam," she breathed. She felt an incongruous tingle of fear, and there was almost a certain thrill to it.
It was unsettling, for this instant had brought her quite a shock of something she felt she had long since buried. He was nearer now, the green of his eyes-the same color that had once pulled her in-so close that she could study his face. "Fancy meeting you here," he spoke, something unreadable in his tone-perhaps it was a trace of amusement, curiosity, or something darker. Words were thick in the air, memories grand and bitter. "Yeah, fancy meeting you here," she managed, with a voice that trembled.
She forced a laugh, which sounded brittle enough not to pass her unease. She shifted her weight, feeling an overwhelming need to end the suspense nature of the moment. "What brings you to New York?" she asked, trying to sound casual and nonchalant. The question hung there, a fragile bridge she wished had no chance of collapsing. "Business," he replied, holding her gaze. "A conference.
But I had to catch up with some old friends." His eyes lingered just a second longer on her. Between them passed silence-a voice she felt folded itself within her, clenched her stomach. Friends? Or was there something altogether darker roiling beneath that neither of them cared to admit? He'd said nothing of her "relationship" status, and for a second, Ava wondered if he did, in fact, suspect something. But, of course, this would mean he'd have to suspect Ethan as well, which was unreasonable. True, Liam had great intuition, but he was not a mind reader.
Even so, she was left shaken by the contact, not a dormant hit that would never die; it was an awkwardness-lingering, broken only by the whispering sounds of the city beyond the glass doors. It was a measured pause where a thought of leaving back at her with a sudden impetus tried to come into being, for she sure felt miserable with all the things they hadn't expressed and all the issue was still left unfinished. Yet Liam seemed adamant to prolong the rendezvous, his eyes fixated on her face. "You look good," he finally uttered after the lull, breaking the silence. It was such a simple compliment, but nonetheless powerful in an unexpected way.
There was genuine admiration there but no amount of polite pretensions of an acquaintance. It had an almost-private quality, and a tingle of excitement-and perhaps a pang of guilt-swept through her. Ava mumbled her thanks, finding herself very self-conscious all of a sudden. She felt that her constructed "in love" image for Ethan was flimsy and transparent, thin gossamer ready to be dispersed by a sudden gust. She wondered whether Liam realized that she was being tawdry, especially given the unremitting inconsistencies, the cracks in her carefully constructed facade. And then Ethan appeared, adult and unfamiliar, completely behind Liam.
His glance volleyed between her and Liam-an unmissable shift, direct yet somehow detached. The warmth she had felt with Liam shut off like a tap, a comfortable return to Ethan. But there was something between them, the tension in the air as their alliance shifted to this new complex layer of masquerades. Liam extended his hand to Ethan, a gesture that was not at all cordial given the psychological firmament overhead. "Ethan," he offered, his pristine yet set expression telling all satin-smooth yet with the occasional edge of what could equate to challenge, she said, "I've heard so much about you." Ethan kept dry and restrained in his response, with a firm handshake before he retreated. "Nice to meet you, too." She experienced the silent exchange between them with the unspoken acknowledgment of a rivalry, both personal and professional, that was nonexistent until that moment.
They were three people swarmed by a rather uneasy triangle formed by tension and unspoken words. The whole atmosphere crackled under the strange mixture of familiarity and suspicion, between past relationships and present deceits. The small talk came off as brittle, untrue, and strained. Ava was ready to scream by the time that she realized her very carefully constructed facade stood precariously near to crashing. Romantic, maybe, but the evening was soon turning into something closer to a potential disaster. As they finally broke apart, Liam gave Ava an every faster look- a look that said she knew more than she was letting on. Ava felt gooseflesh tiptoe its way down her spine, thickening the air and draping her very with uncertainty.
This was not over at all. Liam was, forever and always, going to be casting his long shadow over her carefully built relationship with Ethan, threatening to unravel everything she had painstakingly built. Awkward family dinners were nothing compared to this- facing a past that took the form of sweeter yet a bit sharper than reality, charming yet very perceptive ex-boyfriend. All of a sudden, the fake relationship that had so carefully been manufactured felt very fragile. It was a long elevator ride to their apartment and an uncomfortable quietness filled with the hum of the machinery. All this while, Ava could keep close to Ethan's eyes to her; they swept in inspection and inquiry. The casual comfort she had become comfortable with Changed their interactions into breeds of silent watchdogs, ere long; she knew he had noticed her episode with Liam, the lingering glances, the uncreated tension that somehow refuses to avoid the two.
He had said nothing, and the silence simply became deafening, more potent than the nuclear reaction of tension between the two of them. As they emerged from the lift, Ethan found his voice, low, steady. "Who was that?" Ava hesitated. She did not want to tell him every bit of the truth since it would shatter their fragile concoction of a relationship. "Just some dude from my past," she said, airy-like in an attempt to keep her voice light, but it was nowhere near close. Something about it stung their moment of heavy silence. Ethan did not broach the subject, but theirs was never going to be the same anymore-the easy jest, the comfortable silences, the inside jokes will not return to what was their previous interaction. In its place, some undercurrent of uncertainty and apprehension crept between them. Anything light was gone; heavier stuff-veins were running with complications.
The date they had conceived of, planned, and worked hard during the day to organize became somewhat of a bad joke, an empty rien against the sudden meeting with Liam. The idealized picture they had painted loomed, so ready to crack, that it threatened to reveal the truth they had been hiding so carefully. Ethan's silence became heavy as it was a chilling reminder of how precarious their situation was.
Ava felt a soothing heat in her chest, wanting to tear out all the guilt, the anxiety: what an evening it was, far from any perfect staged romance. Now it was rendered amiss and felt disgustedly out of place with undertones of unexpressed sentiments-each's gaze, each word, each tightness filled with mortification. The charade seemed to lose the convenience allure it originally sold.
The detached and teasing nature of the pact was gone, replaced by raw uncertainty and no less real than anything they had experienced. Liam's unexpected appearance was no mere speed bump; it was more akin to a detour that risked taking them along a path neither had expected-a path awash with carefully tangled lines between the fake and their too-real feelings, making it ever-more difficult to discern where the performance ended, and reality began.
Their carefully planned entanglement was falling apart at the seams, and Ava wondered whether it could be pieced back together, or if the cracks would hide too deep for curing. She brooded on it all night, buried beneath the weight of her uncertainty.