Escaping Reality

another grocery store to the left. You have everything
    from doctors to hair salons all in a small radius. A lot like New York. Which
    is good, since the city as a whole is not. Most people have cars, and I
    assume you don’t have one of those being delivered tomorrow.”
    My heart sinks at what I haven’t considered, and I fight the urge to
    set down my half-eaten second slice of pizza, afraid I will give away how
    rattled I am. Instead, I pause on a bite and say, “No. No car,” before
    chomping down on more than my food. I now have one more thing I
    haven’t thought about and will have to face tomorrow.
    “You do have your personal belongings being delivered, right?”
    On that question, I abandon eating, setting down my slice and
    reaching for my soda, effectively avoiding eye contact with Liam. “Yes. I’ll
    have my things tomorrow.” It’s not a lie, I tell myself. Whatever I buy will be
    here.
    He shuts the lid to his pizza box and I set down my drink and do the
    same with mine. I’m not hungry. That’s the thing about lies or almost lies.
    They make everything else harder to swallow along with them. I wonder if
    that is why he ignored the second half of his pizza. He can’t swallow it with
    my lies either. And now he’s just staring at me. He’s good at that, I’ve
    discovered, really darn good at fixing me in his bright blue stare and
    seeming to see right through to my soul. I almost think his silence is as
    dangerous as his questions. He’s analytical, a smart, calculated thinker. I
    see it in his eyes, and his job and his success backs up my assessment. I
    have to get him to stop trying to piece together my story.
    I scoot to the headboard, pull my knees to my chest, and work for
    diversion. “You don’t seem like a recluse.”
    “Subject of your belongings diverted,” he comments. “Check. That’s
    one of the ‘when you’re ready’ topics.” Blood rushes to my cheeks but he
    doesn’t give me time to reply, continuing, “I learned privacy from Alex, who
    was my mentor. He lost his wife and child in a car accident a year before I
    met him.”
    “Oh God. How old was the child?”
    He moves the pizza boxes to the floor and then sits against the
    headboard beside me, and we both turn to rest on one shoulder to face
    each other. “I never saw a picture. Looking back, I think seeing her hurt too
    much.”
    And I wish for a picture every day of those I’ve lost, and it terrifies me
    that I can no longer remember their faces. It terrifies me that Liam is so
    near, so able to read what I feel. It terrifies me that he won’t be tomorrow.
    “To lose a child must be the worst kind of pain.”
    His lips draw into a grim line. “I’m told it changed him, though I have
    no comparison. I didn’t know him before he lost them. He didn’t talk about
    them and he didn’t do press or make public appearances. When I began
    getting my prodigy architect buzz, he told me the hype could go to my head
    and ruin me, thus forbidding me any press as well. I deviated from his
    no-press policy one time, and one time only, when he was still alive. It was
    a hard lesson I’ve never forgotten. My ego and desire to share my success
    with the world was at Alex’s expense. His personal story ended up in the
    papers. He went crazy on me and then crumbled like I didn’t think he could
    crumble. That day changed me forever. I forgot about my ego and to this
    day I rarely grant interviews and I rarely do appearances.”
    A little part of me softens for Liam, and I don’t know what overcomes
    me. I reach up and touch his jaw. “Now I know why you’re so tight-lipped
    about your accomplishments.”
    He grabs my hand and I am somehow more complete because he’s
    touching me. “I keep my private life private and I let my work speak for me
    elsewhere.”
    I want to tell him how much I envy his confidence and sense of
    identity that he doesn’t appear to need anyone else to validate. But if I do,
    he’ll ask me about who I am and who I want to be and even if I could freely
    talk, I couldn’t tell him what I no longer know. “That still doesn’t spell
    recluse to me.”
    “That started a couple of years ago when a particular reporter
    hounded me about an interview. When I wouldn’t give it, she wrote a
    scathing piece about me.”
    His thumb begins stroking my palm and heat is radiating up my arm
    and seems to have set my vocal cords on fire. “Scathing?” I choke out.
    “It read pretty much like