Chapter Eighteen: Exits and Vertigo
The return of Amaya's family two days later brought its own brand of chaos. The house filled with luggage, travel stories, and the comforting, familiar noise she had missed. But beneath the welcome-home hugs and the recounting of wedding dramas, a new, heavier current ran through the household: Liam was leaving.
His acceptance to a prestigious marine biology research program abroad had been the family's proud, looming reality for months. Now, with his flight in three days, the abstract became crushingly concrete. Suitcases lay open in his room like hungry mouths, slowly consuming his belongings.
Amaya, meanwhile, was buried under a different kind of weight. Her final board exams, the culmination of a year of relentless study (and distraction), were a dark cloud on the immediate horizon. She spent her days camped at the kitchen table, notes on invertebrate anatomy and chemical equations spreading like a defensive fortification around her.
Liam found her there, her forehead resting on an open zoology textbook. "Defeated by the annelids again?" he asked, dropping into the chair opposite her. His tone was light, but his eyes were softer than usual.
"They're winning," she groaned, not lifting her head. "I think the earthworms are unionizing against me."
He chuckled, flicking a stray highlighter cap at her. "You'll crush it. You've had the most intense, personally-motivated tutoring in history."
She sat up, blushing. "It's not like that."
"It's exactly like that," he said, leaning back. "And I'm not even mad. It's the most entertainment I've had in years. Watching you try to flirt with a human glacier is an Olympic sport." His gaze drifted to the window, toward the Rowon house. "Speaking of the six-foot-three intellectual iceberg next door… you're going to have to up your game after I'm gone. No more brotherly reconnaissance missions."
The reality of his departure hit her anew, sharp and sudden. "I don't use you for reconnaissance," she muttered, but it was a weak protest. Liam was her translator, her co-conspirator, the one who turned her infatuation from a solitary daydream into a shared, teasing narrative.
"Liar. You absolutely do. Who else is going to casually mention that you aced a quiz, or that you looked vaguely tragic staring out the window, or that some guy at college asked about you?"
"You do that?" she gasped, horrified and secretly thrilled.
"Of course I do. It's my brotherly duty to gently manipulate your love life." He grinned, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Seriously, though. What's the plan? You've got, what, a week until exams are over? And then… summer. And him. Alone. Without my brilliant commentary."
"I don't have a plan," she admitted, her voice small. "I just have… a lot of studying to do."
"Right. And he's just a tutor. And that motorcycle ride was purely academic transportation." He waggled his eyebrows. "The whole college is talking about it, by the way. Chloe texted me. Said you've achieved legendary status."
Amaya buried her face in her hands. "It was so embarrassing."
"It was iconic," Liam corrected. "You looked tiny on the back of that bike, clinging to Mount Rowon. It was a perfect visual metaphor." He reached across the table and ruffled her hair. "My point is, the groundwork is laid. The man fetched you from a wedding, tutors you relentlessly, gives you jewelry and books, and has now publicly delivered you to school on his dramatic motorcycle. By his emotionally-stunted standards, he's practically composed a sonnet. You just have to… be ready for whatever comes after the exams."
"Be ready how?" she asked, peeking through her fingers.
"By not being an idiot. And by remembering you're not actually five feet tall."
"I'm five-foot-two!" she protested.
"Exactly. And he's what, six-three? Six-four? It's a comical height difference. You look like a determined garden gnome next to a redwood tree. You're going to need a stepladder to even make eye contact without getting a neck cramp." He laughed at his own joke. "Just promise me you won't start wearing platform shoes. It would ruin the aesthetic."
"I hate you," she said, but she was laughing now, the exam anxiety momentarily pushed aside.
"You'll miss me," he said, and this time his smile was genuine, tinged with the sadness they were both avoiding. "Who's going to roast you about your gigantic crush? Mom and Dad are useless. They still think he's just a 'nice, focused young man.'" He mimicked their mother's voice perfectly.
"I'll manage," she said, but the thought of his absence yawned like a chasm. Their bickering, his teasing, his unwavering, if mocking, support—it was the bedrock of her daily life.
The next two days were a strange limbo. The house was a whirlwind of last-minute shopping, packing, and Liam's friends dropping by to say goodbye. Amaya tried to study in the eye of the storm, her notes a fragile raft in a sea of sentimentality. She saw Aris only once, from her window, as he left for the hospital. He didn't look up. Her world felt bisected—the intense, quiet pressure of her future on one side, and the loud, loving unraveling of her present on the other.
The night before Liam's flight, the family had a quiet dinner. The teasing was gentler, the laughter a little thicker. Afterward, Liam came to her room as she was pretending to study.
"Alright, gnome," he said, leaning against the doorframe. "Final briefing."
"I don't need a briefing."
"You do. Rule one: Don't do anything I wouldn't do. Which gives you a lot of leeway, but try to use some common sense. Rule two: When you finally have your dramatic confession moment—and you will, because you're incapable of subtlety—make sure you're on higher ground. A stair, a curb, something. The height thing is real. You don't want your big romantic moment to look like a toddler demanding a piggyback ride."
Amaya threw a pillow at him. He caught it easily.
"Rule three," he said, his voice dropping the jesting tone. "Don't forget to be you. The you that reads faerie books and believes in ridiculous grand gestures. That's the you he notices, even when he's pretending not to." He tossed the pillow back onto her bed. "And rule four: FaceTime me immediately after anything happens. I demand real-time updates from the front lines."
Tears pricked her eyes. "I will."
He crossed the room and pulled her into a tight hug, crushing the air from her lungs. "You're going to be great. On your exams, and… with the redwood. Just… don't let him be a jerk. You deserve someone who sees how brilliant you are, even when you're being a massive dork."
She hugged him back, clinging to the familiar scent of his laundry detergent and cologne. "I'll miss you so much."
"I know." He released her, clearing his throat. "Now, go to sleep. You have a world to conquer. Starting with those unionized earthworms."
The next morning at the airport was a blur of tears, last-minute jokes, and promises. Amaya hugged Liam until her arms ached, then watched him walk through the security gate, turning to give her one last, exaggerated wink and a point toward the ceiling—their old signal for "look up, something amazing is happening."
She looked up. Just the sterile airport lights.
But as they drove home in the heavy silence of the car, she understood. He was telling her to keep looking up. To keep hoping for the amazing. Even if the amazing was currently a six-foot-three, emotionally constipated medical student who was, at this very moment, probably diagnosing her from afar as a case of chronic romantic idealism.
She had three days until her first exam. A lifetime until she figured out what came after. And for the first time, no brother in the next room to dissect it all with. She felt a vertigo of loneliness, but beneath it, a new, fragile sense of her own readiness. The game was changing. The pieces were moving. And she was no longer just a girl with a journal. She was a girl with a plan, a locket around her neck, and a very tall mountain to climb.