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It’s kind of strange, sitting here, in this small coffee shop in Austin, a place he hasn’t visited since high school graduation, opposite a person he hasn’t seen for nearly as long. Well, technically he has seen Alex a lot in the past few years, but Liam isn’t sure if he can count flickering pictures on the news and Instagram posts as really seeing him. They certainly haven’t sat down to talk in a small eternity.
In front of Alex is his usual order – or Liam assumes its still his usual order judging by how matter-of-factly he’d rattled it off at the counter. One coffee, large, one sugar, cinnamon. At least it’s not a double espresso like it used to be when Alex was hyper fixating on studying for his exams and sneaking pills from Liam’s Adderall bottle Liam pretended he didn’t notice missing. Alex doesn’t look stressed now. In fact, Liam is not sure he’s ever seen him so relaxed before.
Liam takes a sip from his own cup, coffee with a lot of milk and two and a half packets of sugar. “Since when do you voluntarily drink coffee?” Alex had asked with an amused smirk when Liam had told the barista his order. Liam had shrugged and simply answered with “College.” Sometime during his freshman year, he had to admit that caffein did help when you had to cram everything you’d learned in a semester into your brain in the span of a few days and so his coffee-abstinence had stopped. He still didn’t particularly like the taste of the drink, ergo the milk and sugar.
“So,” Alex starts now, leaning back in his chair. “What have you been up to, apart from getting yourself a hotshot boyfriend?” “Well,”, Liam begins, “I graduated this summer.” “Oh, yeah, Computer Science, right?” Alex smiles, clearly proud to have remembered that and Liam nods. This conversation feels a little awkward still and Liam thinks its maybe going to be like this for a while longer. They haven’t spoken in a long time after all, and their short phone call a few months ago and the few text messages they’ve exchanged since cannot possibly hold the expanse of four years of their lives.
Liam is right. For the first half hour they mostly talk about surface things. Liam tells Alex about UT and alle the things that have changed in Austin (and the things that stayed the same). Alex talks about Georgetown and the countries he’s visited through diplomatic visits ever since his mom go the Presidency. After a while, they start to reminisce about their childhood and Liam thinks about how the awkwardness is now almost gone. It seems like talking about shared memories helps to glue this friendship, that was so central to both for a big part of their lives and still means quite a lot to them, back together. As Liam watches Alex’s eyes crinkle as he remembers their middle school class trips, Liam sees his best friend from all those years ago and he understands how that Alex and the one sitting in front of him are a continuation of the same person.
It has probably always been the logical consequence for both their paths to cross again like this.
Sure, it would have been easier if they hadn’t lost touch as much as they did. If Alex hadn’t been so oblivious and clueless about his own feelings and the ones, he made Liam feel. But it’s okay, now. They truly are cool, just as Liam said on election night. They’ll always be. Their friendship goes too deep, their shared years are too important to be lost to miscommunication. Liam says as much, and Alex agrees. “It would’ve helped a lot if we’d have talked about it though”, he concedes. “I mean, I was obviously the more oblivious asshole back in high school but like, we both could have benefitted from, y’know, actually talking about feelings and stuff.” Liam laughs, “Yeah, true.” He rubs his jaw, thinking. “We would’ve been shit at it though. I mean, it took you four whole years to even reconsider junior year so like, I don’t really wanna know what you’d have said if I’d confronted you back then.” He frowns. “Besides I didn’t really get what I was feeling either so…”
“So, in conclusion: we can both be idiots and talking about shit does actually help contrary to what one would believe. But also, it’s probably better we got some distance and like, life experience, before we did”, Alex summarizes and Liam grins. At their core, Alex and Liam are still Alex and Liam.
“Besides”, Liam, “I probably wouldn’t have met Spencer if I’d been less hung up about you.” Alex raises his eyebrows. “Really, now? How did you two meet exactly?” Liam blushes. “In my junior year of college, he was retaking a class I took too, and we started talking and I offered to study together. And it kind of developed from there.” Alex gives him a warm smile. “Cute. But that’s the version you can tell my grandma. I want the details, the good stuff.” He smirks and wiggles his eyebrows.
Liam tells him about it then, about the way talking to Spencer had felt easy from the start, how their second study session lasted for hours because they couldn’t stop talking and telling each other just about everything that had happened in their lives before they’d met. He talks about meeting Spencer’s sister when she’d visited for a weekend and how he’d realized he wasn’t only falling in love with Spencer but also his family. A suspicion that solidified when Spencer invited him to Thanksgiving dinner and his parents hugged Liam in a way his own had never done before.
He admits that’d he’d taken one look at Spencer and had known that they were going to be something special. Even if he hadn’t quite been able to put the finger on what exactly they could be. Alex grins at that, “You’ve got a very specific type, dude.” Liam shoves him a little for that. “You’re one to talk.” And Alex only shrugs. “Yeah, I’m not ashamed of that.” Liam laughs fully now. It feels good to laugh with Alex again. It makes his heart feel lighter. It hasn’t ached because of Alex in a long time, but there was still some residue left. A small cut that is finally closing.
Its not a new beginning. Because truthfully, their friendship never ended per se. Liam thinks its more than a beginning. They don’t have to start off of nothing. They already have a foundation; they just need to readjust the house that’s build upon it. Clean it up a bit and get rid of the dust. And, he thinks, they cleaned a lot of it today. Not everything, but it’s a start.
And they’ll talk more, get to know each other’s lives again and the new habits they formed, they will probably have moments where they grieve the “what if’s” but they’ll have just as many, likely more moments to laugh. They’ll get to be best friends again.