Chapter 135: New Obsession?
Vanessa sat curled up on her couch, phone in hand, refreshing her own Instagram story analytics for what had to be the tenth time in the last hour. Each new post had become less about the outfit or the party or the moment itself and more about a single, quietly obsessive question: had he seen it yet.
She didn’t care who else viewed it anymore. The follower count, the comments from friends, the usual noise that used to matter to her — none of it registered the same way. She scrolled straight to the viewer list every time, searching for one name, ignoring the rest entirely.
Liam’s name wasn’t there.
Again.
She tossed the phone onto the cushion beside her, frustrated, then immediately picked it back up because sitting with the frustration for longer than thirty seconds felt unbearable. She opened his profile directly this time, scrolling through his recent posts — new ones, she noted, more active than he’d been in months — and felt the irritation compound. He was clearly using the app. Just not looking at anything she put up which frustrated her in all honesty as it would take nothing for him to give her a little attention.
She stared at the message icon for a long moment; a call button sitting just beneath it.
She told herself she wasn’t actually going to do it. She was just looking. Just considering it as an abstract possibility, the way people consider things they have no intention of following through on.
Her thumb pressed the call button before she’d fully finished the thought.
The realization hit half a second too late, panic flooding in as the screen switched to the ringing display. She should hang up. This was insane, calling him through Instagram of all things, not even a real phone call, the kind of thing that read as desperate no matter how she tried to spin it in her head afterward.
She reached to end it.
He picked up first.
[“Hello?”]
Vanessa froze completely, phone pressed to her ear, mouth open with absolutely nothing coming out. Five full seconds passed in silence, her mind blank, every rehearsed line she might have used evaporating on contact with his actual voice.
]”…Hello?”] Liam said again, mild confusion creeping into his tone.
“Say something. Anything.”
“H—hey,” Vanessa managed finally, wincing at how thin her own voice sounded.
There was a brief pause on his end. “Hey.”
Silence again, stretching longer than either of them seemed prepared to fill.
Liam, for his part, wasn’t entirely surprised she’d called — Vanessa had a track record of these small, accidental collisions with him. The liked photo she’d tried to play off as a mistake. A story reply that mysteriously vanished thirty seconds after sending. He’d started to suspect that underneath the polish and control she projected everywhere else, there was a version of her that got genuinely clumsy the second he was involved but he wasn’t going to call her out on it as there was no point to.
Still, the silence on the line now was longer than usual, even for her.
[“So,”] Liam said finally, breaking it himself.
[“What’s up?”]
“…Nothing,” Vanessa said quickly. Too quickly.
[“Nothing?”]
“I mean—” She scrambled internally, trying to construct something that sounded like an actual reason for calling. “I just, um. Wanted to check in.”
[“Check in.”]
“Yeah.”
Another pause. Liam wasn’t buying it, and the flatness in his voice made that clear enough without him having to say it outright. He’d expected her to be more talkative if she was the one initiating the call — Vanessa rarely struggled for words in any context he’d witnessed so far, confident to the point of occasionally being a little much. This version, hesitant and clipped, didn’t track.
[“You good?”] Liam asked finally, genuine concern creeping into the question now.
“I’m fine,” Vanessa said, a little too fast again.
[“You sure? You called me and then didn’t say anything for like five seconds.”]
“I was— there was a delay. On my end. The call thing.” She winced at herself even as the words left her mouth, fully aware of how unconvincing it sounded.
[“The call thing,”] Liam repeated, unimpressed.
“It’s a bad connection sometimes. Instagram calls are weird like that.”
[“Right.”]
Vanessa closed her eyes, pressing her palm against her forehead, mentally cursing every choice that had led her to this exact moment. Liam wasn’t making it easy either as he was being brief and dry, he wasn’t attempting to carry the conversation.
“Okay, honestly?” she said, deciding to just cut through it. “I don’t really have a reason. I just — saw you were online and figured I’d say hi.”
Liam actually laughed a little at that, the tension easing slightly.
[“That’s a very roundabout way to say hi.”]
“I panicked, okay?”
[“No shit.”]
“Don’t be smug about it.”
[“I’m not being smug. I’m stating a fact with a little tease.”]
Vanessa rolled her eyes, though a small smile had crept onto her face despite the embarrassment still burning in her chest. “How’s your week been?”
[“Busy,” Liam said. “Good busy, though.”]
“Yeah? Doing what?”
He hesitated for half a second, glancing over at Mateo still bent over his homework a few feet away.
[“Just — handling some things. Personal stuff.”]
“Mysterious.” Vanessa muttered already knowing it wasn’t in her place to pry.
[“Not really. Just not that interesting to explain over the phone.”]
“Try me.”
[“Maybe another time.”]
Vanessa let that sit, some part of her registering it as a small door left open rather than a full rejection. She could work with that.
“Fine,” she said. “Another time, then.”
[“Sure.”] Liam answered bluntly once again with no interest in prolonging the conversation.
There was a brief pause, more comfortable this time, before Vanessa spoke again, softer. “It’s good to actually hear your voice. Feels like it’s been a minute.”
Liam didn’t answer right away, and Vanessa held her breath slightly, waiting.
[“Yeah,” he said finally. “It has been.”]
But before the call could come to an end, Mateo asked her one question that would ultimately ruin the experience.
[“Hey, is that Sophia?”]