Back to Where We Started

Chapter 23

"What's going on, Liam?" Zayn asked as he stepped into the room, and after a moment's thought, closed the sliding door behind him.

Liam glanced at Zayn out of the corner of his eye. The truth was, he was growing tired of feeling the way he was. Unfortunately, that didn't mean he was willing to simply drop his attitude.

"Nothing's going on. I'm fine." He answered tersely.

"You sure have a funny way of showing it." Louis retorted.

Zayn threw Louis a look, trying to convey that he was not helping matters by throwing around an attitude of his own. Understanding the message behind the look that was being directed at him, Louis held his hands up in a placating manner. "Sorry, that was uncalled for." Louis acquiesced.

"I think what Louis was trying to say," Zayn stepped in. "Is that you're not really acting like yourself, and we were wondering if there was anything we could do to help fix that."

"If I'm not acting like myself, who the hell am I acting like?" Liam challenged.

Both Louis and Zayn took deep breaths to help calm their growing frustration.

"You're acting like a right brat, Liam James." Zayn eventually answered. "You've been acting like a brat most of the morning. It seemed more like you just needed more time to wake up at first, but that's clearly not the case, so what's going on?"

"And before you decide you'd like to carry on, I highly recommend thinking about the amount of trouble you've already landed yourself in." Louis suggested. Thankfully, he'd managed to keep a level tone, one without any sass behind it.

Liam's eyebrows drew together as he thought about what Zayn and Louis had just said. The more he thought about it, the more he began to feel embarrassed about how he'd been acting. They were right, he wasn't acting like himself, and he'd been a brat all morning. Heck, even Louis had been pulled up sort for his behavior. He, on the other hand, had been given multiple opportunities to pull his act together, yet he didn't take advantage of that.

Sensing a shift in the boy's demeanor, Louis decided to join Liam on the couch, placing a comforting hand on the lad's shoulder. "What's going on, Li?"

Feeling the familiar sting of tears welling up, in that moment, Liam wanted nothing more than for the couch to swallow him up. "I—it's just..."

"It's just what, Li?" Zayn asked hesitantly when the boy didn't continue. He, too, took a seat next to Liam, opposite Louis.

Scrubbing at the tears in his eyes before they could fall, Liam sniffled and shook his head. He couldn't believe he was getting so worked up over this.

"This morning, when I got up, I didn't realize that I was the last one to get up until I found the four of you all cuddled together in the front of the bus. I know that you'd probably have made room for me if I'd bothered to ask, but..." he trailed off.

"You felt left out." Louis finished for him.

"Yeah," Liam confirmed, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

The three of them were silent for several moments, no one in a rush to break the silence that had settled around them. Before long, however, Zayn had something to say. "I'm not saying that it's fair, but I think that, sometimes, we forget that you need attention the same as Harry and Niall. You're not much older than they are, but you sure are more mature than they are, at least most of the time."

Zayn hadn't meant for his statement about maturity to be a dig at how Liam had been acting that morning, but it was clear that what he'd had to say resonated with the lad, who cringed at the words. In that moment, Zayn couldn't be more frustrated that he'd put them all in their current situation. Maybe he was being melodramatic, but he certainly felt that, if not for how he'd acted in recent weeks, maybe Liam wouldn't have landed in the predicament he currently found himself.