Strong

Chapter 12

"What are you doing here?" asks Liam again.

He comes closer to my bed. 

"Um...I am sleeping here," I say back.

"Shouldn't you be in your room?" he says back.

"Keep you voice down! You will wake up Mom and Dad," I say.

"Dad is a sound sleeper and this room is no where near close to their bedroom."

"Still keep your voice down. Yelling isn't going to get you anywhere right now."

"Fine," he says in a softer tone.

He sits on the edge of the bed, being careful not to sit on me. After a moment of silence he asks,"Why aren't you in your room?" 

I give him a look.  "How would I get up there? I would just magically levitate to my room?"

"Ha ha very funny," he says back.

"You would be the only one who could carry me up. Struggling up the steps wasn't the game plan Liam. My doc said no stairs," I say.

"Ok, Ok! I get it now. I just didn't think you would be here. I thought you would be in your room or on the couch," he says.

"Well I'm here. And what are you doing here?" I ask.

He rubs his hands on his face and lets out a sigh.

"Does it matter? I'll just go back to my room," he says, standing up to leave.

"Nope, spill," I say, ushering him back to sit down.

He slumps his shoulders and looks at the ground. I am waiting for him to reply to my question. I am not going to sit here and accept anything else from him.

"Well?" I say.

"Alright, alright! I'll tell you," he says back.

He turns to face me and looks at me. I haven't seen his eyes look like this. It's not sad. It's not angry. It almost looks like embarrassment. 

"Look, when Lou died, I had a hard time sleeping through night. The next night wasn't any better. So the next night after that I came down here. I was a little creeped out at first, but I slept like a baby. So I sneak down here just after Mom and Dad go to bed and sneak back up just before they get up," he says.

I give him him a comforting look, but he takes it the wrong way.

"It's stupid isn't it," he says.

"No it isn't, but why does it matter that you are sleeping down here without Mom and Dad knowing?" I ask.

"I don't want them to worry," he says back.

"Liam, they are worried about you."

"I don't want them to be more worried ok!"

Instead of arguing with him and I decide to reason with him.

"Well, I'm not going to force you to go back to your room if you are having a hard time sleeping in there. Here, take this," I say, throwing a pillow at him.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" he asks.

"Sleep on it. Grab a blanket from down the hall. You can sleep on the floor," I said.

He gets up to grab the blanket. I knew that he needed to be in here. I didn't know it was this bad. He wanted to hold onto him as much as he could. He was even sleeping in his room. I never knew how close they actually were. I guess now I know.

He comes back with the big pink comforter that was from my pink stage when I was younger. Its the only warm blanket we have down here besides the bedding. All the others are just throws.