Contemplation Station

Contemplation Station (2)

I look away as if he's slapped me, sudden tears springing to my eyes. To be fair to him, he saw the opportunity and he took it.

My heart aches as the memory of Nathan forces itself to the front of my mind. Liam knows better than anyone what a wreck I was after I found out; he was the one who told me. With Nathan being his best friend, it wasn't surprising he knew. What was surprising is that he told me about it. Betrayed his best friend...for what? My sake?

Wordlessly, I stand, grabbing my bag and moving to sit as far away from Liam as possible.

"Aw, c'mon, don't be like that." He says, eyes following me as a take a seat in the back corner.

I ignore him and continue to draw, refusing to look at Liam as he tries to gain my attention.

"For God's sake it's like a game of bloody musical chairs." He grumbles as he makes his way over to me, pulling out the closest chair and sitting on it. "Look I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that."

"Yeah. You shouldn't have." I reply sharply.

"In my defence, I was only retaliating for the implication that I have a girl sucking me off every other minute."

"So? Don't you?"

He bristles once again. "Sure, I make out with a lot of girls, but it doesn't go any further. And I never once cheated on Becky when we were together."

I don't answer him, continuing to draw on my scrap of paper. If I'm completely honest, what he just said does kind of shock me. His reputation around school is very much one that suggests he sleeps around, he's portrayed as some kind of walking STD and for him to claim all of a sudden that he's not?

There's about a 10 minute silence before Liam speaks again. "I can't believe Nathan would cheat on you with a girl like Rebecca. I mean, I know Nathan better than anyone, and even I didn't know he was that stupid."

I sit there; feeling like the ground has dropped from beneath me. "It was Rebecca?" My voice cracks as I say her name and Liam's head shoots up at the sound of my voice, meeting my eyes.

"Shit, Emma I'm so sorry I thought you knew, I didn't..." He doesn't finish, just sighs and runs his hand through his hair. "Shit." He pulls the sleeve of his flannel shirt down over his hand and attempts to wipe away the tears that have fallen on my cheeks.

We fall back into silence until I work up the courage to ask a question that has been on my mind since I found out Nathan had cheated on me. "Did he regret it?"

Liam looks up, eyebrows furrowed. "What?"

"Nathan. Did he regret cheating on me?"

He begins to roll his sleeve back up to his elbow and grimaces slightly. "Definitely. After you broke up with him, he was distant. With me anyway; but that might have just been because I'm the one who told you. He wouldn't come out anywhere, looking like he hadn't slept, walking around like someone had died - it wasn't pretty. But to be honest, I didn't feel sorry for him." Liam's eyes meet mine, "If he didn't want to lose you, he shouldn't have done what he did."

I hold his gaze for a second before looking down at the table once again. "How did you find out?" I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.

"Standard. I walked in on them at a party. Becky just stood and asked me if I was jealous and Nathan begged me not to tell you. I kept it secret for a while but," he shakes his head, "I couldn't do it, I couldn't watch you be so happy with him when I knew what he'd done."

"Thank you." Is all I say, scuffing my shoes against the carpet.

Neither of us says anything until the bell goes for lunch, and we both leave the room.