A World No Longer Heliocentric

3: Liam

"Shut up," I growled at Evan. He was such an asshole. Despite having the body of a bowling ball and a face full of acne, he thought he was entitled to make fun of anything with a pulse. I was only friends with him because he's Coach Jerry's nephew. As Jerry's nephew, he also gets passes for his failing classes and his petty personality.

I have no idea what I said in class that made her upset. I know--well, everyone knows--she got cancer. She completely changed after. The few weeks after she found out and came to school, her whole demeanor was different. It's as if someone flipped her switch, turned her off. Before I thought it was that she changed, but now I see she's dormant. She acts as if nothing happened, just cutting herself off from everyone. She probably forgot but I remember her in sixth grade. She was such a happy person, but she always stayed true, even when all the other girls became fake at the start of middle school. They all changed friend groups and formed cliques, unlike the boys who just never cared. But she didn't. She had the same friends even though they all scattered. She'd jump from lunch table to lunch table, laughing with all of them.

After she found out though, she changed completely. All the confidence that used to follow her in her stance and her facial expressions were gone. Her friends stopped talking to her, except for that blonde girl Willow. Those two are together all the time, even though Willow has a bunch of other friends. I always wanted to talk to her, especially after she found out. But I never did. She was too real.

Taking my mind off of Bella, I focus on the lunch football practice I have. Since I'm the quarterback on the varsity team, I have to attend the lunch practices, which means I don't get the study hall. My best friend Jack slaps me on the back and smiles.

"Dude," he grins. "How excited are you about the championships?" I nodded modestly, but inside, I'm reeling. This is the game I've been waiting for since I first started varsity freshman year. Our team is so good that I was the first freshman in years to make it on varsity my freshman year. It helps that I've been playing with my dad since I was five before he traded in any time he spent with me on business trips. I try not to think about it but the thought violates my head as we enter the locker rooms. I needed to figure out what I'm going to do with my mom tomorrow night while I have the championships.

"Were you talking to Bella in physics class?" Jack asks, taking his shirt off and throwing it on the bench. How did he even know? He's not in that class.

"Yeah," I reply, feeling awkward. "Who-"

"Madison told me," he nods at my annoyed expression as soon as he says her name. "Yeah, this girl in your class told her friend who told Madison." I sigh. It's been two minutes since the class has ended. But time didn't mean anything.

"Madison is driving me freaking crazy," I hang my head back. "She literally needs to know who I'm talking to all the time."

"She's your girlfriend."
"So?" I scoff. "I can't have a life?"

"And she's Madison, Liam," he shakes his head. "Why did you ask her out anyways?" I remember sophomore year when everyone kept trying to "ship" me with her. I thought she seemed nice and really pretty, so I asked her out. Everyone was watching, too, their phones out. Madison has the video of me asking her out in her saved on snap chat. I didn't realize then how basic she was, not even a year after we started dating. All were innocent at first until she started asking me where I was all the time. Now, I can't stand her.

"Look if you hate her that much, just break up with her," Jack says. But I couldn't do that. Not after all she's done for me and my mom. Despite what a horrible person she was at school, she was a good girlfriend, aside from the clinginess and possessiveness. Even though I never really had feelings for her, she helped my mom so much. She took Mom to the doctor when I had football practice, and kept her company when I was away on trips for the lacrosse season. She made sure Mom took her meds and when Mom would get crippling depression, she would whisper something in her ear that made Mom's face light up every time. She wouldn't tell me what she said. I know she does it for me, to keep me on her leash. Even then, I appreciate it because she bonds with Mom in a way that I never did.

My mom is bipolar, like in and out of hospitals bipolar. When she got really bad and started having episodes, periods of time where she would stay in bed for days or she would be so happy that she seemed high all the time, Dad would disappear. He always claims to be on a business trip, every time. And when she would be better, he would magically appear in the kitchen, while I was exhausted from taking care of Mom.

I started having to take her to the hospital freshman year. I would drive my dad's pickup truck in the middle of the night because I don't have a license to get her to the hospital. Then, I'd be home alone for weeks at a time while she recovered. By this time, Dad never came home, except once a month to pretend to care about my life, and then he would disappear again. But we keep getting checks in the mail to pay for the bills, so I know he's alive. Everything is fine, though. I have football, school, and my friends, so I don't need him.

As I'm slipping on my pads, I feel my phone vibrate in my pants. My heart sinks when I see the caller ID, having the ID of the hospital on my phone.

"Liam," Patrick, one of the nurses, says. "Your mom is checked in to the hospital. Madison brought her."

"Madison is at school," I whisper, my heart hammering. "What does the person look like?"

"No one is here, Liam," he says, sadly. "It's just your mom claiming Madison dropped her. Do you want to speak with her?" I nod, then remember he can't see me. "Liam?"
"Yeah, yeah," I sigh.

"Baby?" Mom croaks. "I'm sorry." She's sobbing, the sound rising bile in my mouth.

"Did you take your meds today, Mom?" I grip the phone so tightly that my knuckles are white. Jack looks at me questioningly. I hold up a hand, turning away. "Mom, why are you doing this to herself?"

"I don't like the meds," she sobs harder. I flinch. "They don't make me feel anything. Oh God, what have I done, Liam?"

"What did you do, Mom?" I try not to snap, but my voice is shaking.

"I was so angry and I-" she stifled a sob. My heartbeat races up to my ears as I reach for my bag, still wearing my pads. I didn't want to know. She was going to pop the bubble I created for myself this morning and I needed to stop her before she did.

"Mom, what did you do?"

"I needed to be here," she says suddenly eerily calm. "I'm sorry, baby. If they find out what I did, they'll take me away again and I can't go back there. I needed to be here so they didn't suspect me." The jobless bipolar mother. Who else does she think they're going to blame?
I hang up on her, knowing exactly where I have to go. Home. As I drive through the neighborhood, the darkness in the sky alarms me as it smoke curls around the top of the trees, multiple people standing on their porches. My skin heats up as I speed towards the house, the smell of smoke filling my nostrils out of the window of my jeep. Slamming my car door, I race up the street, past the police tape that blocks off my street, sprinting so fast that the soles of my feet burn against the concrete since I never put my shoes on coming from school.

I stopped in front of the crippling building that used to be my home. Flames howled and curled out the window, the fire burning the building down to its frame. I thought of all of my clothes, my bed sheets, the family pictures, the trophies I worked so hard for. It was all gone. Poof.