Everyone likes the bands I mentioned in the last chapter and that makes me feel all giggly on the inside
I love every single one of you
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"Hi, um..." I tapped my fingers against the tall table as I caught the woman's attention, "I'm Sally. You asked me to pick up Liam."
A pleased – almost relieving smile appeared on her face as the words left my mouth. "Yes, follow me." She stood up from her chair and we started walking through a hallway, until we got to another door. I almost threw up when she opened it, as the first thing I saw were bars, and people behind it. What have you gotten yourself into?, I thought, but I wasn't sure whether I was asking Liam, or myself.
"He's right here." To my relief, she pointed to a row of benches that were on the opposite of the cells, where a surprising amount of people were sitting. Some were even talking to the people in the cells, while others were lying across a bench.
Including Liam.
I almost felt bad for walking over to him and having to wake him up; even though he looked like an absolute mess, with his left arm and leg hanging off the bench as he drooled over the sleeve of his infamous leather jacket, he looked comfortable. He looked like he didn't want to be bothered. He looked like he would bite my hand off if I touched him.
"Liam?" I gently kicked his foot with my own, "Come on. Wake up."
I knew I wasn't going to get a response from him right away, but even so, I was getting a little impatient. "How long's he been like this?" I turned to the woman that brought me there, and noticed she was trying to hide the worried look on her face.
"Uh, about half an hour. After we checked his ID, I started making phone calls."
I nodded at the information, "And no one picked up?"
"No, no one called back either."
I nodded again, and turned back to Liam, who hasn't even flinched yet. "Liam?" I bent down and shook his arm; he squeezed his eyes tight for a second and let out a long sigh, which was enough to make my heart beat faster. In my defense, it had almost been a week since I'd last seen him, much less made any physical contact with him.
"Liam, come on. We have to go." I'd put a lot of effort into not looking away from him when he finally opened his eyes, and kept them on mine for a long minute. Too long of a minute, that was.
"Sally?" He frowned as he said my name, and slowly began sitting up. "What- what the..."
I stood up straight and took a step back; he just sat there, looking around, with seemingly no intention of getting up at all. After a few seconds of just turning his head from right to left and vice versa, his eyes met mine. And I almost fell on the muddy floor.
As if being able to tell how I felt, he looked away at the woman, scanning her uniform to make sure she wasn't another felon. "Why did you call her?" He pointed to me with his head, "I thought I told you to call Zayn."
"He wasn't picking up," The woman told him, and even though I was just a tiny bit hurt by what he'd said, I continued listening to her. "Nor your parents, nor anyone else in your phonebook, except her." Then she turned to me, "Now if you could get him out of here somehow, that'd be great. We're almost out of space for new customers."
I gulped and nodded a few quick times, "Of course," I smiled at her, but when I turned to Liam I figured it would be a little difficult to get him to leave. So far I was sure he wouldn't want to go anywhere with me sober, now I could only imagine his reaction to that when he was drunk.
But to my surprise, after a long few seconds of just looking at me, he started getting up. Though after slipping on the floor twice, I could tell he needed some help; so I hesitantly made a few steps toward him and slowly gripped his forearm, helping him stand up. He didn't really sound drunk; but his actions were telling the complete opposite.
"Alright," I said through a small sigh, and became speechless for a split second when he grabbed my jacket tightly, as if his life depended on it. Which it kind of did. "Let's go."
"Where are we going?" He mumbled as I gave the woman a polite smile, when she opened the door for us. "How are we going to get there?"
"I'm-I'm taking you home," I said, making sure he understood everything that I was saying. "Briana lent me her car, and she's gonna come to pick it up tomorrow." I made a mental note to just park her Opel in front of my house, so she doesn't have to bother with pulling out of the garage.
"Did you really ask her to give you her car so you can pick me up?" It literally took him no less than ten seconds to say all of that. Mumble it out, to be precise.
"Yeah, then I gave her a ride to her house so she could see that I'm not gonna crash it." For a moment, everything felt normal. I almost felt like we were just Sally and Liam again, and that me picking him up from the police station was no big deal. Now we were just going back to his apartment where I'd put him to sleep, and lie next to him so he wouldn't be alone.
Sweet dreams.
"Cool," Was all he said to that, and I felt him slowly starting to let go of me. Just as I'd become a little depressed about it, he grabbed my jacket again when he almost slipped and kissed the floor, again. There's one good thing about this whole thing.
"You should be more careful," I said with a tiny smile, my hand hesitantly moving to his back. "At least until we get to your place. Then you can limp as much as you want to."
Liam snorted at that, and didn't say anything. I nodded to myself; it was too early to start cracking jokes about anything. Yes, I see it now.
"What's the time?" He asked as we walked out of the building. I didn't check my watch until we got to Briana's car, – I couldn't thank her enough for deciding not to go with me – unlocked it, put Liam in it and sat in the driver's seat. Which was literally about five minutes later.
"Um, it's 2:30," I mumbled while starting the engine, and took a glance at Liam. His eyes were halfway closed and his face unbearably emotionless, but he didn't look all that tired. He was just staring straight ahead of himself – something I should have been doing too – and looked like he was deep in thought.
"You alright?" I asked, looking away from the street several times so I'd look at him. "When was the last time you shaved..?"
"Why are you doing this?" He spoke all of a sudden, and I had to look away from him when his eyes met mine; the look in them wasn't that friendly at all.
"Doing what?" I asked, voice far too chill for the situation we were in.
"This... all of this," He said, "Picking me up from the police station, caring about when I last shaved... like... why?"
"Um..." I shifted in my seat; when I got the information that he was wasted, I definitely didn't think we'd be having a deep-ass conversation in Briana's car. "I-I care."
"But why?" He interrupted me before I could say 'about you', "Why would you care about anything related to me?"
I gulped at the first thought that crossed my mind, "Because I... I don't know," I finally said, lacking better lies. "I mean, I know we're not exactly best friends right now, but I don't want to just... just cut you out of my life."
"You should." I had to close my eyes for a second or two as the words left his mouth. "That's what I'd do if I were you."
"You're not me," I told him before I could think about the words that were leaving my mouth.
"I know," He said a while later, quite bluntly at that, "That's why I'm having a hard time figuring you out."
I nodded, "That's... okay," I said and frowned a little at my word choice. But I was glad- elated that we were able to have a civilized conversation, after what had happened a few days before. I was actually willing to look past it if he just apologized for it.
"Do you want some water?" I asked, raising my eyebrows at the windshield, "I asked Briana to give me a bottle when we got to her house. I remembered the last time you were drunk, you asked for-"
"Stop it," He said through a sigh, "Just... stop it."
"Stop what?" I asked; whatever it was that he wanted me to stop, I probably wasn't going to.
"Being nice to me," He said and sat up. "I don't want you to be nice to me."
I frowned, harder than I had all night, "What?" A small laugh left my lips, "Why wouldn't you want someone to be nice to you?"
"No, it's just you that I don't want to be nice to me."
Well, the smile his ridiculousness brought to my face was gone. "Why?" I was almost scared to ask.
"'Cause I still stand behind what I said the other night," He sighed, "Now you're just confusing me."
I felt my lips part, but I didn't say anything. I didn't have anything to say. That's how it is, then; he didn't want me to be nice to him because he wanted to keep thinking I'm a whore without interruptions. Well then.
"Seriously?" I spat, when I just couldn't hold it in anymore, "Are you serious right now? Do you actually think of me like that?"
"Shut up, Sally."
"I have literally done," I continued, ignoring his demand. "Nothing in the time that we've known each other, that would make you think that. I'm always with you, always, all I've done in the past month is cling to you!"
"Sally, shut up-"
"Fuck, I'm either making out with you, or fighting with you of fucking with you- it doesn't even matter what the fuck I'm doing, because I'm always doing it with you!"
"Shut up-"
"I spend nights at your place, we go to the same school and breathe the same air – and then you tell me I'm fucking around, and you're sure of it? Even if I wanted to-"
"Shut the-"
"-fuck around, I wouldn't be able to, because my phone would ring and your name would appear on the screen, and no matter what I was going to do, I'd just drop it because you want to go shop for band shirts in the middle of the night!"
"Sally-"
"That's how deep I am in this shit, Liam! Even if I had the most important test of the year- of my life in two hours and you called me to meet up, I'd quit studying for it because that's how much I want to see you! That is how much I want to spend time with you, it goes to the point where I would literally just drop my life to be with you!"
"I-"
"And you have the nerve to be sure that I sleep with anyone that has a dick? That's just- that's-" I finally slammed my hands against the steering wheel, "That's fucked up."
I was completely out of breath due to my little shouting session, but I still managed to stop breathing when I heard him laugh. Really? After everything I'd said, he just laughs?
"Do you know what's fucked up?" He asked, and I knew I was in for another shouting session. "Walking into a stranger's house and catching the person you're in love with kissing another person! That's what's fucked up."
I let out a shaky breath at what he'd said, "Liam-"
"And another thing that's fucked up," He continued, "Is that that other person just happened to be someone you persistently kept convincing me isn't interested in you, or the other way around."
I jumped in my seat when he slammed his hand against dashboard, and then leaned toward me. "Now look where we are."
Before I could even open my mouth, he continued. "I spent weeks- literal weeks, trying to think of a way to ask you to be mine. I almost felt like I was planning to fucking propose to you, but it didn't matter, because you're special. You're special to me, and I wanted to make a big deal out of it, I wanted to make a big deal out of asking you to be my girlfriend. If you weren't special, then I would have just asked you on one of our random dates, and I wouldn't have even been that happy about it. But I love you, I'm in love with you and I knew that drinking fucking coffee and then just saying 'hey, since we do this a lot we should make it official' wouldn't be enough. So I included your best friend, and people that I barely know to help me with this shit. I wanted it to be something you'd remember, even if we broke up, I wanted to go over the top with it, I wanted you to smile about it for days. Because I love it when you're happy, I love when you're smiling, I love- I love hearing you laugh, god dammit, I..."
He let out a huge sigh, and I think that's what reminded me I needed to start breathing too. "I just... I- I love you. I love you and it's fucked up. It's fucking me up, I'm fucked up because I love you. I'm fucked up because you couldn't have waited a little longer to break my heart like that, it just had to be when I wanted to do it. It had to be when I was finally going to show you how much effort I put into this- into us, and it had to be with Dominick."
The urge I had to stop the car was almost unbearable. "And where, in all of that, did you come up with the conclusion that I'm... what you think I am?"
"I waited for too long," Liam said immediately, "The whole planning thing went on for too long. And you were tired of waiting."
I couldn't help but laugh at that, even though I had tears in my eyes after everything he said to me; but yeah, it made sense from his perspective. "Liam," I almost breathed out, "I promise- I fucking swear, that's not what I am."
"Then what the fuck are you?" He yelled, beginning to laugh right after. "Please, I'm begging you, Jesus is begging you, Santa is begging you, fucking Tooth Fairy is begging you- just tell me what it is. What could be so horrible that you want to be with me, but not actually be with me?"
"I..." This was it; this was the perfect moment for me to tell him everything. He deserved to know, and I wanted him to know. I was sure that this opinion of his would vanish from his head as soon as he found out the actual truth.
But I couldn't do it. No words left my mouth after that request of his; until then, I didn't even realize how embarrassed I actually was of that tiny part of my past. It's almost as if it defined me; well, in fact, I have made a lot of decisions based on it. I just didn't want losing Liam to be one of them.
"Yeah," He surprised me as he spoke a while later. "Just as I thought."
For the remaining two or three minutes of the ride, I tried keeping my sobs as quiet as possible because, there I was, calmly sitting next to Liam and letting him slip through my fingers. I was actually allowing that to happen. But no matter how many times I'd tell myself that, I remained silent. I don't even know when I'd become this weak.
He didn't even bother to wait for me when I stopped the car; but I knew he would need help going up the stairs, that is, if he was even as drunk as before. And when he almost fell on various staircases four times, I decided that he was definitely as drunk as before – which is funny, because he sure didn't sound like he'd had a drop of alcohol in the car.
As soon as I unlocked the door of his apartment, he flew in, going straight to the couch. He didn't bother pulling it out, he just fell there, his head on the armrest as he turned on his back. I left his keys on a kitchen counter, and slowly walked back to him.
Liam had his hand over his eyes, looking like he was suffering from a headache of some sort. Which would be something we had in common in that very moment.
I proceeded to kneel down in front of him, watching his face as I placed my hands on his arm. "Liam?" I breathed out and gulped, "I love you."
At my words – that I didn't know I was going to say until I said them – he moved his hand from his eyes, and placed it on his forehead. I watched him intently as he watched the ceiling, and that's all we did for a few seconds. That felt like a lifetime, of course.
He surprised me a little when he shook his head and closed his eyes, "Just get out," He mumbled, barely audible, but it was enough for me.
I sniffled once, and stood up; I actually wanted to get to Briana's car as soon as possible, I didn't want him to see me cry – not for too long, at least. If I was going to have to let him go, I needed him to think it wasn't going to be that painful.
Just before I walked out, I turned around to take one last look at him; I felt my heart squeeze a little when I noticed him looking at me too, but as soon as I did, he closed his eyes again and turned around in the couch, his back facing me.
And something was telling me that he would continue to turn his back on me in the future too.
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