FOURTEEN §
It's funny how things can go from sweet to painful in such a short amount of time. It's ridiculous.
Three days. That's how long our relationship lasted. You would have laughed. I mean, come on, we didn't even out-last Romeo and Juliet's love story for fuck's sake! And that was a time when it took mails half a year to cross 15 miles of sea, and plus they were torn from family feuds. And they were teenagers. And it wasn't summer.
(a month ago . . .)
The car ride is painfully silent. I look out the rain-blurred window, thumb between my teeth, trying to mentally dry the wetness in my eyes. It's a desperate effort.
"I told him not to come." I know he's looking at me, but if I look back I might break right here. I can't have that. That'd be pathetic.
I just nod. "Okay." Please. Just stop talking. I don't want to hear your voice. I don't want to remember anything that's happened tonight. The look on his face . . . god, Niall. Stop it!
"Niall . . ."
"Shut up," I snap, not moving. My chest feels heavy, and I can't stop it from rising and falling at a pace faster, more erratic than normal. I can't contain my lungs.
Liam doesn't say anything more throughout the ride. When we pull out by the curb I bound out the car, my head down, and jog through the rain.
"Niall, wait!"
I don't stop. It thunders. Ha. Way to go, Heaven. Thanks for the cooperation.
Harry opens the door. "Niall! how'd it g--"
I cut him off. "Where's Theo?" Stepping inside, I shrug off my jacket and hang it on the rack on the threshold. My socks are wet.
"He's, uh, sleeping upstairs. Louis went home earlier because his Mom called, but, like . . . is everything okay?" There's concern in his voice. There shouldn't be. This was his idea, right? He pushed me on, shoved me forward. I don't want to be mad, though. I can't be mad. This is my fault.
Liam steps through the doors behind me. "Niall--"
"Oh, just dandy," I answer Harry. I kow I sound bitter, but I have the right to, right? "Pefect."
"Thanks for taking care of Theo, Harry," I hear Liam say.
I speed-walk across the living room, where the telly is featuring some old indie movie Harry must have been watching, and jog upstairs, to my room. Our room. I feel sick thinking that now. My lungs feel like they've been frozen over, my guts curling around the food we ate, and my throat feels thick, clogged, as I plop down on the bottom bunk, the cushion catching my fall.
No, Niall, you idiot. The boulders caught your fall. I hope you're happy now, you stupid, stupid moron. You idiot.This is what you get.
I don't take off my clothes--even my wet socks--when I lie on fully on the cushion, folding my arms over my face so I don't have to look at the underside of his bed. And also to somehow seal the tears in.
Come on, Niall. It's not like you didn't saw this coming. Keep it together.
And the scenario plays over and over and bloody over in my mind, like a broken record from the time when the music makes every modern-world teenager cringe. Or like a dull knife cutting back and forth across my chest. Really, I wouldn't have minded it if that raven-haired boy--whatever his names was--was Liam's boyfriend, or that he never even told me about him, but fuck. The way Liam looked at him was what made it so painful. Like, like he wanted to reach out for him and hug him or kiss him.
And I was just sitting on the McDonald's table, staring down at my food, and pretending that boy outside talking to some other boy at a distance that swallowed up all sorts of personal space was my boyfriend. That it didn't hurt. That looking at the food was much more painful than anything else.
I always knew that first night outs were the riskiest in a relationship (that's when you decide if you really like the person, right?), but I never knew it could have gone this wrong. Or that first night outs could be the last. Or that Liam and I would have crumbled so quickly . . . even before there's something between us that's solid enough to touch. It's like . . . like being excited for a family camp because finally, finally, you'll be able to do something actual and real, but halfway through the jouney you realize how it's going to suck. Or hurt.
Somebody walks in, slowly, but I don't want to risk a move or flutter a muscle. I know it's Liam, though. Anybody else would be welcome.
"Niall, I'm sorry."
"Shut up." My voice is hoarse and edging tears. That's just great, Niall.
"He was . . . I-I should have told you about him. I'm sorry."
"Stop talking."
"Just listen."
And what? I already did, didn't I? I already listened to him, gave in, let everything else take lead and left my common sense somewhere under all the butterflies . . . and look where that took me. "Just leave, Liam."
"He was in my History class," Liam begins. I don't move. "His name's, uh, Zayn. He-he never really noticed me in school. I mean, he was pretty popular, so that must explain it. And," he pauses. I hate it how I've known him enough to realize he's swallowing.
"Stop it. Shut up."
"And this one time, when I, uh, left my notebook, he was there in the room. And he-" Swallow "he asked me if it was mine. So we began talking. Then I really don't know what happened. I just . . . we began seeing each other at school, doing things together. Lunch. That was the first time somebody ever really noticed me, Ni."
Why is he telling me this? I don't care. I don't want to care anymore. My tongue's too dry and my lungs would exhale a broken breath if I open my mouth, so I say nothing.
"We became pretty close pretty quickly. I mean, we connected. And, uh, we began dating the same time I began seeing the world differently. His friends became my friends. I went out with them. Sneaked into clubs . . . he gave me life."
Kill me now, why doesn't he? "Please, just . . . stop." My voice breaks.
It's either Liam doesn't hear it or he doesn't care. "Then, when college came around, we began drifting apart, you know? Like, our dates started becoming sparse and invaluable. And sometimes I'd go back to our dorm and he won't be there. Apparently, he was cheating. With our classmate."
I clench my eyes and try not to let the strain and the waver and the hurt in his voice get to me.
"It . . . it hurt, Ni. We broke up. And I though that if I got away from him I'd get over whatever we had, right? I mean, even if it took a whole summer I'd do it. So I went here, to Cara, because Zayn knows my parent's address and everybody else's . . ."
It's one thing to suffocate in the silence. Drowning in it is a deal much worse. I'm aware of the rain pelting the windows, and his rapid breathing, and his presence, and his pain. And it's unfair, isn't it? It should be. I shouldn't feel any remorse for him. I shouldn't care how much he's hurt, and I shouldn't want to beat up that fucking Zayn kid for hurting Liam. I know I shouldn't.
"I'm really sorry, Niall. I don't know why I'm telling you this. I fucked up so bad, and I just want to know if . . . I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry."
It thunders.
"Why me?" I ask into the air, the words floating out my mouth with impossible ease. The smooothness of the question defies how broken my ribs feel. I lift up my arms so I can look at Liam, who's leaning at the table with a hand behind his neck. He looks worn out. "Why did it have to be me? Why couldn't it have been the clerk in that toy store, or the first person you met when you came here? Anybody. Why did it have to be me?"
Because I was convenient?
"Because," he says, like it hurts. "Because, when I saw you, and your movements, and the way you talked . . . I thought you made me feel the same way he did."
"And you were wrong," I add, feel tears begin to prickle at the corners of my eyes. I suck in a breath. "You thought I could have brought out what he did in you, and you were wrong. I can't amount to him. I'm not as good as him, right?"
"Don't say that . . ."
"I can say whatever the fuck I want," I snap. I swallow and close my eyes. "You love him, yeah?"
"I d-" I hear him take a breath, letting it out with a sense of dread and pain and all the tings that dont suit him and his voice, "I don't know. I'm sorry."
"You should be."
I'm not.
Maybe he sees it in my look during those rare times when we'd be in the kitchen together and accidentally lock eyes, or the way I churn in bed at night, trying to find a comfortable position that would help me in not letting my tears fall the most. Or maybe he just doesn't care.
I bring Theo to Harry and Louis' during the afternoon, so I don't have to walk around under the same roof as Liam as much as I can. Theo and Troy take on friendship quickly and smoothly, already sharing toys and hunting for caterpillars out in the garden. I tell Harry and Louis about Liam and I. "So he's a dick," Louis says.
Harry just gives me this forlorn look. "Sorry about that."
I laugh. Pretty imprssive how I can fake that. "Don't worry. At least I knew three days into the thing, right? And it was just a crush anyway."
It sure hurts more than a crush probably should. And I know that Harry knows this. He shares a look with me, and then with Louis. "You know what time it is?" he asks us. His grin is blinding. "Time to bake cookies."
Cara and Greg come home two days later, under a sunny sky, dragging a luggage-full of souveneir tee's and pants and sea shells with them. Greg gives me a green t-shirt that's a size larger for me, a bone-crushing hug, a huge grin. Then a head-lock. I just offer a small thank you and a smile. Theo unravels our two week's worth of adventures, complete with hand signs and exaggerated noises. Greg keeps laughing.
"Where's Liam?" Cara asks.
"He's uh . . . upstairs, I think," I answer.
"What is he doing up there sulking?" she asks herself rhetorically. "Mind calling dragging him down, for me Niall?"
"Uh, sure." I can't say no, can I?
Each step up the stairs feel like a slab of stone being dropped on my shoulders. My knees wobble, and my feart feels like it's beating through a set of barb wires that's wrapped around it. I don't want to talk to him. I hover outside the door, looking at it like it's knob is fatally dangerous, and finally build up the right mind-set to knock. I breathe. "Liam?"
There's a pause inside. "Uh, yeah?"
"Cara wants you down there. I think she wants to give you something."
The door opens, and Liam stands by the doorframe, smiling cautiously at me. "Sorry. I can't hear you over here."
I nod. I frown when I see a brown luggage by the foot of the bunker bed, the walls cleared of band and cigarette posters. "What are you doing?"
He steps aside so I can stride in. The door closes behind me. "Just . . . cleaning things up."
Turning around, I look at him. "What for?" There's something heavy building up at the back of my throat.
He falls silent, his smile dropping, and slides next to the luggage, zipping up the smallest zipper. "I'm, uh, moving back to London. I mean, since Greg and Cara are here, I figured you won't have any need for me anymore." He offers another small smile. I can smell his cologne from here. "You make a great one-man parent-army."
What? My insides drop all in a single second.
"You don't have to go." I don't let the desperation slip into my voice. "You can, you can stay. If it's because of what happened . . . . don't go."
He smiles. "I have to."
"No you don't."
"Seeing me hurts."
"What would Cara say?"
He shrugs and moves closer. "She knows. I already told her last night on the phone."
"I-" I pause, swallow. I don't want him to go. "Stay. The pain will go away, we'll fall in love with different people in no time at all. You think love is something rare, something special? It isn't. Stay, Liam."
For a moment, I think I might have come out a lot more desperate and a lot less convincing. He just stares at me, right into my eyes, and I don't want to admit how much it hurts that I've never really woken up to his. That we never really had the chance to kiss and do weird but cute couple stuff. But hey, we raised a child together. For two weeks. That amounts to something, right?
He can't let go of that. Not now. He can't do this to me.
"Stay."
His kiss catches me off-guard, and I almost stumble over but of course he has quick reflexes. His hand clutches at my waist, like he's the one who needs to keep upright. I let myself fall, again, because if this summer's taught me anything it's that I'm just another fool willing to take a bullet of pain for a pinprick of love.
All our kisses have been different, I know this. I have kept each and every one in a special compartment somewhere between my lungs, categorized them, kept them playing for the last four days, but this kiss is big different. Like the enormity we've been tucking ourselves into since all this started is about to pop, and now we're evacuating all of the memories into this single, fluid, breathless kiss. It's all desperate and grace.
Like I'm floating but there's something heavy inside my chest that's dragging me down.
I let my hands tangle in his hair, travel down his neck, the dip of his spine. Pull him closer.
This is the last after all.
When we pull away, we're both out of breath. We don't smile.
"I'm sorry."'
"I am, too."
Famous last words.
Things like pain and love never really fade away. I learn to live with constant deja vu's and possibilities that never happened and never will. At the second day I stop expecting the churn of his weight on the bed above me. (It takes me three more to not peek over at his bed every morning though.) I stop playing the cd on the stereo, and had asked Greg to help me bring that back down to the basement. He also helped dragging the bed back to the middle of the room, and changing the color of the sheets to white. I didn't answer him when he asked me why.
Mom and Dad are having a divorce. Yeah. Greg was outraged, but I kept silent. When I was growing up I always thought I would never be in one of those families, that my parents will never be one of those parents who split up because they can't handle life together anymore. A lot of things change, I guess.
Throughout summer I continue bringing Theo to Harry and Louis', where I'm comforted by a constant stream of delicious pies and cookies. Louis' version of consoling is offering offensive jokes about Liam and life and marriage and love. I laugh sometimes.
This is just another summer story and I'm just another fool. And the worst of all? I regret nothing.