I dragged Liam through the halls to geography, he was a heavy weight pulling down on the shackle between us. He didn't seem too bad, maybe the effects of marijuana were not as strong on Liam. He just seemed more... spacey, relaxed and definitely physically slower. He followed directly behind me with heavy feet and kept reprimanding me for walking too fast. The boy was a soccer player, he's literally trained to move fast.
We took our seats in geography and I allowed my eyes to drink in his high, studying every symptom he displayed. Eyeing his body language I made several mental notes. He was sat slouched in his chair, his whole body was dropped and relaxed, like everything was too heavy so he just melted into his seat and didn't try to hold his limbs up. But he looked comfortable in his own skin and it dawned on me that Liam never looks this way, like ever. Two pink eyes peeked out through chestnut curtains and they seemed to really focus on things with an overbearing sense of wonder.
"your hair... its so soft"
His speech was slow like his tongue was too heavy to properly maneuver.
Liam griped hold of my hair and smoothed it out between the fingers of his one free hand. Taking me by surprise, something inside my chest stopped as I savored the sensation of his touch. Holding my breath as golden strands danced through his slender fingers. Bloodshot, heavy eyelids blinked slowly in awe. I sat frozen as he caressed my silky, smooth hair relishing in the texture.
"it smells so... good." He dragged out every letter of his spoken words.
Ashy blonde tones gathered under his cute button nose as he inhaled devouring the scent of me he then closed his eyes and let out a deep hum of appreciation. Biting my bottom lip to suppress any sounds coming from my own mouth I felt my insides twist into a knot, mentally scolding myself for reacting.
your skin... is soft too."
Liams hand brushed against my cheek, every one of my hairs stood on end accompanied by tiny goosebumps over my arms. Liam had me constraint in captivity like the wild animal had just caught his prey. Heavy eyelids zoned in on my hair and cheeks as he tenderly stroked them with his warm hands delighting in the touch.
My heart roared inside of my chest, my face resembled a strawberry and I suddenly became aware that we were in a classroom with about thirty other kids.
"Liam..." I whispered, pausing for a moment to build up some more confidence.
I grabbed his hand and lowered it down to the table in front of us, my face feeling cold and lonely now that it was no longer teased by his heated embrace, I immediately regretted it.
"You need to stop. You're high and someone will catch on." I kept my volume low so that only he could hear.
Looking around nervously I was thankful to see nobody was watching us and a rush of relief flooded through me causing the knot in my stomach to unfurl. Liam turned his interest to the pattern on the desk, hypnotized by the look and feel of the textured wood grains .
***
It had been two hours since Liam smoked his joint, he had hit his high in geography and was riding it out throughout history but as we hit the cafeteria I think the effects were wearing off.
Liam opted for Chicken Parmesan Pasta, a side salad, bread sticks, two servings of chocolate fudge cake, a handful of blueberries, a vanilla yogurt AND a packet of Cheetos. I gaped at his tray with amusement playing across my face.
With a shrug he simply said "munchies" like it was an every day problem that I should have personally experienced.
After struggling with two trays and two hands between us we finally made it to my usual table. Tia peered up from her meatballs and spied the silver chain that bonded Liam and I together, she then shot me a knowing glance that made my cheeks heat up. Liam on the other hand gnawed at his food, mouth open, completely oblivious to the secretive facial expressions my best friend shot me.
"Anyone give you any trouble today?" Tia asked, side glancing at Liam with a snarl.
"Just the usual everyday occurrences, nothing major." I replied with more gloom to my voice than anticipated but I hoped the eye roll would throw them off into believing I thought it was no big deal.
Liam looked up mid chew, crumbs falling from his lips as he was already through half of his tray.
"You put up with this shit every day?" Liam blurted out between rolling food around inside his mouth.
"pretty much, yeah" I can't shake the gloom out of my voice.
Liam frowned and shook his head in reply to my answer, he then picked up three blueberries and shoved them into his mouth.
"Yeah and she puts up with it from you too dipshit."
Tia jumped to my defense, burning her eyes into his face like two lasers trying to cut him up. I lowered my head, startled by Tia's unexpected reaction but her face looked furious. I heard Liam swallow the blueberries down. Matching Tia's facial expression Liam opened his mouth to speak then closed it. A showdown between enraged dark brown eyes and impassive blue eyes played out only his eyes might have been tinged with the smallest ounce of regret.
Liam pulled away first, someone distracted him from across the room.
"Shit, Liv... we gotta go."
He quickly started gathering up the bits of food that he hadn't already demolished and waited for me to say my goodbyes to Tia. Taking the lead Liam yanked me across the cafeteria towards the chemistry nerds, what does he want with them?
"you got any?" Liam said with a stern, malevolence tone.
Got what?
Acne faced John nervously glanced in my direction behind his circular, gold framed spectacles. Liam followed the trail of Johns eyes towards me and rubbed the back of his neck leaving his skin tinged slightly pink.
"Don't worry about her. I'll keep her quiet." Liam curled his lip, squinted his eyes, his expression full of loathing. I knew not to mess with him.
John nodded and then discretely slipped a folded paper towel into the palm of Liams hand. The two exchanged looks but didn't utter a word to one another. Liam then slipped some notes into Johns palm. I eyed the whole encounter suspiciously. Did they just do a drug deal? My brow furrowed as I watched the exchange and I felt my palms sweating with nerves. Smoking pot was one thing, doing a drug deal for something heavier in the middle of the school cafeteria is another. Was I involved in this now?
Liam grabbed a bottle of water on the way out & unfolded the green paper towel, sure as shit inside was two tiny white tablets. Without a second thought Liam downed one of the tablets and slipped the other one into his back pocket. I have no idea what he had taken but I oozed with anger, the heat radiated from my body sending cosmic waves of fire out into the air. I think Liam could sense it... or feel it.
"Jesus, whats crawled up your ass?" he had the nerve to ask.
For once my tongue was heavy, itching to speak it's mind and I wasn't going to hold back.
"You." I huffed.
"You go buy from one of your drug dealers when you know I have no choice but to go with you. You had no right involving me in something I never wanted to be involved in. What if the principal finds out and then tells my parents? Oh God ... what if the police find out and send me to jail? Oh My God... My college future will be gone and everyone will think I'm some kind of washed up, low life, druggy."
My braveness cracked open wide and apparently once I started I couldn't stop. Liam stared, speechless, completely shell shocked I had a voice. After a few minutes of gathering himself a slow, wide, sexy smirk grew across his face. Eyes glinted with excitement and he let out a giggle. He's never looked more attractive.
"Chill Olive, you're being ridiculous and over thinking things."
As his words blended together to form the sentence his barriers slowly rebuilt and all of his inner thoughts and feelings were hidden behind the armor of his leather jacket. But today I had learnt a lot about Liam and his mannerisms.
I learnt that when he lets his walls collapse his emotions are clear and raw to see. I learnt that somewhere underneath all of that amour he really wasn't as bad as he pretends to be. But the biggest thing I learnt was even if I was intensifying mad at him, I could never stay mad at him for long because his beautiful, carefree smile and boyish charms sent waves through my body that woke up the butterflies.
Tomorrow was my turn to mimic him and I was looking forward to it.