Alone • Liam Dunbar

Twenty-Three

I couldn't remember the last time I had slept like this. My body was tense. Not because of stress, but because I hadn't moved all night. I had stayed curled into myself with a warm pillow, blissfully ignorant of every single problem that followed me. 

It was peaceful. 

That peace promptly ended as I felt fingers combing through my hair. It was most likely meant to be a comforting touch, but my deep sleep left me hazy. I woke up unaware of my surroundings so my instincts told me to remain on guard and remove myself from that touch as soon as possible. 

I shoot up from my position, grabbing the wrist of the hand that caressed me. I twist myself to face them, ignoring the way my stitches pull at the movement. My glare is intense until I realize I'm staring into a pair of familiar blue eyes. The events of last night came back to me in an instant, filling me with shame for my reaction.  

"Sorry," Liam and I say at the same time. 

He chuckles at our mirroring, brushing off my apology. I do the same to him and loosen my grip on his wrist. Though, for some reason, I find that I can't let go of him completely and settle for simply cradling his forearm in my palm. 

"Have you been up all night?" I ask, worried. 

The sun was up and brightened the McCall living room through thin curtains, a sign that we had been like this for a few hours. Liam had yet to shrug me off as the morning came, though. He remained in the exact position he had been in before I passed out but I couldn't imagine he had fallen asleep like that. He had no support for his neck and his lap was probably numb from me laying there for so long. 

"Don't worry about it," Liam says, not actually answering my question. 

"But, I do really need to use the bathroom, so..." he trails off, gesturing to the bathroom down the hall. 

I let go of his arm with a mildly groggy laugh and move away from him so he can stand. Liam offers me a grateful smile before getting up and bolting to the aforementioned room. In his absence, I still wonder if he had actually stayed up the entire time to watch over me. I'm flattered over it, as it wasn't something I was accustomed to.

I also felt panicked when I remembered we weren't alone, and there were two annoying teenagers who would've had a field day to see me cuddled against Liam like some prissy housecat.

There wasn't any sign of them in the living room, everything in place like it had been last night. I stood and made my way into the McCall kitchen, just to be sure, and stopped dead in my tracks when my eyes met someone else's.

"Have a good night's rest?"

Melissa had a teasing smirk barely hidden behind the coffee mug she sipped out of.

I slowly crept further into the room, one hesitant foot in front of the other. 

"It was decent. I came to grab painkillers." It's not a complete lie. I really did need some after the ones I took last night wore off in my sleep.

She hums in acknowledgment and stands, walking over to the kitchen sink. She opens one of the cabinets above it and pulls out a thin white bottle, dropping two pills from inside into her palm. Before she comes back to me she fills up a glass from the dish rack with water, then holds out her hands for me to take the offered items.

"Thank you," I say shortly, popping them into my mouth before downing them with water, all while keeping eye contact with Melissa.

"Your stitches okay?" Melissa goes back to her seat. I take the spot across from her, my posture straight as an arrow. It was as if I was talking with an enemy interrogator rather than Scott's mother.