Harry turned frantically to Louis who looked utterly paralysed in his seat. Harry could almost see the reel of flashbacks playing in his friend’s eyes – memories of fond and memories of utter betrayal. He started to reach for him, not sure quite what to do but wanting to reassure or protect him in some way.
“Are you deaf?!” Liam roared, stalking forward and recapturing Harry’s attention. The, fifty or so, other patrons around the pub silently rose up out of their seats in Liam’s support. The hostility in the lounge was so thick it was almost tangible. Harry wanted to stand up and join them, show his support right at the front but he knew this wasn’t his time. There were people here who had personal scores, people who were fifty places further forward in the queue than he. As much as Harry wanted to be one of the front-men in this confrontation, he knew it wasn’t his place right now. Not yet – his time would come no doubt.
Stephen, giving him his due, didn’t bat an eyelash at the hostility – he just rolled his eyes and ignored them all, “Stop being so melodramatic. I am just looking for Louis; he wasn’t at the house.”
“What the fuck do you want with Louis?” Liam snapped. “Haven’t you done enough damage? Or are you looking for your advanced badge in bastardry?”
“It’s none of your business what I want with him – just tell me where he is,” Stephen shot back in a clipped tone.
The brusqueness made Liam see red and he launched forward, clocking Stephen around the jaw before anyone could stop him. Harry jumped at the sound of flesh hitting flesh. “None of my business?!” Liam spat, shoving the slightly shorter man up against the wall by his throat, barely giving him a second to shake off the shock of being punched. Harry’s eyes widened. He had never seen Liam like this. Nobody else was moving though so he sat quietly and watched the scene play out. “As if the cheating wasn’t bad enough,” Liam hissed in Stephen’s face, “but on the day you walked out, you deliberately left Louis to have a major seizure all on his own - even though he warned you it was about to happen! You completely ignored his plea for help and walked out! You didn’t even bother to warn anyone else or phone an ambulance! You just left him to potentially die! And he probably would have if I hadn’t happened to go check on him! Jesus Christ, Stephen, if I hadn’t rolled him onto his side he probably would have choked to death on his own vomit! He went into fucking status you arsehole!”
“Status…” For a second, Harry thought he saw something flash across Stephen’s face, something a little softer than before, but then his expression hardened once more and he shrugged casually under Liam’s grip, “How on earth was I supposed to know? Giving the circumstances, it was perfectly understandable that I thought it sounded like a last ditch attempt to convince me to stay.”
“Oh get over yourself,” Liam hissed, “You may be the biggest twat of the century but even you know Louis would never use his epilepsy like that. Don’t kid yourself if you feel a little guilty, you walked away from him fully knowing he desperately needed your help.”
“I guess I did,” said Stephen, and there was a carelessness in his voice that instantly chilled Harry’s heart, “I suppose I just really didn’t care by that stage.”
The words seemed to stun Liam, who loosened his grip to stare at his ex-friend in the most disbelieving horror Harry had ever seen. Harry couldn’t blame him. To hear those words, whether true or not, coming from someone you had known for most of your life must be like being stabbed in the heart. Harry could tell the barman was desperately waiting for a rebuttal for those harsh words – for Stephen to say something to prove he hadn’t been serious. Because if he was serious then that meant that everything Liam had ever known about the man he’d grown up with was false. And learning that twenty odd years of your life were false could seriously damage a mind – for everything that you thought you knew and took for granted, the very foundations of your principles, were then in question.
