Always and Forever

Chapter 20

HANNAH

Liam was not happy. He'd been largely silent since we left the market, and I didn't know what to do or say to curb his anger.

I glanced at him now as he drove us home. He was staring straight ahead, his ice-blue eyes hard and glaring at the road in front of us, his mouth set in a grim line. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel, and I was pretty sure I could hear his teeth grinding at the sound of the chime as another text came in on my phone. I knew he wasn't angry with me, but still, he made a pretty intimidating picture right now.

Tentatively, I placed my hand on his thigh and breathed a little sigh of relief when a tiny bit of the tension seemed to ease from his shoulders. He was definitely still angry, but his reaction to my touch gave me hope that he'd be able to let this go.

"It's okay, Liam," I said quietly, but apparently that was the wrong thing to say. He whipped his head toward me briefly, those blue eyes stormy with ire.

"No, it's not okay, Hannah. First he doxes you, and now you're getting nasty texts left, right and centre. We can't let them treat you like sh—like garbage." He steered himself away from the curse just in time. He turned his eyes back to the road and pressed on the gas, speeding down our street and then whipping into our driveway. I gripped the handhold on the door tightly until he pulled to a stop in our garage.

Neither of us said anything for a moment, and then he opened the door and got out. I watched him walk around the car to my side and open the door, and when he silently held his hand out to me, I took it and let him help me out.

"Okay, you're right. It's not okay that they're doing this, but there's nothing we can do to stop them," I said finally, haltingly. When he didn't say anything, I continued, trying to downplay the situation. I just wanted to put this behind us. "And they're just texts. We can ignore them and block the senders. It's not that big a deal."

"Not a big deal?!" He was incredulous, his voice rising, his eyes flashing with indignation. He grabbed my hands and held them tightly. "Hannah, he's making you out to be some kind of crazy stalker! That's kind of a big deal!"

"But there's nothing we can do about it, Liam!" I repeated, raising my voice as well. "We can't make them stop texting and whispering about me behind my back. And I've learned from experience that fighting back sometimes just makes it worse. We push back, and they push back harder, especially if they truly believe I've done something wrong."

I sighed and looked down at our hands, clasped together. I suddenly felt tired. "Sometimes it's easier to just try to ignore them and move on as best you can."

I had to admit, this whole thing was bringing me right back to my high school experience, when I was ridiculed by everyone for supposedly throwing myself at Tommy Turner. At least I was better prepared this time around, having already gone through it before.

"There has to be something we can do," Liam said after a moment, his voice quieter now and pleading, sounding almost desperate. I glanced at him and found him looking down at our hands as well. He raised his eyes to mine, and my heart clenched at the guilty, anguished expression on his face. "I have to be able to make this right."

"What are you talking about?" I asked, confused and concerned. "You haven't done anything wrong."

"If it wasn't for me pushing you away and towards him in the first place, you wouldn't be going through this right now." He looked down again, shoulders hunched, as if he carried the weight of the world on them.

"Liam, this isn't your fault." I'd known he felt bad about what had happened a little over a month ago, but I'd had no idea he'd been carrying around this amount of guilt. Couldn't he see how happy he made me?