When no one's watching

Chapter 29

Liam's pov:

Louis was staring at my wrist with big eyes and a shocked expression.
As I looked down I felt my heart skip a beat.
My sleeve had slid up and now my bruised wrist was visible. I flinched and immediately pulled down my sleeve but I knew that it was too late already and Louis had seen it.

"What is that, Liam? Where have you gotten that from?"
There was something intimidating in his voice and he sounded confused, furious and worried at the same time.
I could feel my heartbeat increasing and my brain feeling empty except for one sentence: What am I going to tell him?

Louis' pov:

Thousands of questions were going through my mind as it kept replaying the picture of Liam's wrist.
Where did that bruise come from?
Why did it look freshly caused?
Who did this to him?
What problems did Liam have?
What was he hiding in general?
Were there more bruises?
Was this the reason why he wasn't wearing short-sleeved shirts anymore? But if so there had to be more.
What was I supposed to say now?

I realized that he still hadn't answered my question and I decided that I had to be patient.

Patience had never been my type of thing honestly.
And I knew that I had a weird and wrong way of coping with concern. I would mostly just loose control if someone wasn't talking I would yell at them which would make everything worse.
So I really had to keep it together now and be patient.

But I knew that I wouldn't leave without him giving me an evident reason for that bruise.

"Can you leave?" Liam was only whispering and I felt bad that I didn't but I knew it was way more important now to figure out what this was all about.

I sighed, this was even trickier than I had thought it would be.
"Ok Liam, you don't have to tell me everything but maybe just give me a glimpse of what is going on, yeah? You can't carry this around yourself all your life, it's gonna break you. Just talk to me."

"I'm fine, Lou. I'm just tired right now and would like to sleep."

Maybe my glare was too rude but I was quite offended that he wouldn't trust me a single bit. What was it that he had to hide so frantically?

"Ok then, why were you crying earlier in the bathroom? And where is that bruise coming from?"
I tried to stay as calm as possible but it was hard since Liam was being so distant.

"I wasn't crying ... you must've heard it wrong I guess. And I don't know why you're making such a big deal out of a bruise. Seriously, I just fell I guess."
I instantly knew that he was lying as he tried to avoid eye contact at all costs.

Even if I tried everything against it, the lump in my throat was getting bigger and I just wanted to scream at him because I was so worried.
"So why can't you show me your arms, Li?"

He just shrugged again and I felt myself tearing up because I was feeling so helpless.

"You scare me Liam."
He just sadly shook his head and pulled me into a careful hug. Even if he was denying that there was something, I tried not to touch his arms at all and just led next to him.

A few moments later I could hear his breath become steadier and he eventually fell asleep still holing me in his arms.

I knew that I could just pull up his sleeves but if he would wake up he would probably hate me or never trust me again. So I just stood up quietly and being careful to not wake him up.

I slowly made my way towards mine and Harry's room, noting that I had to talk to him about this the next morning. Maybe he could figure out more than I could.

As I slowly entered the room I could see Harry's shadow sitting in the bed.
"Where were you, babe?"

3rd person's pov:

As Louis let himself fall into his and Harry's bed feeling completely drained and exhausted, he felt just as miserable as before.

"What's going on, Lou?!"
Harry was whisper-yelling worriedly while gently holding his boyfriend around his waist.

After a while Louis scooted closer to Harry and finally whispered.
"I'm so scared about Liam."

Subsequently, Harry could feel a tear drop onto his chest and as he realized that Louis was crying, his jaw almost fell in shock.

Louis was crying? Louis Tomlinson?

"God, what happened?"
Even though it was completely dark, Harry now looked into Louis' face.

"It's so much worse than we thought."
Louis shook his head remembering the weird situation that Liam didn't open the bathroom door for several minutes and that he had that seemingly severe bruise on his wrist.

Maybe he should tell Harry about what had happened ? Or would he break Liam's trust through that?
Louis knew that Harry knew Liam since diapers so he decided to tell him everything.

Taking a deep breath, he started to tell Harry all the events that had just happened.

Liam's pov:

I could see Louis' confused expression as he saw that I had been crying.
It had been a good day, or that's at least what they thought and what I had thought at first too.

But the more I thought about it the more scared I became.
If Zayn would wake up he would remember that I had let this happen and he would hate me.
Him pushing me away would be even worse than this.
I knew I wouldn't be able to cope with that. I wouldn't be able to live without him.

And the sad truth was that there was no way out anymore.
Either way I would have to live without him.
If he would stay in the coma I would have to live without him or at least with him not being here mentally and if he would wake up he would push me away meaning I was left without him.

I knew it was pathetic to depend so much on a person that you couldn't live without them but I knew I just was that pathetic and had let that happen.
I had let him in and it wasn't good. I hurt him with it and now it was killing me too.
Even if it sounded extremely selfish, at least I now had had the best few months with him. I had appreciated every single second I could spend with him even if I knew that I had hurt him so much.

As my brain monotonously kept replaying the same thoughts I finally drove off into a restless sleep.

Harry's pov:

Fuck, I should've realized it. I should've realized that it had gotten this bad. Of course it had! The incident at the cliffs had already said enough and even if we were occupying him constantly we were still too blind to see how bad it actually was.

Even if I knew more now, there were more question marks than there had been before.
Why wasn't Liam happy about Zayn making improvements ?
Where did that bruise come from?
What was he hiding?

I just wanted to jump up and run to Liam to bombard him with all of my questions but he probably was already sleeping so I didn't want to take away the only time he could be peaceful.