Shadows of Yesterday

Chapter 34: The Cure for a 504 Emotional Timeout Error

The silence in Liam's car reminded me too much of home.

His fingers drumming on the steering wheel and the hum of the engine were the only sounds; the only things to break the tension. In different circumstances, it might have made my heart pound. Now, it just made me apprehensive.

I had no idea what I could possibly hope to say to him to explain... everything. The full extent of my family argument with Declan before he picked me up. The context for Ben's emotional breaking point. The reason my parents were so... gone.

Not to mention my nonchalant reaction to the news that my oldest brother might be an amnesiac. Or never waking up.

Or just dead.

What words could possibly be big enough?

Even now, hours after hearing the news, I still had the composure to calmly eat the food he'd graciously brought over from Mirton's Marvels. All that had changed was that there was now a dull ache in the center of my chest, and my hands were shaking.

I hadn't even explained the full context of my family drama to my best friends, and now Liam knew.

Liam, who I had once considered my enemy. Who I had only recently become close with, and who I had developed a sudden crush on over the course of the past twelve hours.

I was going to hyperventilate.

I felt awful for worrying about this instead of Declan. I should have been obsessing about my brother and his well-being, not about my own nonexistent love life. My brain was a mess of confused, angry, self-directed screaming and malfunctioning word processing programs.

Food could barely make its way to my mouth with how badly my entire body was trembling. Why was I shaking?

I stared at the dashboard, concentrating with all my might on just being still.

"You don't have to do that, you know," Liam said.

His eyes were still on the road as he spoke, and his fingers were still tapping the steering wheel.

I just blinked at him in confusion. Once. Twice. Three times. My eyebrows drew together. "What?"

"Pretend you're fine so that I don't worry."

At first, I was offended. He was the one who had said I had a terrible poker face; if he really knew me that well, shouldn't he know when I was actually pretending?

But then I remembered the reason that he knew that in the first place, and my offense faded into something between embarrassment and guilt. Right. I usually did try to act like I was fine--not well, but pretending was pretending. Anything to keep people's pity away, I thought bitterly.

"I'm not pretending," I assured him. "I really do feel fine."

Liam didn't say anything, but the dubious look on his face spoke volumes.

I shifted in my seat to face him better as I took another bite of sandwich, suddenly desperate to prove myself to him. After I had swallowed, I insisted, "I am! That's the problem, Liam. I'm fine. I shouldn't be, but I am."

"What do you mean?" He flicked on the turn signal and stopped at an intersection.

My eyes automatically darted away from him after he used his car's brief halt to finally turn his head and look at me. His tone was curious and concerned but not freaked out, and I didn't know how to feel about his current calmness. If our positions were reversed, I was sure that I would have been a mess trying to come up with things to say.