We pitched up for the night and Liam gave me my own tent which he’d got for me at the market (before beating up my Dad to a pulp). I was disappointed that we had to sleep apart now, even though it always seemed like he was miles away even when we were sleeping in the same tent or cave. We were drifting further and further away from where I wanted us to be.
He helped me pitch my tent under the canopy of trees, lost in his thoughts once again.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked him, hammering the pegs into the ground.
“Nothing,” he said defensively and shrugged, making it even more obvious that his mind was full of something.
“Liam….” I said lightly, trying to make him smile again.
No such luck. I loved his smile. The way he smiled at me that night we kissed was something I would never forget; the way his eyes twinkled and he got little wrinkles either side of them. He wouldn’t smile for me today. He ignored me completely and started hitting the tent pegs into the ground a lot harder, taking out whatever frustrations he had on them. I sighed and untied my sleeping bag from the sled, letting Liam have his tantrum in peace. I knew better than to interrupt him when he was having a tantrum. Every time I thought I was getting closer to understanding him, he’d flip out and push me away all over again. We hadn’t even argued during our walk – it had been so good to just talk to him and hold his hand, bonding with him. Obviously, something had happened within his unreadable head in the last hour that changed things again.
It was the moment when Liam threw his hammer at a tree and swore that I knew something was definitely wrong with him.
“Liam, seriously, what’s wrong?” I asked, carefully stepping towards him.
He looked right at me with a thunderous expression.
“Why do you keep staying with me? You’ve had so many chances to leave me, why do you listen to me?” he scowled, like he was angry at my forgiveness.
“I told you, I’ve never felt safer than when I’m with you,” I said softly, reaching out to touch his arm but he pulled away.
“You should hate me for the way I’ve treated you. I can’t get you out of my head and how much you cried, that morning…because of me…”
“I thought we’d forgotten about all of that.”
I was lying, of course, but I didn’t want him to know that I thought about it every night, not if it didn’t mean anything to him.
“Only because you wanted us to. I was up for talking about it,” Liam said argumentatively.
“There’s nothing to talk about though, is there? I made myself look like a complete idiot. You know I have feelings now, and I know that you don’t. That’s it."
“When did I say that?” Liam snapped.
“The morning after you kissed me!”
It was all coming out now. It was about time we had this conversation.
“I never said I didn’t want it to happen, I just don’t think that it should.”
“Why?”
“It’s too much.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why should I get to be that happy? Rosie and my mother can’t be,” he said and turned away from me.
“And you did everything that you could to save them. Do you think they would want you to be miserable for the rest of your life?”
“Look, I can’t get too close to you, Payton. If I can’t look after you, and I lose you like I lost them, it can’t affect me emotionally like it did with my family. It’ll just push me over the edge.”
