Gone

Chapter 14

{Cry With You - Hunter Hayes }

Me and Liam sat silently in the car as I watched trees zoom by us. How could I have not known that Zayn and Liam had a history? Was I that naive not to see the way they reacted towards one another. I felt ashamed for not knowing or finding out more about both of their pasts before jumping into anything.

I glanced over to see Liam nervously observing the road, doing his best not to look over at me. I wanted to smooth out the frown lines in his forehead.

Liam took a few more turns until we came up to a familiar location. It was the beach my friends and I knew too well but it was a different part I never thought of exploring. Liam jumped out of the car as soon as it came to a stop and came to my side to open my door. I nodded a thank you, still not comfortable with speaking.

He looked down at my hand and bit his lip, unsure if he should guide me with his own. I didn't want things to get this awkward before we even begun talking about the situation so I grabbed his hand courageously and waited for him to show me the way.

He looked at me grateful I wasn't already pulling away before he got a chance to explain. He gently pulled me along the sand and over a few rocks. My eyes landed on a small white and red light house, I had never seen before.

He gave the door on it a hard shove before it sprung open. The smell of the sea air inflamed my nose as he led me up the old wind up stair case. He led me to the top and I was blown away with the interior. It was kept up like the inside of someone's house and paper latterns were strung around the circular room. Liam swiftly moved to the opposite side of the room and pulled back two of the surrounding curtains, letting the view from the ocean in.

His back was still turned to me and each second of silence got more unsettling. If this was Zayn, I would have yelled at him the second we arrived here and demanded he tell me what's going on. But I didn't need a rough approach with Liam like I usually did with Zayn and especially in this situation.

"Who told you about me and Zayn?" Liam's voice was barely audible over the sound of the waves crashing so close.

I sighed, "Zak did, this morning." I could still feel the suffocating feeling I got upon receiving the news.

"Where do you want me to start?" Liam asked as he hung his head down.

"From the beginning. Before you and Zayn moved here." There could have been an error in anything that Zak said or he could have been a little melodramatic in some parts and I just needed to hear the story from the direct source.

Liam inhaled so deeply, I felt like he took some of my air with him. The air between us was so thick with tension, I felt like it was stronger than gravity and kept both of us cemented in our spots. Keeping us at this unbearable distance with him not even facing me.

"When I was born, I was technically dead and I was born without a kidney. Somehow I survived and grew up pretty normal except for the excessive doctor visits. I went about twice a month, which pulled me out of school a lot. Grade 4 was when other kids began paying attention to that,"

"One day they asked 'Why are you out of school so much?' So I told them the truth. I didn't think it was strange because it was just the way I was born. For a minute I thought they were okay with it too until one kid labeled me as weird. He said I wasn't human and everyone else believed him."

"Zayn?" I questioned.

"Yeah but that was only the beginning. My mum kept telling me it was only a phase and everyone would forget all that silliness when middle school started. It got worst. Zayn spread rumors that would prevent me from making any friends. I finally stood up to him in grade 7. Then his juvenile friends started pressuring him to 'teaching me a lesson'. I could handle the black eye once a month or a few punches to my stomach from Zayn but the more days that passed, the more vicious Zayn got. It was like he was feeding off of my suffering. There were somedays it took me hours to walk home after school, because the beatings were that bad."