Count On Me | Niam

Chapter Fifty-Six

Chloe

Liam was leaving in four days.

Or was it five days?

It had been three days since he'd said he was leaving, so it was four days.

Four days. Then he was going away. For months. Which was fine. It was. Really.

So Liam wouldn't be around for her birthday, or so she figured, and wouldn't be there to do all the things they'd started doing together. She'd just gotten used to having him around, just gotten used to the fact that, maybe, he did make her dad happy, even though he'd made him cry, and had just decided that she liked the title 'papa' on him, and he was leaving.

Which was fine.

That was her new phrase.

Jessica always said it, even when she wasn't fine. Jessica said it a lot, especially after her girlfriend dumped her and her next boyfriend decided to date her ex-girlfriend. Jessica also said it after Chloe threw up on her brand new rug, or when her dad was three hours late to collect her.

Fine was a phrase Chloe had slowly learnt meant that things weren't actually fine, and it seemed app- Appro- Appropriate, appropriate for her to use now.

Chloe was not okay with Liam leaving. Not in the slightest. She was going to miss him. Really. It felt like he was glad to be going. He hadn't said anything, and she'd learned from watching Coronation Street with Jessica that, when people did that, it generally meant they didn't want you to know they were going, which meant that they were looking forward to leaving.

Her dad...she'd been told that wasn't true, that Liam was only leaving for his work, with Zayn and Lou and Hazzy, (none of them had come through on their promises to hang out with her, either; Zayn hadn't let her paint his walls and there hadn't been another tea party with Hazzy, but she wasn't going to complain about that, not right then at least), but Chloe wasn't all that inclined to believed him. Her dad wasn't upset about Liam leaving.

She'd've thought he would've been, but he wasn't. Which led her to believe, with some help from Toby, that her dad had known. (Not that she'd told Toby everything. She wasn't allowed to. She'd been told ages ago that telling the whole story would be a bad thing, and so she'd lied. Toby didn't know and didn't mind. He was having enough trouble with his new stepdad and new sisters. He didn't like his new stepdad. He stopped Toby's real dad from seeing Toby and Toby's mum had agreed with him. Toby had been the one to figure out that her dad knew.) And then he hadn't said anything either. Which meant that he maybe lied about Liam not, not wanting to get away from them. She hadn't asked any further questions, though, and she wasn't being made to see Liam.

Her dad and Liam kept making secret phone calls as well. But only when her dad thought she wasn't paying attention. Secret phone calls where things like, "Liam, she's upset. I'm not going to force her to. I know. Look...how about lunch tomorrow? I'll take the earlier shift and we can...do whatever. Go for lunch. Catch a movie. Catch up on the TV we've missed," or "I love you, you know that, Li. She'll come round. There's still six, five, four days left,' were said.

Her dad kept saying that was fine too. Which Chloe took to mean that it wasn't fine. But...she was going to miss Liam, and she didn't know how to deal with that. She'd come as close to dealing with the information  was deciding that it wasn't fair. And she was right. It so wasn't fair. Liam was leaving, and she had to be okay with that. And she was not. As she'd said; she'd gotten used to Liam being around. He'd stepped up to the role of 'papa' and having him around...she loved him. Like she did her dad. And he was leaving.

Which took her back to her first problem. 

And maybe the second problem; dealing with Liam leaving.