Help. [ Ziam ]

Embarrassment.

4. Embarrassment

"Now this may be a bit of a touchy subject this time, Liam," the woman says, noting how Liam's eyes lift up at the first sign of words this session. "But I want you to be honest with me," it's the first introduction of speech since Liam first walked in 7 minutes ago, but neither of them feel the need to mention this. "Where you embarrassed?"

Liam scoffs, turns his head down towards the help booklet in his lap and shakes his head in disbelief, refusing, wholeheartedly, to answer such an open and frankly degrading question.

The woman sighs, though doesn't push. Instead, she advances to; " I understand that, particularly with male victims, admitting the extent at which your partner, - in this particular case, your husband, Zayn, - is inflict both physical and mental harm to you, can often be quite difficult for the victim to achieve."

Liam wishes for nothing more than to stop being called a victim.

"But I want you to understand that I am not here to judge you," she assures, eyes wide and honest in contrast to her patients degrading thoughts of her. Particularly, in this moment, he can only bring his mind to remember their first session, in which her eyes ran over him, searchingly,calculatingly, and - above all, - judgingly.  He imagines however that if he was brave enough to tell her this, and if she were scathing enough to tell him the truth, that she would possibly tell him that police statements show he never really was one to care when someone does exactly the opposite as they'd once promised they never would. He clicks his jaw mechanically and refuses to meet her innocent gaze. "Liam, I am here to help you, and assure you, from the bottom of my heart, that you have absolutely nothing to be embarrassed of." Liam mentally begs to differ, but physically he hardly lives, moves or speaks, and he can tell that she's becoming irritated by his stubbornness. "What happened was not your fault and there is never any reason for you to feel embarrassed by it." Liam makes a point to refrain from indulging her in such thoughts that argue that telling someone not to feel something, in the large scheme of things, very rarely actually prevents a persons mind to continue feeling such emotions.

In his head, Liam points out how there was, and still is, many, many reasons for him to feel so pointedly "embarrassed by it." Because he wasn't weak, - not physically; hell, in comparison to Zayn he could hardly even be considered weak mentally, either; certainly not to begin with. He was strong, we went to the gym, he boxed, he ran, he was, as Zayn loved him, fit. And he wasn't as broken as Zayn either; knew how to work a smile, how to make friends, how to move on and forget about things far easier. He exceeded in the things Zayn struggled in, and in return Zayn professionalised every one of his own flaws, and they balanced each other out, and together made the perfect whole. But he was still considered, by many, the more stable of the two, and therefore the least likely to be broken so efficiently and wholly by his other half.  So he was, and he's very sorry about it too, because he just knows how much tactile convincing she's trying to enforce him with, but he was, by all sad fucking means, embarrassed by it.

He's so fucking embarrassed by it. By the sheer truth to some of the things Zayn spat at him, and often some of the other things his mind stretched these words to mean as well..
Embarrassed by how he was, in fact, broken so easily by a man who wasn't even whole himself. Despite, however, how many bloody times people tell him not to be embarrassed by it.

He's embarrassed of a lot of things, he's aware of that, she's aware of that. And no amount of "never any reasons" can convince him not to be.

Her eyes turn sad, and for a moment all he knows is that he's sorry. He really, really fucking is. And this poor woman loses troublesome hours of her day, uselessly, to an embarrassed, lonely, scared little man who outright refuses to cooperate with any of her help. He's so, so sorry. But he can't. This isn't him. This isn't what he needs. And they both know it.