After Monday

4 | Story

There were some things Liam just couldn't understand. Monday, for example. But after that one early Saturday morning, he felt like he didn't understand himself, either. Why didn't he convince Monday to go to the police before he let both of them become criminals? How could he have so easily involved himself in a crime that heinous? How could he still sleep peacefully at night knowing he'd done what he did?

"Hello? Earth to Liam?"

Cody's curious voice brought Liam out of his thoughts and back to where he was, the school's cafeteria. He blinked profusely. "Sorry, were you saying something?"

"I was," Ramona said, raising a hand along with an eyebrow. "Not something important, though, just wondered why you aren't eating anything, like, at all?"

Liam looked down at the lack of food on the table in front of him. "Uh, I didn't even notice I wasn't... eating."

"You're in a cafeteria," Cody said, narrowing his eyes. "How can you not notice you aren't eating when everyone else is?"

"Didn't you see the look on his face?" Ramona asked, then leaned forward and whispered loudly: "He looked like he wasn't even here. Well, his body, yes, but his mind? None!"

While his two friends started discussing back and forth about the possible reasons behind him zoning out, Liam's mind drifted back to that day. Something that really bothered him was that he didn't actually feel that bad about it. It was more like someone else was watching him, wishing and praying that Liam would get hurt in such a horrible way that he'd regret ever being born.

"Hey," Liam muttered, slowly returning to the cafeteria. "What do you guys think about atonement?"

Cody and Ramona exchanged confused glances. "What exactly do you mean?" the latter asked on behalf of both of them.

"Like, if... if..." Liam couldn't come up with an example. "Uh, never mind."

He didn't want to involve some of his only friends in something as dangerous as this, and he couldn't risk seeming suspicious if the police ended up finding the body. Liam couldn't afford to be careless when he could screw up both his own and Monday's life, and Cody and Ramona weren't stupid. He had this feeling the unknown person making him feel guilty would want him to suffer horrendously unimaginable pain if he were to drag two innocent souls into his criminal mess.

"Oh, come on," Cody whined and slammed his palms on the table, making Ramona's tray of food shake. "You know I hate it when people start saying something and then go 'never mind'."

Liam was about to quickly come up with something when he noticed Ramona staring intently at something across the cafeteria. She'd barely acknowledged the tiny earthquake caused by Cody that had terrorized her tray.

"All right, and what's up with you now?" Cody threw his hands out in exasperation.

"It's that girl Monday Liam started talking to some months ago," Ramona muttered, squinting her eyes. "I'm trying to have a staring contest with her but she's only looking at Liam, and with this huge smile, too. Don't her cheeks ache by now?"

Usually, Liam wouldn't get goosebumps when he knew Monday was watching him, but this time, Ramona's words made him shiver as if the temperature in the cafeteria had dropped drastically within seconds.