Sunset Over Bethany

Chapter 9 - Liam

Chapter 9 - Liam

            "She never..." he sighed, "...she never was the girl I knew."

"What do you mean?"

"You know her, Rowan, you tell me."

"Well the first night we talked a lot about her university years," said Rowan, "and she talked about you."

"Oh did she?" His face was blank. Whatever would she say about me?

"Yes, she said she missed you, but that was a while ago. I don't know if she's changed her opinion of you since then."

"She's inconstant."

Rowan's face told all; he hit the mark. "Well, it's not that she's inconstant, it's more like she has this necessity to please everyone, causing her to be inconstant."

Liam looked at him, That's Abby for you. He sighed. "When I knew Abby, like you said, she had this need to be inoffensive to everyone. It drove me nuts. She tried to be that someone to everyone, but it's impossible; you've gotta make some enemies, it's just how human interaction works. But this ideology, by trying to mean no offense to anyone, someone's going to be offended. And that person was me." He took a gulp of his coffee. "I'm sorry, I'm coming in too strong. Coffee does this thing to me, makes me cranky. Let me just finish it before we continue."

He took the cup in his fist and chugged its contents in one fell swallow, "What exactly did she say about me?"

Rowan's frown grew deeper as he scratched his chin in concentration, looking at his cup. "She said that you were her closest friend right through high school, but then you started to grow more distant from her, something she never understood why. Then she told me all about your graduation dance." His face was solemn, his cold eyes suddenly looking at Liam. "You had a crazy night, didn't you?"

A smirk grew across his face. "I had a great night." He picked up his lighter and lit a fag, "Want one?"

Rowan took one and put it in his mouth as Liam lit it for him. He took a long drag and exhaled, blowing a ring that drifted upwards to the ceiling.

"Hmm, pretty." He too drew a ring from the smoke. "Smoking calms the nerves; let's me think clearer. Dulls my pains, too. Of course I don't smoke regularly, only when I really need to." He tapped it over the ashtray. "Whatever story she told you, she obviously missed out on my side of it.

"Now, let me start with this. There's a quote that I like, it goes something like 'he who has no enemies, has no character'. You don't know me very well, Rowan, but the people who do will tell you that I am a man of integrity. Do you know what that means?"

"No, not really."

Liam took another drag of his fag, "To be a man of integrity is to be one who keeps his values and his morals in the face of adversity, or to be stated frankly, to be true to oneself."

"Like in Hamlet?"

"Like in Hamlet. Now, what that quote means is that a man who has no enemies has no reason for any other man to spurn him. But how does one have no enemies? Any ideas?"

"Well, to think logically, I suppose if everyone was your friend, you'd have no enemies."

"Close," corrected Liam, taking another drag, "But they don't have to be friends, just not your enemy. Neutrality will suffice for this hypothetical situation. Anyway, so this man without enemies, he has no reason for others to hate him, but how can he achieve this?" He blew a slew of smoke from his mouth. "It's easy if you think about it."

Rowan gave a shrug. He tapped the ashes off his fag.

"No? Well, the start of any conflict is a difference in opinions. If you take a stand on the subject of, say, who is the greatest comic super hero, anybody who says Superman will have made an enemy of those who believe Batman is. Of course, this is a petty argument and you can obviously coexist with one who believes different super heroes are better than another. But what about the debate on religion, race, sex? You take a stand, and someone will hate you for having taken that side.

"But there are two ways to avoid such confrontations, the first being simply that you have no opinion on anything, the fool's way out. Your actions define who you are because they uphold what you think. The fool doesn't think, and has no action to uphold nothing; the fool chooses to be ignorant.

"But the true lack of character is evident in those who conform their values to everyone's, a chameleon in essence. They agree with everyone's opinion because they are too afraid to offend, or simply have no idea who they are, one who has no integrity. They may be kind on the outside, or even loving, but they cannot hide that they have no ounce of self-identity. Does this sound familiar?"

"Abby," Rowan said, half whispering. "It all makes sense now. How didn't I see this before?"

"Don't beat yourself up too hard, I knew her longer before I realized it." He finished his fag before letting it fall to the ground. He stamped and ground it under his foot as he took out another and lit the end. "The thing is, I was in love with her. Love is a funny thing; it can turn an intellectual into a fool, and a sane man crazy.

"Her and I, we used to share everything with each other. Honestly, if everything turned out okay, I would have wifed her when we got older. But as she got older, it seemed God decided to make her a temptation to other men. She liked to wear these clothes that would show off her figure, and at first I loved it, but her attitude towards it all..." He smirked, "You ever seen under her clothes?"

"Once or twice," replied Rowan.

"That's more than me, bastard. One day, I decided to tell her that she looked nice, but when I did, she was confused and almost took offense. The amount of detail she put into her dress could not hide that she was ... vain, but she denied me any attempt at telling her how I felt about how she looked that day." He popped open a beer and drank. "I just didn't understand her. I loved her, but I knew it wasn't right.

"I enjoyed talking her to still; we used to talk every night about a song usually that I had heard. But our conversations weren't like a normal conversation; her replies were disconnected and shallow. Every answer was a vapid attempt at conversation. I'd ask her how she liked a song, and she would say, 'It was good, what did you think?', you know what I mean? She couldn't explain herself."

Rowan remained strangely silent, but he was interested.

Finally someone who understands what I'm saying, thought Liam. He chuckled, "I remember when I was buying flowers for her for my dance invite, and I had asked her what her favourite flower was."

"She doesn't have one," smirked Rowan.

"Exactly, she has no opinion on something as simple as that. I never had the chance to tell her that. I had the words thought out in my head, but I never had the opportunity to say it. I always imagined her shocked face as I tell her off." He opened his eyes wide, mouth slightly open.

Rowan laughed.

His face relaxed, "Anyway, I realized my love for her was simply a lust for her body, not a true affection for her person. No matter how much I wanted to give her up, I sort of knew I would never meet another girl who was like her. She was a dime, that Abby. If you didn't know her well enough, you'd want her too, but it seems we've both delved too deep.

"It killed me to see others see and say that she was a sweetest person or had the biggest heart," he started, "because you'd think otherwise if you truly knew. I often said that she was just a pretty face, and that was all." He finished his beer. "I'm just bitching, aren't I?"

"Just a little," Rowan chuckled, "But it's something I've wanted to hear for a long time. I always thought I was alone when it came to it, and I never thought it would be as easy as talking to someone she was so close to."

They smoked in silence.