by Elen Chase
Liam thought that at this point he could just nod his head and drop it. The funny thing was that, for different reasons, Dan had really started keeping his distance, so it could even work out this way. Still, Liam had been hurt by those words way more than he should have. He had to say something. Anything.
"Rumors about us," he whispered, looking blankly at the ground. Then, gradually raising his voice, he let out all he had inside. "I see, this is what he's worried about. It’s funny because he didn't call you when the bullies burned my precious books, or when they beat me up and I ended up in the hospital. He calls you now, because of this competition, of course! Because if I win it'll be great for the school’s reputation… and he’s so old-fashioned that he thinks he can't brag about it if it turns out I'm gay! I can't believe it. Is it so important for that shitty school who I sleep with?" Tears of rage started running down his cheeks. He was so done with all of it.
"Liam…" his mother said in a whisper.
"Dan is the only reason I didn't give up. He’s the only reason I started dreaming about Uptown again," he sobbed, thinking of him.
Denying his feelings or dropping the subject would have been easier, but it would have also meant demeaning his relationship with Dan and turning it into something to be ashamed of. He could never do it.
"Sorry to disappoint you, Mom, Dad…. Those rumors aren't false at all…"
Once again unable to look at them, Liam turned around and ran away from home before they could say anything.
He ran through the familiar streets of his childhood, ending up in a park where he played as a kid. He wanted to stop and rest for a while, but he didn’t want anyone to see him, so he tentatively sat under a slide which was uncomfortable and childish. His watchpad kept ringing over and over until his parents finally gave up.
Truth was, he wanted to see Dan. He missed him terribly but remembering his worried expression when he left him to go to Bill prevented him from calling him. After that hell of a night, he was scared Dan would tell him that he didn't have time to waste with him anymore. He wasn’t sure his heart could take such a fall.
After a little while, his watchpad rang again: this time, it was Peter. Liam had completely forgotten that he still had Peter’s ID memorized on his watchpad. He refused the call, and since that moment, Peter kept insisting until he was almost forced to pick it up.
"Liam, where the fuck are you?!" Peter screamed at him, and Liam reacted instinctively and hung up. The boy called him again right after. For some reason that wasn’t clear even to him, Liam picked it up again.
"Sorry," Peter said immediately this time, trying to maintain a calm tone of voice. "I didn't want to scream at you…. Liam, are you there?"
"Yes."
"Your parents called me. They said you ran away from home. Are you okay?"
"Why did they call you?" he said, nervously hitting the slide with his forehead.
"They said I was the only friend of yours they could think of."
An ugly, ironic laughter came out of Liam’s throat, without him even noticing. "My life sucks."
"Where are you now? Are you alone?"
"I'm alone."
"Where?"
"Why do you care?"
"Liam, please, I want to help you." He seemed honest, but Liam didn't want to trust him. He couldn't possibly trust him after all those years he had spent tormenting him.
Peter, however, had no intention of giving up. "Listen, I know you hate me and that's fine. But it's dangerous to be outside alone, at night…. I could never forgive myself if something happened to you now."
"That’s none of your business. I'm fine. I’m in the park close to our elementary school, and I don't see how you could help me anyway."
"Stay there." That said, he hung up on him.
Liam had no idea what Peter could possibly want from him, but he hoped he wouldn't call his parents to tell them where he was. As minutes went by, the likelihood of that possibility increased more and more.
Right when he decided it was time for him to leave the park and find another place to spend the night, he heard someone screaming his name.
"Liaaaaaaam!!" Peter's voice was accompanied by the strident sound of a bicycle slowing down. "I told you to stay there!" the boy said, panting.
"What are you doing here?" Liam asked, honestly surprised to see him there. "Where did you come from?"
"Home," he said, catching breath.
"Isn't it two districts away?"
"Whatever. Are you all right?" he asked, worried.
"Yeah."
Peter got off the bicycle and bought two drinks at a nearby vending machine.
Liam waited for him, sitting on a bench, still wondering whether he could trust him or not.
"Here," Peter handed him a can. "Is apple juice still your favorite?"
Liam nodded and accepted the can.
"What happened with your parents?" Peter asked him.
"Apparently the principal is worried about my sexual orientation making it outside school."
"Sounds crazy. What's that about?"
"There’s a competition in July. If I win, he doesn't want people to find out I'm gay."
"I don't really understand why he would do that."
"I stopped asking myself why people do things when you started bullying me." Liam took a long sip of his drink. "Anyway, my parents know about me now."
"I see…. You had to tell them anyway, sooner or later."
"It pisses me off so much, coming from you."
"Sorry. I know I’m not someone you’d want to share these things with." He remained silent for a few seconds. "I thought you had gone to see him."
Liam stared at his watchpad. "I couldn't bring myself to call him."
"Why? He's your boyfriend, he should be here with you now, spoiling you rotten and chasing away the bad guy."
That made Liam smile. "That would be you, right?"
"Evidently. Remember that he threatened to kill me if I ever touched you again."
"Yeah… he was so cool when he did that." The two of them looked at each other and laughed.
"Okay, I’ll give you that. He was cool."
They remained silent for a little while, finishing their drinks. It almost felt like time had gone back to when they were friends, which was ridiculous, awkward and yet somehow nostalgic.
"He's not my boyfriend," Liam confessed in the end.
"What?" Peter’s mouth fell open. "But you—"
"He's dating an older guy, that's his boyfriend. He might be with him even now. And don’t make that face, you’re looking at me like you’d look at a math problem."
Peter shook his head and blinked a couple of times. "I don't understand. I know people at school saw you… kissing and stuff."
"Yeah, we do that all the time," Liam said. Peter seemed awfully embarrassed, and he decided to tease him a little. "We hug, make out, and do things your virgin mind can’t even imagine."
Peter’s face was positively the same shade of red as Liam’s hair. "And he's dating another guy?"
"Yes."
"Isn't he just using you, then?" He seemed upset about it, and that made Liam turn defensive.
"Dan isn't using me! He cares for me, and always does things at my pace…."
"But this relationship you have is just a pastime for him, isn't it? Otherwise, you would feel free to call him now. I understand you're in love with him… but shouldn’t these things go both ways?"
That hurt. Somewhere inside of him, he was thinking the same. The facts were clear: Dan hadn’t called him since he left his house the other night to go to Bill.
Liam was sure his face must have looked terrible, because Peter immediately added, "I'm sorry. I have no right to say these things to you."
Liam shook his head. "It doesn’t matter. Just, please, go now. I need to be alone for a while."
Peter didn’t move an inch. "Well, maybe you shouldn’t be alone. Liam, I’ve been an asshole to you, I know. And you ha
te me; I understand that too. But maybe we’re still in time to start over, if only we could get some closure—"
"What closure?" Liam interrupted him. Once again, his words were making him anxious. "Closure’s bullshit. We could talk for hours about what happened between us and how, and why, and we could even pretend to be friends again after that, but it won’t change all that I went through because of you. It won’t be all right because I’m still hurt, Peter. I don’t even know if I’ll ever stop hurting or if I’ll ever meet a friend I can trust again."
Peter tightened his grip on his can, crashing it one handed. On his face, a suffering expression. "So, you will never forgive me."
"It’s not even about forgiving you anymore. I just have to make peace with myself and accept what happened. Maybe you should make peace with yourself too and move on. I think you’ll find out you don’t need me to forgive you to stop bullying people."
Peter took a deep breath. "I understand what you mean. You think we should just close the file on that one and go on with our lives, hoping that one day we’ll stop hurting because of how it ended between us. Well, I can’t do that, Liam."
Liam was getting even more confused. He wasn’t able to reply anything.
Peter swallowed some air and kept talking, "I realized it only when he came in your life…. When I lost you completely, I understood that all I had been doing was trying to force you by my side. In a distorted way, somehow, I liked the thought of being the only one who talked to you, the only one who knew who you really were. Now I lost you, and I lost the only thing that made my life real. Looking at what’s left of it, I realize how empty my days are, how in denial I’ve been, for so long…."
Liam’s chest hurt as if someone was stabbing him with a knife. "You almost talk like you were in love with me."
Silence fell between them.
Say I’m wrong.
Silence.
Laugh about it.
Silence.
Make fun of me.
Silence.
Show me your true colors. You can’t love me. Not after what you did. Not after you called me a faggot, not after you burned my books, not after you mocked me, and hit me, and humiliated me. Do you want sympathy now? Fuck that. Fuck you.
"This is so unfair," Liam whispered, his voice broken and weak.
"I’m sorry," Peter said, unable to hold back the tears. "I’m so sorry."
Chapter 12
Lying in the uncomfortable bed of a cheap motel, Liam was positive it had been the worst day of his life so far.
Before going away, Peter had lent him some money and insisted on calling his parents to tell them that Liam was all right and would be back home the next morning, even though he didn’t feel like going back at all.
His head was full of all the things that had happened, and he couldn't sleep at all. At some point, he ended up staring at Dan's name on his contacts list as Peter's words were tormenting him.
Am I really just a pastime for him? But he told me I could call him anytime…. He said he would be there for me.
After struggling for an indefinite time, he settled for sending Dan a text message: “Is it over between us? Please, just tell me, and I won't call you anymore.”
It sounded desperate, and Liam knew it very well, but after that day he was desperate, so why pretend not to care?
He hid his head under the pillow, which he threw to the floor, startled, as soon as his watchpad started ringing. It was him.
"Dan," he said, failing to pretend he wasn't crying.
"Ginger, what's that about?" Dan’s voice was warm, just like he remembered. He had missed it so much.
"Are you just killing time with me?"
Dan stayed silent for a couple of seconds, in which Liam wanted to die.
"We need to talk, Ginger," he said then.
As far as Liam’s limited experience went, a we need to talk was the worst way to start a conversation: nothing good could come out of it.
"I'll come to get you. Can you sneak out of home?" Dan asked him.
"I’m not home."
Was he going to leave him once and for all? The pain in Liam’s chest worsened.
"What happened? Where are you?"
"I had a fight with my parents…. I'm in a motel now. I'll send you the address."
Liam hung up and sent Dan the address, wondering how he would have got there, considering that he had missed the last train. He waited twenty minutes, and then a text came, saying “I'm here.”
Liam looked outside the window and saw him getting off a motorcycle. He didn't know he had one. But still, he didn’t know much about him in general. He quickly sent him his room number and waited for him by the door.
Dan was wearing a leather jacket on a sweatshirt, black pants, and boots. He was carrying a heavy-looking backpack on his shoulders, and Liam guessed he had just got back from some place out of town. The helmet had left his hair messy and sexy. He walked up to Liam and gently cupped his cheeks with his hands, saying nothing. Dan’s skin was cold from the night air, and the sensation of his fingers on his overheated face made Liam feel good and coddled.
"Don't be nice to me," he whispered. "Don't make it hurt even more."
"Liam Carter." Dan’s voice was so reassuring and warm that Liam couldn’t help lifting his face up to look at him, overwhelmed by how sweet his name sounded whenever Dan called him.
They stared at each other for a moment before Dan took him in his arms and brought him to bed, carrying him the same way he did at school the day Peter sent him to the hospital.
"Dan… what are you doing?" He was embarrassed and at the same time pleasantly surprised.
Dan dropped his jacket and backpack on the floor, kicked away his boots, and lay by his side. "Your mind is running wild. Just calm down and listen to me," he said, pressing his lips on Liam’s forehead and holding him tightly in his arms.
Liam finally started relaxing, lost in the sweet scent of his skin. He grabbed the back of his sweatshirt and nuzzled his face at his chest.
When he had finally calmed down, Dan said, "Bill and I broke up."
That wasn’t what Liam was expecting at all. "How…? The other day—"
"The other day I went with his group to take him back from a rival gang. Since that moment, something changed between us."
The feeling of Dan’s hands running on his back was distracting him, but Liam tried to focus.
Dan kept explaining, ignoring how his touch was making Liam shiver. "Yesterday he told me it's better if we don't see each other for a while."
So, Bill dumped him? Liam found it hard to believe.
"Why did he do that?" he asked.
"His group is growing…. They’re making plans for their future, and he said he needs to focus on that."
"Are you… sad?" Liam whispered, timidly. Dan’s feelings were, as always, a mystery. He couldn't understand him completely, but he wanted to be by his side and at least try to help him.
"I'm not sad," he replied, holding Liam stronger, and then he paused as if he was trying to find the right words to describe his emotions to him. Liam silently waited for him to keep talking. "A few years ago, I saw one of the most important people in my life die. Sadness doesn’t even begin to cover the way I felt when I lost my An. I was in the deepest despair; it was like part of me had gone with her. There was only one person whom I knew was going through the same hell as I was. He was all I had left, the reason I kept living… and I lost him too when I moved back to Downtown. I was sad the day I left. For days and months after that moment, thinking of him made me feel a sharp pain in my chest, tearing me apart."
Dan’s defenses were down. Liam could feel that he was trusting him not only with his memories but also with all the emotions connected to them.
"What does it mean that you lost him?" he asked.
"I moved back here because there is something I have to do in this part of town, but I didn’t want to involve him, so I cut all contacts with him. It was my de
cision to leave Uptown, so, for the past four years, my resolution has been never to be hurt by whatever happened to me here. I would accept anything, as long as I can get closer to my goal."
"It sounds really lonely to me."
"Shouldn't you know by now that I’m a loner?" he smiled.
Liam felt his stomach drop to the floor. "Is this thing you have to do so important?"
"Yes," he replied without even thinking about it. "It's something I owe to An, and I'm dedicating all my life to it. This is also related to what I wanted to discuss with you tonight, Ginger."
"What is it?" Liam’s heart was stuck in his throat.
"I like you, Liam. You are the best thing that happened to me recently. You’re kind, pure, and honest. You make me laugh and forget all the shit I’m in, and God knows I needed that in my life. Now that I broke up with Bill, I wanted to ask you out. I want to be your boyfriend. No sharing or cheating."
Liam couldn't believe his ears. That was what he had always wanted.
"But," Dan said, interrupting Liam’s fantasies. "I don't want to lie to you…. You can't be my number one, not even now. This thing I told you about will always be my priority, and it will determine all that I'll do with my life. I can't expect you to accept it and deal with it; on the contrary, I want you to go to Uptown and chase your dreams. You earned your freedom from this place, and I don't want to be the one who ties you to it."
"Dan…." Those words made Liam want to cry again.
He was sort of dumping him after all, but that wasn't the only reason why Liam was upset: what hurt the most was the way Dan talked about his own future as if nothing good could happen to him after this mysterious thing he had to do.
"You know, I think I can make you happy," Liam whispered, holding back the tears. "I can wait for you to do whatever you have to…. I don't care if I can't be your number one…."
"Liam…." He kissed his forehead. "You're already making me happy. But you can't waste time with me."
"Are you so determined?" Liam took a deep breath. He had to be strong. No matter how hurt he could be or how unfair he considered their circumstances, he respected Dan and he felt he had to respect his decision too. That night, for the very first time, he had finally started understanding him a little. His first love: strong, sweet, smart, caring… and lonely.