He doesn't respond. “Why Liam? What is going on?”
He turns to me, unreadable chaos.
“He’s dead.” He chokes the word up, annihilating both of us with its passage from his throat.
“What?” The words don’t land. My gut drops, my heart thunders.
No.
No. No. No.
“He’s dead, Sara. Last night. On his bike.”
“No—no, wh—? I don’t understand Liam.”
Tears are surging, my breath halts, my existence feels stolen into a ripping current burning me down. Pain plasters Liam’s face as he shuts his eyes and curls his hands into fists.
“Liam, pl—ease, tell me this is not true. Please.”
“He’s gone, Sara. His bike burned to the ground and with him on it. He’s fucking gone.”His voice breaks, pain laced with simmering madness, and my heart, my goodness, my heart breaks with it.
My heart, who will pick it up? It lies shattered on the ground as my tears drown the barely pulsing pieces left of it. I can't move. I can't breathe.
“No—”
My body folds to the ground. As if my bones forgot what they were for, my knees give out and hit the tile so hard I want to hurl from the impact. The pain alters my soul, but it doesn’t leave my body; it magnifies until I scream.
And I scream.
The bloodcurdling sound pierces my own ears, a brutal reminder that I am still alive when all I want to do is die.
Everything around me becomes a cacophony of white noise. My lungs feel heavy, useless, as the world tilts and sways beneath me.
“No,” I choke out repeatedly, each utterance a desperate plea.
“You’re wrong. You’re lying.” But even as those words leave my lips, the truth burrows deeper inside me, carving a jagged path through my heart.
“Last I heard,” he mutters as he watches me, his eyes bloodshot, his voice like ground glass. “He was trying to come talk to you. So, what the fuck happened?”
The words hit harder than death itself.
My brain can’t even comprehend it. It’s too big. Too cruel.
His stare catches mine, his icy blue eyes like Joe’s, but his hide no mercy, and it’s like I’m faced with a monster.
The way he stands there, distant. Detached. As if I might’ve been the reason his brother is now gone.
And that hurts because Liam who’s always hated me in his cold way, now looks at me like maybe I am the problem, like maybe he was right all along and that I should never have been in his brother’s life.
“You think I—” I try to form the words, but they shatter before they leave my mouth. I’m not even sure what I’m asking. Do you think I killed him? Do you think I mattered that much? I want to tell him to go fuck himself, but I can’t find the power in me. Liam’s jaw clenches, eyes rimmed with something I can’t name.
He wipes his face with the back of his arm, and I wonder if he sees on my face that I’m about to lose it on him.
“Don’t,” he snaps, “Just… don’t.”
But I do.
“I didn’t fucking do this, Liam, how dare you? How fucking dareyou?” I choke, crying out.
