airplanes(Thiam)

chapter 12: If or When

The problem with being an IED, Liam thought, as he sat fully dressed on the small wet floor of the bathtub, was not the getting angry part, sure, that was a bummer, but it was remembering the anger part of it. When he'd been diagnosed he'd read up about Intermittent explosive disorder occasionally, with the lights off in the dead of night as shame bloomed in his chest, deleting the internet history afterward as if he'd been looking at porn.

It had become a bit of an obsession, he'd go to bed early. Wait until he couldn't hear his parents puttering past in the hall or the front door close as his stepdad went to work and then he'd pull out his laptop and flick through google reading article after article. The little bubble of shame growing bigger every time he read the word unpredictable, or dangerous, every time his Mom and Dad would cast him nervous glances as if waiting for him to have an 'episode'.

And he hated that he knew why. That he'd remember exactly what he said or the damage he did when he'd explode. He wished it would be more like a fugue state. Where he'd come out of it confused and disorientated and not remember a single thing because then at least he could try to shift the blame. He could say I didn't know what I was doing and it wouldn't make it okay but he thought maybe the guilt would be less.

But he couldn't, because he always knew what he was doing. Felt justified in it, like he had to scream and shout and break something to keep his blood from boiling right out from his veins. It didn't feel like an overreaction. Not until later, when he'd calm down and look back on it and be back to the nervous looks and then he didn't look back with righteous fury but with a bitter tang on his tongue as he tried to stop the guilt from consuming him.

Liam swiped his wet hair out of his face, huffing a breath, water spraying from his lips as the shower continued to sweep over him.

It wasn't fair that he remembered how he got there, that he remembered every nagging little thought in his brain that would crash against one another until he had to scream to shut them up. It wasn't fair that what seemed like a perfectly justifiable reaction twenty minutes before, would suddenly make his stomach churn when he was forced to realise that to anyone else it wouldn't be.

He heard his phone, vibrating in the next room but just rested his head on his knee's breathing slow and deep. He didn't need it to calm him down anymore. He was calm, painfully so. But maybe, maybe if he just sat there long enough and stayed quiet the water would wash away the past hour. Maybe in a minute he'd blink his eyes open and find himself back on the lazy river with Theo bobbing along next to him happy and carefree and so not the same dickhead Liam had met months before.

If Liam had thought anyone would end up storming out of the argument he'd thought it would be him. Sure it would have been a bad move, Theo had all their money and he would have been left wandering Las Vegas trying to figure out how to travel a few hundred miles back to Beacon Hills but, well, it should have been him. He'd thought it would be him.

But it had been Theo. Theo who'd slammed a wad of cash onto the side before he did because apparently Theo even planned storming out better than he would have. He was sure he should be happy that Theo had left him money, that he had a way to get home. He would be, if he wanted to go home, but he didn't.

Liam dropped his head onto his knee's letting out a small sigh as he pressed his eyes closed. Hands curling around his legs, swallowing the bile threatening to creep up his throat.

Theo had left.

And Liam kept trying to tell himself that it would be okay, that Theo would come back because didn't he always? But then why would he when all that was waiting for him was Liam. Even if he did, what was Liam meant to do?

What Theo would be coming back, the one that Liam had grown used to, the one that would argue with him about History versus Biology and admit he wanted to go to water parks or would it be the Theo that the rest of the pack dealt with. The Theo who's lips would only tip in sarcastic smirks and who no one really knew past a name.