Chapter 9 #2
“Don’t touch me!” he shouts, his voice cracking with panic. “Don’t fucking touch me!”
But the guard, either not understanding or not caring, lunges forward to grab him again.
“Liam, no!” I shout, but it’s too late.
Liam’s fist connects with the side of the guard’s head with a wet crack that makes several people scream. The big man staggers backward, more surprised than hurt, but now there’s blood trickling from his eyebrow and his expression has shifted from annoyed to genuinely angry.
“Right, that’s assault,” he growls, reaching for his radio. “I’m calling the police.”
“Please,” I say desperately, moving between them again. “Please, he’s not well. He’s just been released from…”
But Liam isn’t listening to any of us. He’s backed himself into the corner formed by two clothing racks, and he’s hyperventilating so badly that his lips are turning blue. His eyes are wide and unfocused, staring at something none of us can see.
“Get away from me,” he gasps, his hands raised defensively in front of his face. “Get away, get away, get away.”
He’s not in Primark anymore. He’s somewhere else entirely, somewhere dark and confined where big men in uniforms hurt people for sport. Where fighting back only makes things worse but sometimes you can’t help yourself.
I drop to my knees in front of him, careful not to touch, keeping my voice low and steady. “Liam. Liam, look at me. You’re safe. You’re with me.”
But he can’t hear me. He’s shaking so violently that the clothing racks are rattling, and the sound he’s making now definitely isn’t screaming. It’s worse. It’s the kind of broken, keening noise that comes from somewhere so deep inside that you didn’t know it existed until it tears its way out.
“I don’t want to. Don’t make me. Please don’t make me. It hurts,” Liam babbles frantically. “Please don’t. Please.”
My heart drops. Nausea rolls. Deep, deep in the dark recesses of my mind, I had wondered, had suspected. Liam was only eighteen when he went inside. And everyone in the whole fucking world has heard what happens to young men in prison. But there isn’t time to dwell on that now.
People are staring. Of course they’re staring.
A crowd has formed around us, phones appearing as people start recording what to them is just another bit of drama for social media.
The purple-haired cashier looks like she’s about to cry.
Someone’s child is asking their mother why the man is making that noise.
“I need an ambulance,” I tell the security guard, who’s still holding his radio but looking significantly less sure of himself. “He’s having a panic attack. He needs medical help.”
“He assaulted me,” the guard protests, but his heart isn’t in it anymore. Which isn’t surprising. Liam looks so vulnerable, so broken, that it would melt even the hardest of hearts.
“He’s having a mental health crisis,” I snap. “Call a fucking ambulance.”
Liam has slid down a wall until he’s sitting on the floor, his knees drawn up to his chest, rocking back and forth. The sounds he’s making are getting quieter but somehow more heartbreaking, little whimpers of pure terror that seem to come from the very core of him.
“Liam,” I whisper, reaching out slowly. “Can you hear me?”
The moment my fingers brush his arm, he recoils so violently that his head hits the wall behind him. The impact makes a sickening thud, and when he looks up at me, there’s blood trickling from his scalp.
“He’s hurt,” someone in the crowd says unnecessarily.
“Where’s that fucking ambulance?” I shout at the security guard, who jumps and starts speaking rapidly into his radio.
I turn back to Liam, and my heart breaks completely. He’s looking at me now, really looking, and there’s recognition in his eyes. But there’s also something else, shame, deep and corrosive, like he’s mortified that I’m seeing him like this.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, his voice so small I have to lean in to hear it. “I’m sorry, Nicky. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” I tell him fiercely. “Don’t you dare apologize. This isn’t your fault.”
But he’s already retreating back into himself, the brief moment of clarity fading as shock sets in. His eyes go glassy and unfocused again, and he starts rocking once more, humming tunelessly under his breath.
The ambulance arrives with a wail of sirens that makes half the crowd outside press their faces to the windows. Two paramedics push through the throng of gawkers with professional efficiency, taking in the scene with practiced eyes.
“What happened?” the older one asks, kneeling beside Liam with the kind of calm competence that comes from dealing with human crisis on a daily basis.
“Security alarm went off,” I explain rapidly. “The guard grabbed him. He’s just been released from prison, five years inside, he has PTSD, trauma. He thought he was being arrested again.”
More than half of what I have just said is assumption, but I don’t give a shit. I’ve painted a clear enough picture for the paramedic to do his job. That is the only thing that counts.
The paramedic nods, already reaching for his kit. “Has he hit his head?”
“Against the wall.”
“Right. Sir?” The paramedic addresses Liam directly, his voice gentle but firm. “Can you tell me your name?”
Liam doesn’t respond. Doesn’t even seem to hear. He’s completely dissociated now, gone somewhere we can’t follow.
“Liam,” I say softly. “These are paramedics. They’re here to help. They’re not police, they’re not guards. Just doctors.”
Something flickers in his expression at the word ‘doctors,’ and the paramedic catches it.
“That’s right,” he says smoothly. “I’m just a medic. Like the ones in prison. You know prison medics, don’t you? They help when people get hurt.”
It’s a brilliant bit of psychology, connecting to something familiar from Liam’s recent experience instead of trying to pull him back to a present he can’t handle. And it works. Liam’s breathing slows slightly, and he stops rocking.
“There we go,” the paramedic says encouragingly. “That’s much better. Now, I can see you’ve got a cut on your head. Can I take a look at that for you?”
Twenty minutes later, we’re in the back of the ambulance, racing through London traffic toward the nearest A&E.
Liam is conscious but barely responsive, wrapped in a hospital blanket and staring at nothing.
The paramedic has cleaned the cut on his head.
It’s not deep enough for stitches, thankfully, but he’s still concerned about concussion and what he delicately termed “acute psychological distress.”
I sit beside Liam on the narrow bench, not touching but close enough that he can see me if he turns his head. Which he doesn’t. He hasn’t looked at me since we left Primark, hasn’t spoken.
Shame is written across every line of his body.
“It’s not your fault,” I tell him for the tenth time, but he might as well be on the moon for all the response I get.
Outside the ambulance windows, London blurs past in streaks of gray and white. Normal people living normal lives, going about their normal days, blissfully unaware that sometimes the simplest things, a shopping trip, a security alarm, a stranger’s casual touch… can destroy someone completely.
I think about this morning, about the hope I’d carried like loose change in my pocket. About Liam’s almost-smile when he chose the gray hoodie, about the way he’d said “playing at being normal” like it was something beautiful and precious.
The hoodie is still back there on the floor of Primark, scattered among the handbags and the wreckage of what I’d thought was progress.
And I realize, as the ambulance pulls into the hospital car park, that normal isn’t something we can play at.
Normal is something we’re going to have to fight for, piece by bloody piece, with no guarantee that we’ll ever actually reach it.
But looking at Liam, pale and broken and so far away I can’t even find him, I know I’ll keep fighting anyway.
Because the alternative is losing him completely.
And that’s not an option I’m prepared to consider.