Chapter 19
Chapter nineteen
Nicky
The waiting room chairs are designed by someone who clearly hates the human spine. I’ve been sitting here for forty-five minutes, and my back is already protesting the combination of cheap plastic and anxiety-induced tension.
This is the third therapist we’ve tried.
The first one took one look at Liam’s case history and suggested he might be “better served by a more specialized facility” A code for “too fucked up for my comfortable middle-class practice.” The second one spent most of the session talking about her own theories instead of listening to what Liam actually needed.
Dr. Sarah Greenston comes highly recommended by the private hospital. Trauma specialist, PTSD expert, someone who supposedly understands that healing is messy and ugly.
Fingers crossed, she’s the one and there will be no more hunting around. No more lurking uneasily in different waiting rooms.
I’m never waiting in the car again. Not after what happened at the probation office. Not after realizing how many more threats I can’t see coming, can’t protect against, can’t eliminate with a gun and some carefully applied violence.
The world is full of people who want to hurt Liam, and most of them don’t look like obvious monsters.
They look like probation officers and shoppers and random strangers who might recognize his face from newspaper articles five years old.
They look normal until they decide to destroy him, and by then it’s too late.
Nevermind the Wayne Thompsons of this world.
So I sit in uncomfortable waiting room chairs and pretend to read magazines about home improvement and celebrity gossip, while actually listening for any sound that might indicate Liam needs me.
The therapy room door opens with a soft click, and Liam emerges looking... not better, exactly, but different. Less hollow-eyed than when he went in, maybe. Less like he’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Dr. Greenston appears behind him, a small woman in her fifties with kind eyes and the sort of calm presence that probably cost her years of training to perfect.
“Same time next week?” She asks Liam, who nods.
“Thank you,” he says quietly, and she smiles.
“You’re doing the work, Liam. That’s the hard part.”
We walk to the car in silence, but it’s a different quality of silence than we’ve been carrying around for the past few days. Less suffocating, maybe. Less loaded with all the things we can’t figure out how to say to each other.
I start the engine and adjust the mirrors, buying time while I try to figure out how to ask about the session without sounding like I’m interrogating him.
“How was it?” I finally manage.
“More helpful than I expected,” Liam says, and there’s something surprised in his voice. Like he genuinely didn’t think talking to a stranger about his trauma would accomplish anything.
“That’s good.”
More silence. I can feel him looking at me, probably trying to gauge whether I actually want to know more or if I’m just making polite conversation. The truth is, I’m desperate to know more. What did they talk about? What breakthrough happened? What can I do to help? But I also don’t want to push.
We’ve been walking on eggshells around each other since the night with the pills, both of us terrified of saying or doing the wrong thing and triggering another crisis. It’s exhausting, this constant careful monitoring of every word and gesture.
I need to do something practical. Something concrete that actually helps instead of just sitting here drowning in good intentions and emotional complexity.
Actions are good. Effective. Simple. Easy.
“Maybe,” I start, then stop. Clear my throat. Try again. “Maybe we should get you to a clinic. For, um, health tests.”
Liam’s head drops, and he shakes it slowly. “I’m negative. Clear.”
I’m confused. Negative? Clear of what? How can he know without being tested?
“They tested me regularly in prison,” he says, his voice so quiet I have to strain to hear it over the traffic. “I did catch...” He trails off, can’t finish the sentence, but the implication hits me like ice water.
He caught something. From Wayne, probably, or one of the other bastards who hurt him. Had to be treated for it while still trapped in that place with the people who gave it to him.
“But the medication worked,” he continues. “My last test was all clear, and nobody...” Again, he can’t finish, but I understand.
Nobody hurt him after that. Whether because the treatment scared them off or because someone intervened or because he found a way to protect himself, I don’t know. But the abuse stopped, at least.
Small mercies in a world of horrors.
“They tested you and treated you but did nothing about what was happening?” The question comes out sharper than I intended, anger bleeding through despite my best efforts to stay calm.
“Yeah,” Liam says in a voice that’s barely audible.
The system failed him. Knew he was being hurt, knew he was at risk, treated the consequences but did nothing to stop the cause. Just patched him up and sent him back to the same cell, the same predators, the same daily hell.
I want to burn down every prison in the country. Want to find everyone who could have helped him and didn’t, everyone who looked the other way and pretended they couldn’t see what was happening.
But that kind of rage doesn’t help anyone, least of all Liam. So I swallow it down and clear my throat, trying to move past this unbearably uncomfortable conversation.
“Shall we go to lunch?” I suggest, grasping for normalcy.
Liam shakes his head. “I want to go home. Please.”
Home. At least he still calls it home, even after everything that’s happened between us.
The drive back is quiet, but not the tense silence from earlier. More like we’re both lost in our own thoughts, processing things we don’t have words for yet.
Back at the apartment, I unlock the door and then find myself standing in the hallway, fidgeting with my keys like an idiot.
The thought of going inside, of sitting in that living room with the glaringly new bathroom door visible down the hallway and all our careful politeness filling up the space where easy affection used to be… it feels suffocating.
“Will you be okay if I go to the gym?” I ask, already hating how the question sounds. Like I’m asking permission to leave, like I don’t trust him to be alone for an hour. “It’s only in the basement of this building. I’ll keep my phone with me.”
Liam stares at me for a moment, and I can see him processing the subtext. That I need space, need to hit something that won’t break under the force of my frustration. That sitting around pretending everything is normal when it clearly isn’t is driving me slowly insane.
Then his expression changes, becomes something I haven’t seen in weeks.
“Can I come?”
The question catches me completely off guard.
I’d forgotten, actually forgotten, that the old Liam used to practically live at the crappy council-subsidized gym.
He never stopped moving. Football training, weights, running, anything that involved pushing his body to its limits and feeling the satisfaction of getting stronger, faster, better.
Prison has taken that away from him. I don’t know why or how.
I’m pretty sure prisons have gyms and exercise courts.
But maybe they weren’t safe places to go.
Perhaps there was some kind of fucked-up prisoner hierarchy and only those that have earned the right, are allowed to use the equipment.
Or maybe Liam was simply trying to keep his head down, go unnoticed, and that meant hiding in his cell as much as possible.
Whatever the reason, five years of limited movement, restricted exercise, no access to proper equipment or training has had a striking effect on him. His body now is nothing like what it used to be. It’s thinner, weaker, carrying tension in all the wrong places.
I literally didn’t recognize him when he walked out of the prison gates. It was the first striking sign that something was very, very wrong. That the old Liam no longer existed.
But maybe that’s not permanent. Maybe that’s something else he can reclaim, another piece of himself he can rebuild from the ground up.
The realization hits me like lightning. We’ve been so focused on our relationship, on the romantic and sexual complications of trying to love each other through trauma, that we’ve forgotten there’s so much more to life.
So many other ways Liam can find himself again, can remember who he used to be before prison tried to erase him completely.
Sports. Exercise. The simple joy of physical achievement that has nothing to do with anyone else’s expectations or needs.
“That would be fantastic!” I grin, and I mean it completely. “You’re going to be back to kicking my ass in no time!”
Liam beams back at me, actually beams, bright and genuine and full of something I’d almost forgotten he was capable of. Hope. Excitement. The prospect of doing something for himself, something that might make him feel strong instead of fragile.
For the first time in days, the awkwardness between us dissolves completely. Not because we’ve solved anything or figured out how to navigate the minefield of our relationship, but because we’ve found something that exists outside of all that complexity.
Something simple and good and entirely his to reclaim.
“I’ll need to get some gym clothes,” he says, already moving toward his bedroom with more energy than I’ve seen from him in weeks. “But I have stuff that will do for now.”
“We’ll go to a sports shop tomorrow,” I tell him. “Get you proper kit. Whatever you need.”
He pauses in the doorway, looking back at me with an expression I can’t quite read. Gratitude, maybe, but something deeper too. Like he’s seeing a possibility he’d forgotten existed.
“Thank you,” he says quietly. “For remembering that I used to be more than just someone who needs fixing.”
The words hit me square in the chest. Because he’s right.
Somewhere along the way, I’d started seeing him only as a collection of problems to solve, damage to heal, trauma to navigate.
I’d forgotten that underneath all of that, there’s still the person who used to run circles around me on the football pitch, who could bench press twice his body weight and still have energy for a five-mile run afterward.
Someone who used to light up with pure joy at the simple pleasure of physical achievement.
“Of course,” I tell him. “You always were. I just... forgot for a while.” The confession tastes bittersweet on my tongue. Laced with guilt and shame. But I’m not going to lie to him, he deserves the truth from me if nothing else.
He nods and disappears into his room, and I can hear him moving around with more purpose than he’s shown in weeks. Looking for clothes, making plans, thinking about what kind of workout he wants to try first.
I quickly dash into my room and change into my gym clothes, lightning fast. I’m back in the corridor before he is, and that’s just fine. I have a proper kit while he has to throw something together.
Going shopping tomorrow is going to be wonderful. I can treat him to all the branded high-end workout gear he used to dream of.
I lean against the wall and close my eyes, feeling something loosen in my chest for the first time since that awful night in the bathroom.
This is what healing looks like, I think. Not a straight line from broken to fixed, not a series of dramatic breakthroughs and perfect moments. Just small steps forward, tiny discoveries of old joys, gradual reclamation of all the pieces of yourself that trauma tried to steal.
Maybe we don’t have to figure out how to love each other perfectly right now. Maybe it’s enough to figure out how to help each other remember who we used to be, who we still are underneath all the damage.
Maybe it’s enough to take it one day at a time, one small victory at a time, one moment of genuine happiness at a time.
Liam emerges from his room wearing track pants that are too big for him and a faded tee shirt that hangs off his thin frame. Both are hand-me-downs I gave him before our disastrous Primark trip.
He looks nothing like the athletic teenager I remember, but there’s something in his posture now. A straightening of his shoulders, a lift to his chin, that reminds me of the boy who used to be unstoppable on the football pitch.
“Ready?” he asks, and his smile is the most beautiful thing I’ve seen all week.
“Ready,” I tell him, and for the first time in days, I actually believe it.