Chapter 18. Liam
I'm alone at the workbench. I just want to stop thinking about that stupid fucker. I need a lobotomy for that. But I can’t afford even Tylenol, definitely not a lobotomy, unless I try to do a homemade one.
I wouldn’t object to that. But, instead, I sand the wood.
I sand it like it personally offended me.
But it isn’t the wood. It’s Ethan. The block under my hands is supposed to become a birdhouse, that's my project today, a birdhouse, as if I even like stupid birds. I don’t like anything.
Not anymore. Right now the wood’s just a rectangle of pine getting thinner by the minute because I can't stop dragging the sandpaper across it like I'm trying to erase it from existence. Actually, I wanted to erase my fucking self, but I can’t.
Around me, the carpentry shop is buzzing. The instructor, Bob, a big guy with a beard, drifts between tables making corrections. Saws buzz. Someone drops a hammer and swears. It's all very normal, and I am losing my goddamn mind.
I took the fall for him. Let me just say that again, slowly, so my brain absorbs it: I.
Took. The. Fall. The cold shower, the humiliation of standing there in my shorts while Griff timed five minutes on his watch, water so cold it felt like needles in my teeth.
I did that. For Ethan. And for Miles, but let’s be honest, especially for Ethan.
Because that's what you do when you give a shit about people. You step up. He’d lose those stupid ass fuck ridiculous privileges he cares about.
And what do I get?
Focus on your meal, Marsal.
Marsal. Like I'm some random kid on his roster. Like nothing between us ever happened. Like I imagined the whole thing, invented it in my broken little brain, another hallucination.
I press harder into the wood. A splinter catches under my thumbnail and I hiss, jerking my hand back. A bead of blood wells up. I stick my thumb in my mouth and taste blood and sawdust.
What did I do wrong? I've been running it through my head like a film reel on loop, trying to find the moment where I fucked up. Was it the kiss thing? Was it too much? I thought, I mean, he was on my bed. We still haven’t fucking kissed.
KISSED. Not fucked. Not even “we haven’t done a blowjob.
” Kissed. Like we’re fifteen-year-old children.
He touched my face. He said he didn't like seeing me hurt.
And then the next morning, it's like someone reached into his chest and flipped a switch, and the Ethan who'd looked at me with those soft, complicated eyes was gone, replaced by Mr. Leader. It makes me sick. I want to punch his stupid face. He’d probably destroy me, but it would give me a split second of satisfaction.
The worst part isn't the anger. It's the hope I can't kill. This sick, stubborn little bug that keeps whispering: maybe he's scared, maybe he needs time, maybe if you're patient enough he'll come back to bed, come back to that almost. I hate hope. It's the cruelest thing my brain does to me.
I go back to sanding, gentler now because the wood is getting dangerously thin. My birdhouse is going to be more of a bird postcard at this rate.
"Hey, um… can I work with you?"
I look up. The voice belongs to a thin kid with red hair and green eyes that are a little too big for his face, like a cartoon character. Mason. I recognize him immediately, the hallway kid, the one I found having the full breakdown. With Ethan.
He's hovering at the edge of my workbench, gripping a half-carved block of wood.
"Hey, Mason. Sure," I say, scooting over. "Fair warning, though, my woodworking skills are tragic. I don't know why I'm still studying carpentry."
Mason smiles, small and quick, like he's not sure he's allowed. He sets his piece down and pulls up a stool. "I just… I wanted to say thanks. For that day in the hallway. I was in a bad place, and you were really nice to me. Most people here pretend they don't see you when you're like that."
I smile. “No worries, man. Always of service. What are you making?" I ask, nodding at his piece.
"A box. With a sliding lid. See?" He turns it, and I can see the groove he's carved along the sides, precise and even. The kid knows what he's doing.
"That's actually sick," I say, and I mean it. "Mine's supposed to be a birdhouse, but it's identifying as a cutting board."
He laughs and leans over to look at my disaster.
"You're sanding against the grain," he says, pointing.
"See these lines? You want to go with them, not across.
Like this." He picks up a spare piece of sandpaper and demonstrates, long even strokes that follow the natural pattern of the wood.
"Also, you're pressing way too hard. Let the paper do the work. "
"Let the paper do the work," I repeat, mimicking his motion. "That sounds like something a yoga instructor would say."
"My uncle was a carpenter," Mason says. "He used to let me help in his shop before… before everything." The pause. I know that pause.
"Before everything," I echo, nodding. "Yeah. I get that."
We work in easy silence for a while. Mason shows me how to hold the chisel for the window cutout, how to tap it with the mallet so the wood splits clean along the line.
His hands are steady and careful, the opposite of mine.
Technically, I know all of that already, but my disaster of a brain is unable to learn anything.
I’ll never graduate and be stuck here forever.
"You're actually not bad," he says, watching me make a cut. "You just need to stop trying to murder the wood."
"I have a lot of aggression to work through," I say, and it comes out lighter than I expected. Funny, even. Mason grins, and I grin back.
The instructor, Bob, wanders past, glances at my work, grunts something that might be approval, and moves on.
Mason and I keep going, him guiding, me following, our conversation drifting from woodworking to the cafeteria food, "the meatloaf is the worst thing I’ve ever had, and my mom once cooked goat’s meat," Mason says, and I almost choke.
When the bell rings, signaling the end of class, I look at my birdhouse and realize it actually looks like something.
Not a good something, it's lopsided, and one wall is thicker than the others, but it has walls, and a roof-shaped piece waiting to be attached, and a hole that a very optimistic bird might consider.
"Not bad for a first try," Mason says. I want to tell him that this isn’t the first, or second, it’s maybe the tenth. Or more.
"Shut up," I say, but I'm smiling, and I wish Ethan could see the fucking stupid birdhouse.
But he's not here. He's off learning to save lives in his nursing program, probably not thinking about me at all, and that thought hits like a fist to the sternum.
I swallow it down, pack up my tools, and focus on Mason, who's wrapping his box carefully in a cloth like it's something precious.
At least someone wants to be around me today.
We go to the hallway. It’s messy and loud, and Mason is still talking about woodwork. I'm half-listening, half-enjoying the way his enthusiasm makes him beam.
"And if you get the angle right, you don't even need glue. The tension alone holds it. It's like, physics… but cool," he says, and his face is lit up.
"So wood Tinder," I say. "Two pieces that just... fit."
Mason snorts. "That's disgusting. I love it."
We round the corner toward the main corridor, and I'm about to make another terrible joke when Mason goes quiet. Not just quiet. Actually, scared. His shoulders curl inward, and he takes a half-step closer to the wall.
I look, and there's a super big guy standing there. Reed.
Tall, taller than me by a good three inches, maybe four, giant, all muscles, and I’m pretty fucking sure you can’t get those by working out alone.
His sleeves are rolled up to the elbow, revealing two full sleeves of tattoos from wrist to bicep.
A jagged scar traces his jawline like someone tried to open him with a can opener and gave up halfway through.
He has short black hair and brown eyes. He’s from my MMA class.
Yesterday we trained together, while Ethan ignored me.
I wasn’t paying attention to him. All I could think about was Ethan, that fucker.
I’d never actually looked at him like that.
He’s really hot. Ethan is more. Fuck me.
"Mason," Reed says, barely glancing at him, but he cracks an assassin grin. His voice is low and easy, like he's got all the time in the world. "How was class?"
"Good," Mason says, his voice trembling a little.
"Cool." Reed is already looking at me. He gives me a once-over and that same predatory smile he just gave Mason. Dimples. The bastard has dimples, deep ones, that make him even more attractive.
"Liam, right? From MMA?" he says, like he doesn't already know. Like we didn't spend twenty minutes trading punches yesterday. "You've got a decent hook for someone with shit footwork."
"Thanks," I say. "That's going on my tombstone. 'Decent hook, shit footwork.'"
His smile widens. He pushes off the wall and takes a step closer. My body tenses, but not entirely in a bad way.
"I'm Reed," he says, extending a hand. His knuckles are calloused and split in places, the skin perpetually damaged. I take his hand, and he basically crushes mine. Probably to assert dominance or something. He holds on to it a beat too long before letting go.
“You don’t need to squeeze me like that, I know you’re strong. It’s pretty fucking obvious,” I say. Fuck it. I’m feeling even more impulsive now that Ethan’s gone. He laughs, warm and surprised.
"I like you," he says, pointing at me with a finger like a loaded gun. "You've got a mouth on you."
"So I've been told. Usually right before someone punches me."
"I won't punch you," he says, leaning forward slightly, dropping his voice. "Not unless you ask nice."
I feel heat crawl up my neck. It's not the same as what I feel around Ethan, that aching, desperate pull, that constant sense of reaching for something just out of range. This is different. Simpler.
“Maybe not punch. Slap instead?”
“Anything you want, sweetheart,” he says, clearly flirting.
Maybe he wouldn’t take months to kiss me.
As the only person I truly want to kiss won’t do it.
Mason is still standing there, pressed against the wall like he's trying to disappear into it.
Reed seems to remember he exists and claps a hand on his shoulder, heavy, proprietary.
"You did good in class?" he asks, but it's barely a question. The same one as before. He probably isn’t even paying attention to what he’s saying.
"Yeah," Mason says. "Liam helped me. Reed’s my leader, Liam."
"Did he?" Reed's gaze swings back to me. "Well, since you two are already buddies, Liam, you should come hang with us during rec time. I see your leader and you aren’t getting along. Mason's going to show me some card game he learned, and I need a third."
Does he know about Ethan?
Well, it must be pretty fucking obvious. And everybody knows about everything from everyone in this fucking minuscule place.
“Fuck yeah,” I tell him. I hope Ethan is there. I hope it makes him cry and regret being born.
"Good," Reed says. He reaches out and squeezes my shoulder, his hand is warm, heavy, and he lets it rest there a moment longer than necessary. "See you out there."
He pushes off the wall, gives Mason a nod, and walks away. Mason looks at me, upset.
"He's..." Mason starts, then trails off.
"Yeah," I say. "I know."
We walk in silence for a few steps. I miss Ethan so bad now that I don’t know what to do. I realize I don’t fucking care at all if Reed wants me or not. But I’ll go with it. Not smart, I know.
But I’m not exactly known for being smart. Ask anyone.