Chapter 22. Liam #2
I don't wait for him to say anything. I turn and walk, not too fast, not too slow, just the unhurried pace of a boy with absolutely nothing to hide. I also perfected that walk through years of getting in trouble.
I lock the stall door. My hands are shaking. The tile is cold under my knees. I don't think. I just do.
My eyes water. My nose runs. My throat feels like I've swallowed a lit match. I do it again, and again, until there's nothing left but bile and the copper taste of blood from the lining of my esophagus, which is probably not great but also not the worst thing that's ever happened to me, so.
The relief is fucking immediate and total. For about three seconds, my brain goes quiet. No static, no spiraling thoughts. It feels so good. So fucking good. It's better than fucking drugs, at least for a moment. There's not even shame; I've gotten over it years ago.
I'm wiping my mouth with toilet paper when the bathroom door opens.
"Liam."
Ethan's voice hits me. I freeze, my hand still pressed to my mouth, eyes burning. There's no denying.
"This is the third time this week, baby. Open the door. I'm worried about you."
That breaks me.
My hand drops from my mouth. I stare at the locked stall door, at the gap beneath it where I can see his shoes, those stupid khaki-clad legs, those stupid clean sneakers.
I stand on trembling legs, wipe my face with my sleeve, and unlock the latch. The door swings inward, and there he is, arms crossed, jaw set, eyes so worried. It’s worse than if he were angry.
"I'm fine," I say.
"You're not fine. You're killing yourself."
"That's dramatic." I push past him toward the sink, turning on the faucet, scooping water into my mouth to rinse the taste. My hands are shaking so badly the water splashes everywhere. "People puke sometimes. It happens."
"People don't puke three times a week in the same hidden bathroom on a schedule." He's behind me. I can see his worried image in the mirror. "You skip breakfast, you push food around at lunch, and then you come here after dinner. Every time."
"I have it under control," I say, but I want to cry. I'm shivering. It's stupid. It reminds me of my mom. Doing this is getting close to her. She also didn't have any self-control, so she died.
"You don't have it under control. That's literally the definition of a relapse."
"Since when are you a fucking doctor?"
"Since I started studying to be one!" His voice rises. He's trying not to scream. I appreciate that he's trying. I also want him to fuck off. He catches himself, breathes through his nose, lowers his volume. "Liam. Look at me."
I don't want to. Looking at him means seeing the truth reflected back, that I'm the disaster I've always been, that the progress was a mirage, that underneath the jokes and the stolen kisses and the late-night radio, I'm still the same broken kid who can't even eat a meal without wanting to claw it back out.
I look at him anyway, because I'm a masochist, apparently.
"You either stop," Ethan says, his voice steady, "or I tell Griff."
My whole body goes rigid.
"You wouldn't."
"I would. I will."
"That's…" My voice cracks, splinters. "You can't do that to me. Ethan, you can't. They'll put me in counseling, they'll watch everything I eat, they'll…"
"Good."
"Fuck you." The words come out, and I'm always pissed when it comes to this.
But his face doesn't even change. That's the worst part. "I have every right. I'm your leader. I love you. And I won't watch you destroy yourself. I'm trying to help you, but I know I can't. I'm not a professional. And you need a professional. You won’t be Daniel all over again."
The word love detonates somewhere in my chest, and I can't process it, can't hold it, so I shove past him toward the door, my shoulder clipping his arm.
"Liam…"
"Leave me alone."
I don't stop. I walk out of the bathroom and down the hallway with my jaw clenched so tight my teeth ache, tears burning tracks down my cheeks that I swipe away before anyone can see.
He said he loves me, and I can't even hear it, because all I can hear is the roar of my own self-destruction, louder than any radio, louder than any music, louder than anything.
I'm just like dear mommy.
I vomit again two days later. And the day after that.
I can't stop. The compulsion is a fist around my throat, tighter than Ethan's arms ever were, and I hate myself for it, but I can't make it stop. I tell myself it’s the last time, but then the next time comes, and I want to promise it’s the last time again, last time already far gone and forgotten.
I see Ethan watching me at every meal, that terrible patience in his eyes, and I know he's counting the days, waiting for me to choose.
But this isn't a choice. It was never a choice.
On Friday morning, a guard appears at my classroom door and says Griff wants to see me.
He did it. He actually did it.
Fuck.
Griff's office is terrifying. I think I'm having a literal visceral reaction to standing there.
He doesn't beat around the bush. He never does.
"Ethan tells me you've been vomiting after meals," he says. It's a fact, the way you'd say the sky is blue or the cafeteria food is terrible. No judgment in his voice, which somehow makes it worse. Judgment, I can fight, and get angry, but I'm not.
"Ethan should mind his own business," I say.
Griff doesn't blink. "Ethan is doing his job.
Now I'm doing mine." He leans forward, forearms on the desk, those faded military tattoos visible.
His green eyes are steady, penetrating, seeing through every layer of bullshit I've ever constructed.
"How long has this been going on here? I know about your file. I want to know about it here."
"It hasn't. He's exaggerating."
"Liam." Just my name, but the way he says it is low and patient, which makes my defenses crumble. "I'm not asking to punish you. I'm asking because I need to know how to help."
The word help burns in my throat like bile. I don't want help. I want to be left alone. I want to control one single thing in my life without someone turning it into a problem that needs fixing.
"A few weeks," I mutter at the floor, lying. "Maybe longer. I don't know."
Griff nods, like this confirms something he already suspected. He pulls a form from his desk drawer, yellow paper, official.
"Starting Monday, you'll attend twice-weekly counseling sessions with Dr. Herrera. Mandatory. Non-negotiable." He slides the form across the desk toward me. "Your meals will be monitored by staff for the foreseeable future. You'll remain in the dining hall for thirty minutes after each meal."
The words hit me one by one. Monitored. Mandatory. Non-negotiable. I feel my breathing go thin and rapid.
"I don't need none of that," I say, and my voice is angry, but I can't see anything anymore with the tears blurring my eyes. They're falling now.
"That's not your call. And if it’s not enough, you'd better believe you’ll be under 24 hr surveillance." Griff's voice is strict. Like he's challenging me to escalate this. But then, he softens it a little. "This isn't punishment, son. You're here to be helped. We'll help you."
I want to scream that I don't need fucking help.
I know I sound like a little kid throwing a tantrum, but I don't care.
I want to cry and destroy this fucking room.
But I don't scream. I sign the form, slowly, still trying to think of a way out.
But there's none. I'm locked in this fucking shit hole, and I have to comply.
I will comply, or they will make my life worse and worse until I comply.
I feel ashamed, angry, scared, sad, fucking suicidal. I don't want to kill myself, I just want to cease existing. I wonder if my mom also wanted that.
The hallway blurs. My sneakers squeak against the linoleum. I go back to my room. I know he'll be there. It's just before lunchtime. Fucking lunchtime, where I'll be supervised like a child. I never want to see him again, and, at the same time, to punch him in the fucking face. How dare he.
He's in the dormitory, sitting on his bed, reading his nursing textbook like it's a normal day, like he didn't just set fire to my life.
Jack is on his bunk with a comic book. Miles is in his usual position, staring at the ceiling, somewhere else entirely.
Harry isn't here, probably dealing or gambling somewhere.
The door bangs against the wall when I shove it open. Everyone looks up. Ethan's eyes find mine, and I watch him brace.
Good. He should brace.
"You had no right," I say, so angry I'm shaking. Jack lowers his comic book very slowly. "You had absolutely no fucking right."
Ethan sets the textbook aside. His movements are controlled. Infuriating. "Liam… baby…"
"Don't." I'm shaking. My hands, my voice, my entire goddamn body. "You don't get to call me that after what you did."
"You need fucking help, don't you understand? I told you what I'd do."
"And I told you to leave me alone!" I'm screaming now.
Jack swings his legs off his bunk, ready to intervene or flee.
Miles hasn't moved, but I feel him watching.
“That was MINE, Ethan." My voice rips from my throat, raw and bleeding.
"The ONE FUCKING THING I had control over in this hellhole, and you ripped it away and threw it at Griff's feet like I'm just some case number, some pathetic charity project who…”
"Who what?" Ethan launches to his feet, knocking his textbook to the floor with a violent slap.
His voice stays deadly controlled but his hands shake so hard I can see his veins pulsing beneath his skin.
I hate that I notice. Hate that even now, I'm memorizing him.
"Who can't be trusted not to KILL YOURSELF?
Because that's exactly what you're doing, Liam.
Maybe not with a gun or a rope, but you're dying right in front of me, and I'm supposed to just WATCH? "
"That's not your decision to make!"