“Tyler, please, stop. He can barely stand up straight.”
Liam’s face turned red. He didn’t say anything, but I saw the shift in his mood. The jealousy. He was done playing games. I dropped my hands down and opened my mouth to tell him I didn’t want to fight anymore, but he used that moment to punch me. Hard.
My head zinged. Chloe let out a frantic scream, but he ignored her and continued his attack.
I felt a surge of adrenaline and fought back. We exchanged blows. Neither of us was playing around anymore.
In a fit of rage, Liam hit me so hard, I stumbled backwards and fell down on my ass. I forgot he was my friend in that second. That all of this was supposed to be a joke. I stood up and lunged myself at him.
We both hit the ground with me on top of Liam. All I heard was a sickening crack. Liam went still. Chloe ran over to us, tears streaming down her face.
“Liam! Are you okay?” She sobbed. “Liam! Get up!”
But he didn’t move. It took me a few seconds to realize what was happening, then I started yelling for someone to call an ambulance. When I looked around, I understood we had probably had an audience for quite some time. The paramedics finally arrived and pushed Chloe aside. Seconds later she collapsed on the ground with a scream, her hands on her belly.
Three hours later I was sitting in a hospital waiting room. My hands were covered in blood. Some of it was my own. My knuckles were cracked from the fighting. Some of it was Liam’s. From his brow. His mouth.
People that passed me by looked at me with disgust. I looked like a lowlife. A nurse even came up to me and offered to help me get to a bathroom to get cleaned up a bit. I refused. I deserved the looks I got. I welcomed people’s contempt and loathing. It made the guilt manageable.
A doctor approached me at some point. She was the one that went into the delivery room with Chloe. I shot up from my chair.
“She asks for you,” she said.
“Is she okay?” I asked. The doctor nodded. “The baby?”
“He will stay in the NICU for a while. I’m concerned about his lungs. It will be a struggle.”
“But he will live, right?” I understood that the situation was bad, but I needed reassurance.
“We are doing everything that can be done. I am optimistic, but I can’t give you any guarantee. He was born prematurely and it was a difficult birth. He will need a lot of care. And the mother will need a lot of support. He might have health issues in the future.”
I slumped back into the chair. A few hours ago, the three of them were perfectly healthy. I had a few scratches here and there, but they were all in a hospital room. Because of me. I came up with that stupid idea to compete with Liam. I broke his spine. Chloe delivered her baby two months earlier because she witnessed me almost killing Liam.
Almost. The next few days would determine if that word would remain in the sentence.
“Where is she?” I stood up, knowing I was the last person on earth to deserve any consolation in that moment. I couldn’t help Liam and the baby, but I could respect Chloe’s wish to see me.
I found her lying in a hospital bed. Her whole face was red and puffy. Her eyes were bloodshot. We stared at each other for a few beats, no one daring to speak. I expected her to scream. To insult me. To kick me out. To tell me never to show my face again.
“He will be fine,” her voice was hoarse. I didn’t know if she was talking about Liam or the baby, but I nodded, standing by the door, waiting for her to kick me out, when she added. “I named him Liam.”
Her voice broke with that last word. Tears ran down her face. I approached her, took her hand in mine, and cried with her for hours. She was drifting in and out of sleep, exhaustion and anxiety fighting for control over her body. Nurses came in and out every once in a while. We asked only about the baby, too scared to ask about the father.
Chapter Thirty
Hannah
The present
My stomach was in knots the entire time Tyler was telling me his story. From the moment he said his friend’s name was Liam I anticipated there would be no happy ending.
We were standing in front of my building. Tears had been pouring down my face for the past ten minutes. My neighbors came back home and shot me curious looks, probably assuming I was taking part in some love drama, while my heart broke over and over again for all of them.
Little Liam, born prematurely, named after his father at a time no one knew if any of the two of them would live. The horror Chloe experienced was unimaginable. The guilt Tyler carried was more than anyone could bear.
“So Liam died and never got to see his son?” I finally managed to ask through deep gulps of air.
Tyler shook his head.
“He didn’t die. He had a series of surgeries because of the spinal injury. He survived, but he will never walk again.”
“How come I had never heard a word about him?”
Tyler’s face twisted in pure torture. “Because I hadn’t seen him since the night of the fight.”
“Oh, God, Tyler.” I started crying again. “But you are so close with Chloe? She calls you all the time. She obviously loves you. Did they break up?”
“No, they got married. They are meant for each other.”
It turned out Tyler believed in love after all. Just not that he deserved it.
“I don’t get it. How come you are so close with Chloe and you never saw Liam again?” Tyler looked like telling the story drained the energy out of him.
“I thought I understood it, but I am not so sure right now,” he rubbed his cheek and continued. “I felt so guilty. Incredibly guilty. It wasn’t the first time I realized I hurt someone,” he paused looking at me with a pained smile. “But I had never ever felt so guilty in my live. I had never wanted to erase a deed of mine so much as I wanted to erase that. It was unbearable. I couldn’t sleep for months. I wanted to disappear, but I promised Chloe that night that I would always be there for them. For the rest of my life. The medical bills piled up. My day job didn’t pay as much as I wanted. I decided I could work at night too. I wasn’t sleeping anyway. So I got the job at the bar. And I quickly found a way to make more money.”
“The ring in the basement?” I asked and he nodded.
“It wasn’t just about the money though. I fought a lot in the beginning and it felt so good. The physical pain numbed the guilt for a while. I slipped envelopes with money under Chloe’s door every Saturday morning. I tried to help with the baby as much as I could during the little time I wasn’t working. Up until Liam finally got out of the hospital. Then I stopped visiting. I couldn’t bear to see him. But I kept my promise. I helped with cash and took care of baby Liam whenever they needed, just not in their home.” I reached over and took his hand. He gripped mine, as if he was scared I would evaporate any second.
“Then what happened?”
“Liam turned one and Chloe decided she wanted to start working again. She came to the bar once and dropped him off with me. She had an interview for an office position. Everything went fine, until she explained her situation. Sick husband, child that needed extra care. They told her on the spot they wouldn’t hire her. She was so discouraged when she came to pick up Liam, that I offered her a job in the bar.”