Page 36 of Cruel When He Smiles

Liam strips off his jersey first, tossing it onto his bed and leaving his compression shirt on before heading for the bathroom with his duffel. I peel off my own sweat-soaked shirt, trying not to think about the lack of distance between our beds.

When he comes back, his hair’s wet and pushed back, skin still flushed from the shower, that casual swagger back in his step. I grab my shit and go to the bathroom to shower. I need to fucking sleep and get this night over with so we can go home and be out of each other’s spaces.

Then, through the bathroom door, he starts humming. Softly at first; a low, tuneless hum that rises as he sifts through his things. It takes a second for the melody to form, another for my brain to latch onto it… and then it hits.

Not the song, but the memory.

It’s a lullaby, I think. Not a tune you’d hear on the radio or find on a playlist. But my mother used to hum it when she thought I wasn’t listening—those rare, rare moments before she turned cruel. When the mask was on. When she was pretending to be soft and maternal and human.

She’d hum that exact melody while brushing my hair or folding laundry, her voice off-key but steady, as if the sound itself was the only thing holding her together.

Hearing it now, from Liam’s mouth of all places, is like getting shoved into a frozen lake.

I can’t breathe, and my pulse kicks hard. My hands go numb, and sweat breaks across my neck, cold as ice, and the back of my throat closes like I’ve swallowed a scream.

I stand there, staring at the wall, shaking. Liam Callahan, in his arrogance or his apathy, just dragged me right back into a house I swore I’d burned to the ground. Back into a room with lavender scent, sharp nails, and that fucking melody that haunts every corner of my childhood.

How the fuck does he know that song?

My body is useless.

I can’t move or speak. I can’t even blink. I’m locked in the kind of nightmare where the world feels too real, like it crawled up from the past and built itself a home in my throat.

Her voice slinks in first; drawn out, slow, and disappointed already. I want to turn my head away from the sound, shove my fists against my ears, and scream her into silence, but my body won’t listen.

I’m trapped in this.Again.

“Sweetheart,”she coos, from somewhere behind me, always behind me, where I can’t see her face.“What did we talk about? Hm? This wasn’t the rule. You said you’d do better. That you wanted to be better.”

I flinch internally, stomach curdling. The air tastes like the lavender scent from her office, where the walls were beige and her praise was conditional.

“I am better,”I try to say, but nothing comes out. My mouth is stitched shut by the dream, the memory. She’s close now. Too close.

I want to back up, to run, to slam a door, break something, anything, but all I can do is stand there while she circles me like I’m the exhibit in her private gallery of failures.

“You were doing so well,”she says, tsking softly.“We’d almost gotten to stage four. You were starting to show improvement. Then this?”

Her hand reaches out and brushes my shoulder gently. Almost lovingly. My skin crawls beneath it.“I expected better from you, Nathaniel.”

I flinch at the full name. It’s always the full name when she’s disappointed, when she wants me to feel it in my spine.

Shame curls in my gut when I feel warmth spreading down my thighs, and the humiliation hits me like a body blow—hard and nauseating. I can’t even cover myself or undo it. I’m frozenin it, and when she finally steps in front of me, her face framed in perfect hair and that emotionless expression, her eyes drop down. She stares at the wet spot blooming across the front of my sweats.

The disappointment in her face is quiet and devastating.

She never yells. She just shakes her head and writes on the clipboard, lips pursed, eyes not meeting mine anymore.

“I thought we’d made progress,”she says.“But maybe I was wrong. Maybe you’re not capable of emotional regulation after all. Maybe it’s better if someone else finishes your training.”

“No—”The word is there in my head, but it doesn’t come out. My voice is gone. My lungs won’t work. I try to move forward, to apologize, to beg, but my limbs won’t respond.“I’ll fix it,”I manage to say, choking on the shame.“Please. I’ll fix it.”

“You said that last time.”

She turns away, and it’s worse than if she’d screamed. Worse than if she’d slapped me or dragged me into another room or made me strip and stand under the cold faucet like she used to.

Her back is the loudest rejection I’ve ever known.

“Mommy—”I try to follow. I beg her with my eyes. I plead with every inch of me that remembers being eight years old and desperate for a crumb of approval. But she keeps walking away—she always walks away.