Page 40 of My Best Friend Is Broken

“This isn’t prison,” I protest.

“My broken mind doesn’t know that. It will never know that. Besides, I may be out of prison, but I’m with you, in your world. And you are in the mafia, and mafia rules aren’t so very different.”

My lungs stutter through another breath. Liam isn’t wrong, but he is asking the unthinkable.

“I’m not going to fuck you.”

“You said you would do anything.”

“I can’t do that to you!”

How could I? A hand on his shoulder terrifies him. He is traumatized. Struggling. He doesn’t know what he is asking for. Sex isn’t fun for him. Especially not the type that comes with labels like claiming and bitch.

“I want you to. I like you.”

Liam’s quiet words hit me harder than any punch ever has. They slam into me and knock all the air from my lungs.

He is saying everything I have ever wanted. Giving me the greatest gift. All wrapped up in horror and trauma and all the darkness of the void. Something that should be so pure and wonderful has been twisted into something grotesque and abhorrent.

He doesn’t want me because he loves me. It is not attraction, desire or plain old horniness. It’s desperation and fear. And it is breaking my heart.

“Shut up, Liam. Go to sleep.”

My words come out far gruffer than I intended. But Liam doesn’t flinch or wilt. He merely lets out a resigned sigh.

“See? You are even bossy like a daddy.”

“Liam!” I gasp.

I don’t know if I’m outraged or if I want to laugh. It is possibly both.

Liam sighs again. All the tension has drained from his muscles. He is no longer shivering. He is in my arms, and he feels calm. At ease. I make him feel safe.

“Fine,” he says as he snuggles even closer.

His lungs slow, and within a few heartbeats he is asleep. Wrapped around me. While I don’t think I will ever sleep again.

I’m just going to have to lie here holding him all night long. And that is something I don’t mind doing at all.

Iwake up alone, which shouldn’t surprise me but somehow does. My arm is still curved around the empty space where Liam was pressed against me all night, and the sheets smell like sandalwood and something uniquely him, a scent I’ve been unconsciously memorizing for weeks.

The apartment is quiet, but there’s the soft clink of crockery from the kitchen that tells me he’s awake. Making tea, probably, in that careful way he does everything now, like he’s afraid of making too much noise or taking up too much space.

I lie there for a moment, staring at the ceiling and trying to convince myself that last night was just nightmare-induced confusion. That Liam didn’t really mean what he said, that in the clear light of morning we can both pretend it never happened and go back to our careful dance of healing and protection and unspoken feelings.

But even as I think it, I know I’m lying to myself. There was nothing confused about the way he spoke. Nothing delirious about his reasoning, twisted as it was. He meant every word, and the fact that his logic makes a horrible kind of sense just makes it worse.

I drag myself out of bed and pull on some pajamas, trying to prepare for a conversation I have no idea how to navigate. How do you tell someone you love that their solution to trauma would only create more trauma? Howdo you explain that what they’re asking for would destroy the very thing they’re trying to protect?

I find him in the kitchen, standing by the window with a mug of tea cradled in both hands. He’s wearing my old fake university hoodie, the one that hangs off his thin frame like he’s drowning in fabric.

He is wearing my clothes even though I went back to Primark while he was in hospital and found everything he had chosen. Does he not want them anymore because of the panic attack and hospitalization they caused? Or is it because he prefers to wear my things? I’m too afraid to ask.

Partly because I don’t want to know, partly because it is not the time for difficult questions. His hair is still messy from sleep. In the morning light, he looks impossibly young and breakable.

“Morning,” I say softly, not wanting to startle him.

He turns and offers me a small smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Morning. Made you coffee.”