The Quiet

Liam wasn’t very subtle with his anger toward Clay after we had made up. Apparently I was supposed to be with Liam, as he decided without talking to me. But, the truth was I wasn’t with anyone.

I had walls built around me. So many that no one could ever get passed them. No one wanted to knock them down or climb over them to get to me, so I’d just stayed unattached for as long as I could help it.

And people like Liam were the reason I don’t get close to people. Since Clay and I had been hanging out more and more, Liam had been sending things to me; in hopes I would realize what a good guy he was and go out with him. If he thought that, he was going to spend a long time alone.

“He keeps staring at you,” Clay said. It was the next morning and we sat in the courtyard. “Want me to go say something to him?”

“No,” I told him. He passed me the half smoked cigarette and I took a drag, letting the smoke out of the corners of my mouth. Then I watched it get taken away but a gust of wind. “That’ll just give Terry another reason to pound your face in.”

Liam might have been big, but Terry was his bodyguard, that much I knew. Any chance that could get to hurt Clay, they would take it. I didn’t know what they had against him, and I didn’t really want to ask, in case it was something awful.

“Liam should be able to fight his own battles,” Clay said, his eyes narrowed. “Not that I want to get my ass handed to me again by either of them.”

Suddenly I’d made up my mind. “What happened to make them not like you anyway?” I had been chewing my lip afterward, not wanting to look at him.

He snorted. “They don’t ‘not like’ me, Cari. They hate me. Despise me, actually. I’m not even sure what I did, to tell you the truth.”

I frowned. “That’s stupid.” I glanced back inside again, but Liam wasn’t there, thankfully. I sighed and took the cigarette from him.

“So when did you start smoking?” Clay asked.

I grinned. “Today.”