Two Way Street

“Did you guys figure it out?” I asked once Louis hung up the phone, taking a sip of the lukewarm water bottle in my hand. “Is Mara all set?”

“What?” Louis snapped back, a little too sharply.

“Um…” I coughed a little bit, feeling like I overstepped my bounds. “I was just wondering if you helped Mara figure out the garbage disposal situation. She sounded like she was really upset that she couldn’t figure it out.”

There was a long, awkward pause. “Yeah. I helped her.”

Zayn looked back and forth between the two of us before interjecting, “That…had nothing to do with your garbage disposal, did it?”

Louis sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Uh…I don’t know if I’m breaking any friend codes here, but not really.”

And I knew. Just in that second, it settled into my stomach that they were using garbage disposal to stand in for me. The garbage disposal wasn’t working? Her relationship with me wasn’t working.

Damn it, I’d come on too strong. I’d called too many times, sent too many texts, said “I love you” too many times. That was always my issue in the past. That was the reason that so many girls cheated on me.

“You’re too fucking clingy,” one of them told me angrily after I confronted her for going out with another guy, one that I just so happened to hate more than life itself. “I wanted to go out with a guy that wouldn’t suffocate me. I need room to breathe, Liam. And you act like we have to be together forever. We’re only sixteen! This isn’t a commitment for life.”

I could feel myself start to retreat into my introspective shell, ready to mope. It was happening all over again. I thought I’d gotten better, but really, I was back where I started.

“Hey,” Louis interrupted my self-loathing, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Mate, this isn’t about you.”

I looked up at him, blinking away my emotions. “What?”

“This isn’t about you. It’s about her.”

“I don’t get it,” I breathed. “What about her?”

Louis snuck a peek at the clock and sighed. “I guess we have enough time before we have to leave for the sound check. Take a seat, my young, naïve friend.”

If I hadn’t felt so shitty, I would have made a comment that Harry was the young one, not me, but I figured it wasn’t the time to express that. So I just followed his directions, plopping down on the couch, ready to listen to whatever Louis had to say.

Zayn, taking the cue that this conversation wasn’t about him, disappeared into the other room, probably to play videogames with Niall and Harry.

“Look, Liam…” he started in a soft voice, as if he was trying to convince an angry lion not to eat his intestines. “Mara’s…complicated. But you know that.”

I nodded. I was the one who had figured that she used sarcasm to hide the pain she felt inside.

“Do you know about her back story at all? Like, about what happened when she was a kid?”

I swallowed. Honestly, I couldn’t remember. And maybe that made me a shitty boyfriend, but that was fine. I blamed jetlag.

“Okay, I’m gonna take that as a no,” Louis laughed. “But it’s fine. I figure you guys don’t do much talking, anyway.”

I was going to deny his statement immediately, but right when I opened my mouth, he shot me an irritated look. “Do you want me to help you understand the mystery that is Mara or not?”

I nodded silently.

“Good boy.” He reached forward and patted the top of my head before continuing. “Anyway, the reason that Mara and I were so close, or, were, anyway, before you came into the picture, is because she stayed with my family for a while. A long while.”

“Why?” I burst out, not understanding how he could get to a reason from the way he worded the previous statement.

“I’m getting there, Liam. Calm yourself.”

I took a deep, dramatic breath, just for him.

“Good. And she stayed with us because both of her parents died when we were pretty young, and she had nowhere else to go. Our families had been really good friends, so my parents kind of adopted her as our own. I was thrilled, and I’m sure she would have been, too, if she wasn’t so fucked up emotionally about her parents being dead.”

I swallowed back the emotion that was welling up in my throat. Hearing about it, I could picture the look on Mara’s face when she found out the news. Of course, she probably wouldn’t have wanted anyone to know that she was upset, so she would have just put up those walls that I was so familiar with.

“Liam, she really does love you,” Louis told me matter-of-factly, tearing me from my imagination and bringing me back to earth. “But she’s just scared. She’s so used to getting disappointed and torn apart and abandoned by everyone. She just figures that you’re going to do the same.”

That hurt. I’d done everything I could to let her know that I was for real, that I wanted to stay with her for the long run. Yet nothing sunk in? “How do I get her to realize that I’m serious?” I questioned softly, staring at the ground, probably looking like a puppy that just got kicked.

“First off, I think I’d cool it with the phone calls and shit. I don’t actually know if that’s freaking her out, but I’m sure it’s not helping.”

I felt my face heat up significantly. So I was stifling her. Perfect.

“But really, other than that, you just gotta show her that you care, and no matter what, don’t forget about her. Don’t abandon her.”

“I’d never do that!” I argued.

“I know. But I also know that things can get hectic during tour and make you do things you wouldn’t typically do.” He stopped for a second and cleared his throat, obviously remembering something hard. “Just make sure that you remind her often that you care and you’re thinking about her without getting obsessive. There’s a balance that you gotta find, mate.”

I nodded. “Thanks, Louis. I’ll try to do that.”

“Great.” He got to his feet. “And hey, you know what’s awesome?”

“What?”

“That you graduated from Wet Mop to Garbage Disposal.”

I groaned, but Louis snickered and kept going.

“No, seriously, though. Garbage Disposal is so hardcore. Badarse. Like, I bet gangsters are called Garbage Disposal.”

“No, they’re not,” I denied, but I couldn’t help but explode into laughter. “Any gangster called Garbage Disposal would be beaten within an inch of his life and left out in the cold to freeze to death.”

Louis stared at me for a second. “Wow, Liam. That was really cold.”

“It’s the truth,” I snickered. “But I guess it is better than Wet Mop. Anything’s better than Wet Mop.”

“There’s the spirit!” Louis encouraged, slapping me on the back. “Alright, I’m getting the rest of the boys. We’re going to be late for sound check.”

“Good luck,” I granted as he walked away, knowing firsthand how difficult it can be to pull those boys away from a videogame, especially if they were at an intense part.

I snickered as I heard the boys groaning and shouting in protest as Louis shut off the videogame without any kind of introduction.

“Effective,” I commented when he emerged from the room again.

He gave me a sassy face and shrugged. “I don’t screw around. C’mon. We’ll go ahead, and they’ll catch up eventually.”

I nodded and pulled my jumper off the table, pulling it on over my head as we left the apartment, closing the door behind me to shut out the irritated whispers of the boys as they vented about Louis’ actions.