Lightning Moments

I was thankful that the moon was almost full as Mika and I made our way down the street. Wolverhampton wasn’t too good about putting up streetlights to illuminate the darkness, so if the moon had been new or just a crescent, we would have had to take up Louis’ offer on driving.

And I really didn’t want to make Louis drive me home. I had been telling the truth when I said that I needed to clear my head. My anger towards my father was building up inside of me, and I needed to cool down a little bit before I made it home. God knew that an argument between the two of us was the last thing I needed.

Somehow, Mika seemed to sense that. She was quiet, her eyes facing forward, her hands stuffed into her pockets. From the corner of my eye, I could see that her skin was almost glowing from the moonlight. She was biting her lip just a little, as if she was pondering something and was fighting to keep from saying it aloud.

I tried to focus my eyes forward again, but my gaze kept drifting to the left, taking in the shape of her small nose, the length of her eyelashes, the shocking blue of her eyes.

Around the fifth time of me checking her out, she finally caught me. Not that she said anything. But the way her eyes darted to the ground, stuffed her hands even further in her pockets, and blushed so deeply that I could notice it without much light let me know for sure that she knew I was watching her.

I cleared my throat, feeling my cheeks heat up a little, and kept my eyes locked on the ground, trying to ignore the awkward blanket that had settled over us.

After about a minute of walking in the uneasy silence, I burst out, “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

She knew exactly what I was talking about without me having to apologize for staring at her. “It’s okay,” she replied softly, coloring even more.

I ran a hand through my curls and let out a breath. The mist swirled in front of me for a minute before disappearing.

Without even thinking about it, I glanced over at Mika again. She was still wearing my jumper, her arms crossed in front of her chest, shivering slightly.

I gnawed on the inside of my cheek, fighting with myself. More than anything, I wanted to take her hand and pull her closer to me so that I could draw her up against my side, sharing whatever kind of body heat I had with her. Anything to keep her from shivering.

However, deep down inside, I knew we weren’t at that point. I may have opened up to her, but I still felt like any touch between us would make her tense up and close off any progress she’s made toward trusting me.

Plus, there was the added factor that the touch would mean something entirely different to me than it would to her. Because on her end, we were just friends.

But Louis got me thinking while we were making sandwiches. He was teasing me, talking about how I was making googly eyes at her, and I’d argued that I wasn’t. And, at the time, I figured it was the truth. Once I started paying attention to myself, though, the butterflies in my stomach and the way my heart raced alerted me that I probably was making googly eyes at her. Googly eyes that she didn’t return in the least.

Which is why I knew that, even if she didn’t feel uncomfortable with me hugging her without much reason, she’d at least think I was just being friendly or sweet. She probably wouldn’t realize how happy the hug made me.

“Liam?” Mika’s voice broke through my thoughts. “Did you hear me?”

“What?” I responded embarrassedly, trying to ignore the fact that I could feel my ears heating up with a blush.

“I said this is my place,” she repeated patiently. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Just thinking is all.”

“Worrying about your dad?”

I swallowed. Truthfully, I’d been so caught up in keeping myself from making a move on Mika that I’d completely forgotten about the shit that was waiting for me at my house. “Yeah,” I lied, rubbing the back of my neck.

Gently, yet hesitantly, she put her hand on my upper arm. “You’re going to be okay, Liam. Just try to remember that he’s only being too hard on you because he cares too much.”

I took a deep breath and nodded, pretending that I understood her point. “Okay.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow at school.”

“Chemistry,” I agreed with a nod.

With that, she turned and walked up her front steps, turning to wave right before she stepped inside.

I waved back, pasting a smile on my face, but she closed the door before she saw me.

Hooking my thumbs in my pockets, I finished down the street, my mind transferring over to my father and what his problem was with me for that day.

All too soon, only about fifteen minutes later, I walked up my driveway, rubbing my hair over and over nervously. I tried to keep Mika’s words of wisdom in mind, but it was hard to think He only screams at you because he cares when he was actually shouting in my face.

Cautiously and quietly, I opened my door and stepped inside. My stomach relaxed when I didn’t see Dad in the kitchen, but it tightened right back up when I heard him cough from the living room.

“Liam?” his voice called out as he muted the telly. “Liam James, is that you?!”

“Yeah,” I responded, my voice cracking slightly. I cleared my throat and shook my head as I walked into the living room, knowing that was what he wanted me to do.

“Where the hell were you?!” he snapped, his eyebrows pulling together over his eyes. His face was already starting to take on a pinkish color, letting me know immediately that I was in a shitload of trouble.

I breathed. Remember, he just cares. He was just worried. “I was at Louis’, helping him and this girl Mika with chemistry work.”

He let out a snort. “How could you help them when you need so much work? I saw your midterm grade, Liam. How could you only get an eighty-five?! We don’t need that kind of slacking in this family.”

I started wringing my hands together. “I’m sorry, Dad. I was just having an off-day and I added something wrong, and that made the whole rest of the problem wrong. And it was an essay question, so it took a lot of points off.”

“I don’t need your excuses. What I need are results. Do you think that they care at universities whether you scored poorly because you made a small miscalculation or you were having a bad day?” He got to his feet, his face morphing from pink to a pale red. “No. They don’t care. They want to see good grades. And with grades like yours, you’re not going to get in anywhere. You’re just worthless.”

He just cares he just cares he just cares. The more I said it, the less the words meant. How could a parent call a child worthless and claim that it was just because he cared? That wasn’t how care worked.

“I’ll do better,” I promised, turning my eyes to the ground to keep from looking him in the eye.

“You always say that. And you never mean it, Liam. YOU NEVER MEAN IT.”

I cringed at the sound of his voice echoing through my head and took a step back, my eyes never leaving the ground. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, not knowing what else I was supposed to say. “I swear I’ll do better. I’ll study even more, and I’ll quadruple check my work.”

“Look at me when you’re talking to me,” he growled. For a second, just a split second, I was afraid that he was going to slap me.

My dad was a lot of things, but he would never, ever hit me. Ever. No matter how angry he got, how much he wished that I’d do everything just the way he wanted it, he’d never lose his temper enough to slap me. All I ever got was a lot of lectures and a lot of yelling.

Slowly, I brought my eyes up to his cold ones, feeling my palms break out into a cold sweat. His face was so red that it was almost purple by then, the veins in his neck standing out more than they ever had before.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated, taking a pause to swallow back my fear. “I swear I’ll do better. I’ll study even more, and I’ll quadruple check my work.”

He sighed and shook his head. “I really hope so, Liam. Because you’re not going to have a future if you don’t. You know I’m just looking out for you.”

He just cares he just cares he just cares. “I know, Dad.”

“Good.” He gave me a strong slap on the back, sending a tingly pain down my spine. “Now go upstairs and do your homework.”

I did as he said without a word, scooping my backpack onto my shoulder and disappearing into my bedroom, closing the door behind me.

But instead of getting right to work, I collapsed behind my door and buried my face in my hands, taking deep breaths.

He just cares he just cares he just cares.

By then, I’d repeated it so many times that the words lost their meaning. It wasn’t comforting me anymore. Not that it really had any comfort in the first place.

More than anything, I wished that I had gotten Mika’s number. I wanted to call her and tell her about what had happened with my dad. She was really the only one that knew the extent of my family situation.

Too bad I didn’t have the guts to ask her. And so I had to suffer in silence, curled up in a ball on my bedroom floor.