Life Isn't A Fairytale

I sleep well through the night although I could do without the weird dreams that kept cropping up every so often. The noise of my alarm is an unwelcoming sound as my last dream of the night was all about the smooth muscled body of Josh and how it would look even better than it would be in person than in the fantasies.

After shutting off the alarm, I look at my phone and see that Liam’s messages have jumped up to 6 messages and 3 missed phone calls which all came when I was sleeping and my phone goes onto silent. I really want to ignore the texts until I’ve gotten dressed and had a shower but seeing there was so many messages I end up just checking them.

The first message was just a check-in text because we haven’t really talked since the day we bumped into each other at the uni, the tones of the texts then change significantly into what seems to be a sense of panic and despair.

“B… B… we really need to talk badly” 

“Ben plz respond now, I need you”

“Ben plz plz plz”

I don’t bother to read the other text messages and quickly go to the voice messages that he left me, “Fuck sake Liam, you better not be in a ditch somewhere”. I listen to the messages; I’m now shaking with how worried I am and the fact that I was angry with Liam and now could be losing my best friend. I check the first message and the first three words send an absolute chill down my spine.

“I’m sorry Ben, I’ve just fucked up everything”

I sit back on my bed and decide that I can’t go to the gym because my mind will be everywhere else today. I run my hands over my face and start to cry as I realise that if I had just bothered to ring him back or text him I could’ve stopped whatever had happened. I sigh and let the second message play and the tone of voice is something I’ve never heard of Liam, it’s a sense of vulnerability and scaredness.

“I really need you to pick up now, I think I’m in trouble and need some help big time” 

I look out the window and mutter to myself “Jesus Liam, you better be alright out there because I’m absolutely going to wring your neck bro” I decide to go downstairs before Dad would be up to go to work, I wander downstairs and see something sitting underneath the Apple tree that Mum and I planted when I was five. I wander outside, barely dressed for the conditions and find Liam sitting curled up under the tree, shaken and bruised.

I wander over to him and put my hand on him, which startles him and he jumps up “What the fuck is going on bro?” I say looking at him, as he sits himself up against the Apple Tree. “I didn’t know where else to go where they probably wouldn’t find me again”. I sit down next to him, “Is this why you were back at the University selling?”.

Liam turns his head and doesn’t look at me as I try and get an answer out of him, “I thought we were past this you know, everything had turned around” I turn Liam around to look at me and that’s when I see the full impact of his bruises. “Shit man, what happened to you?”.

Liam just shakes his head “some old friends were back in town and said that I owed them a few more favours to make up for breaking the agreement when I gave that shit up”. Liam sits there in tears and I put my arm around him instinctively. “Bro, we need to get to a doctor and get that stopped because you could have a broken cheekbone or something”.

I get Liam up and we use the side-gate and I take him to the back seat of my car and lay him down flat, “Don’t move or make a sound if Dad comes out alright, I need to go and get ready for Uni ok?”. I leave Liam there and go back inside through the backdoor and trying to avoid Dad who’d be asking the questions about why I was out the back and hadn’t left for the gym.

I get in and go upstairs and take my shower and get dressed in pair of Nike pants and a black t-shirt with a hoodie over the top. I quickly make breakfast and rush out of the door, giving Dad a quick hug but as I go to get out the door, Dad stops me “I know who was under the Apple Tree this morning”. I stand there trying to think of an excuse. “Just go to University and come home, we will talk about this tonight alright?”.

I turn back to Dad “I need you to trust me with everything that I will say to you tonight because it’s important.” I look back at Dad who looks like someone has stabbed him in the back, he stands there “I’ll decide tonight Benjamin, but right now it’s not looking good ok?”

I get into the car and Liam is sitting there “you’re in the shit now aren’t you?” he says to me as he puts on the seat belt from the back seat. “Just a tad, I got the full Benjamin treatment which I don’t think I’ve got since I broke the window when we were playing Football when we were 10”. I think back for a moment and quickly put the car in reverse and take Liam towards the Hospital.

The drive is totally awkward, there isn’t any conversation between Liam and I as we head towards the hospital, we finally get there and I let Liam out, “I need to get to Uni alright, you call me when you’re done and remember the story, these are some delayed Boxing injuries that you picked up last night alright?” I don’t change my facial expression and drive away as soon I can; swearing to myself about everything.

I get to uni just after 8:30 and rush into the lecture which is the preparation plan for our mid-semester exam. I try and get through the lecture concentrating on what I need to know for the exam next week. The notes I type become garble because I’m distracted with my mind darting to how am I going to deal with Liam then how am I going to explain everything to Dad.

I finish up the two-hour lecture and head out to the Library before my tutorial, I sit there waiting for Liam to text me and make sure that everything is ok. I end up trying to block everything out and I go and sit out on one of the hills near the dorms, putting my headphones on and just listening to music whilst trying to think about nothing for at least five minutes.

I turn my phone off in class and just look to focus on the work for the next hour or so, which helps me because I make sure that I’ve taken every note I physically could today as well trying to put all my focus back onto the studies because being top of the class is something that is important.

The afternoon goes on and I still sit waiting for Liam to reply to me about whether he’s been checked out or not. I don’t bother to go home because I’m trying to avoid the situation with Dad. I go back to my spot on the hill near the dorms and just lay thinking about how everything was so much simpler.

Just twelve months ago, everything would have been so much simpler in all honesty. I would’ve come to Uni, done everything that I needed to then went home where Mum would have been and she would ask how Uni went for the day and we would talk about how her day with her kids was.

I lay there and just listen to music, hoping for a way back to a much simpler time where I wasn’t thinking about how to get Liam out of trouble, how I was going to argue my case to Dad about why Liam was in the backyard this morning and most of all how I was lying to him about seeing him.

I close my eyes for a few moments before feeling the buzz of my phone waking me up, I look at it and think “about fucking time Liam” I get it out of my pocket and see that it isn’t Liam who has texted me but Dan.

“Hey bro, sorry about yesterday afternoon, situation any better?”.

I respond back to Dan instantly with a bomb emoji; “It’s probably about 9000x worse right now to be bloody honest”. I sigh and realise that it doesn’t matter how much I push things back they aren’t going to be any easier once I get home and get Liam sorted out so that this can all be over and done with. I get up and notice that there is an Oak Tree branch that I didn’t see when I came and sat in the same spot this afternoon, I realise that it must be a sign from Mum that everything will be ok.

“One day, you’ll climb that tree too far and fall out and break your arm” I remember that warning over and over again from Mum as we used to wander down to the park and have picnics where Mum would make me Cheese, Ham and Tomato sandwiches plus we’d pick Apples off our backyard tree and have the cakes and biscuits we used to spend the morning making together as a treat after I spent time running around and climbing the trees.

I pick up the branch and look to the sky, as a tear runs down my cheek, “Everything will work out for the best and there is nothing that can stop me from being me”. Every time I had stresses over work, school or just general problems, Mum would always tell me to repeat that to myself so that I knew how good of a person I was in her and everyone’s eyes.

I check my phone one last time and just see one last message from Dan which I leave to reply to for when I get home. It’s amazing how one little thing can change how significantly you feel, finding the Oak Branch has given me a massive confidence boost about how I can deal with both situations with Dad and Liam. The drive home doesn’t seem to be the path of peril, doom and gloom that I was expecting it to be and the smooth drive gets me home and I see Liam sitting on the doorstep.

“Thought you were supposed to call me?” I say as I get out of the car and say to Liam pretty crassly in a tone where I’m clearly unimpressed with him. I wander over and unlock the door, “You can come in for the next hour or so but you need to go before Dad gets home because the shit has well and truly hit the fan”.

I take my stuff up to my room as Liam sits on the couch, I come back downstairs and look straight at Liam “You know what, I don’t want to know what happened or why but all I have to say is that I thought we were past all this nonsense about it all” I sit down on the armchair across from Liam, clearly I’m upset by the lies and how confident he was through all the lies.

Liam looks at me “I’m so sorry Ben… it was all meant to be over and I thought it was fucking over anyway” I can genuinely see there is a mix of worry and concern in Liam’s eyes. “Alright, tell me how it all started again” I say as he looks pretty worried about hurting me. Liam starts the story.