After my run-in with Liam, I was forced to change my movements slightly to avoid being where I knew he would be. With this new hindrance to my blissfully empty existence, my eyes were no longer trained on the ground since I needed to see him coming. Whenever I got a glimpse of him, or anyone with the same hair color, in the halls of the school I would change directions. 

Since he was two years ahead of me in school this didn’t take much effort on my part and by Friday I was able to get through the entire day without any sign of him. The weekend passed easily with my family so occupied by their own lives that I wasn’t forced to act as if I cared about mine anymore leaving me to lay in bed most of the time. Monday went smoothly and by Tuesday my eyes were trained on the ground once more, the new routine a resounding success which allowed me to return to my auto-pilot status. 

Leaving the school by the side entrance added an extra minute but when I wasn’t doing anything the extra minute wasn’t much of a cost in order to ensure my continued simplified existence.

2:43 pm that Tuesday The tug on my elbow returned though, unlike the previous week I didn’t need to be pulled aside, instead this time it simply stopped me in my tracks.

“It’s Tuesday,” Liam said from behind me his voice rougher than it had been last week, rougher than I ever remembered it being. Without waiting for me to say anything he spoke again, “come on” he commanded before leading me by the arm around the building and towards the parking lot.

The thought of stopping, simply standing still and refusing to go with him briefly crossed my mind but I lacked the energy to actually refuse Liam at the moment. Instead, I allowed him to continue to guide me away from the routine I had made for myself. 

He walked a step ahead of me the grip on my elbow firm but not painful, before long we were standing next to his car and in the next minute he was guiding me into the passenger seat before shutting the door.

I had been in Liam’s car plenty of times though I didn’t recognize this particular version of it. Half-empty bottles filled the cup holders with more on the floor with my feet, joining discarded fast-food wrappers and other miscellaneous pieces of trash that hid the car mat below my feet from view. The car was Liam’s pride and joy, something he playfully referred to as his baby, he hadn’t allowed anyone to have so much as a sippy cup in the car for the first few months he had owned it. Once he began allowing people to have drinks in the car someone in the backseat managed to accidentally spill hot chocolate making Liam cry. It was another four months before he allowed anyone to have a drink in his car again. 

That car was gone now and in its place was this uncaring mess I was forced to sit in.

Liam got behind the wheel and maneuvered the vehicle out of the parking lot by the time I raised my eyes up from the trash around my feet. I didn’t care where it was we were going so instead of looking out the window I chose to observe the boy sitting next to me while he was distracted with driving. 

The dark circles around his eyes were more pronounced than they had been with the color of his hair and eyes seeming to have dimmed again as well. He wore a black hoodie that matched my red one in all but color and while it didn’t look as large on him it was obviously still the wrong size. I tried to remember if he had been wearing it any of the other times I had seen him but found that I couldn’t recall any of his outfits.

One thing I did know though was he looked like shit. This was no longer the bubbly attractive Liam of the past and his looks much like the state of his car drove home the changes. 

I slumped down in the passenger seat returning my eyes to the floor again. The changes in Liam tried fruitlessly to grab my interest or attention but found neither. Silence filled the car as he continued to drive broken only by the sound of his turn signal a few times. I allowed myself to retreat inward my eyes trained downward but never focusing on one particular thing.

When the car stopped I looked up slowly to see that Liam had parked us in front of the Taco Bell, his earlier words echoing in the back of my mind.

‘It’s Tuesday’