I had hoped that learning about Kyle basically inviting Liam to find him after he took his life was going to be the last thing to surprise me. Hearing about even the chance he could have been seeing other people besides us though just didn’t shock me as much as I expected. After torturing someone I had thought Kyle had loved nothing seemed to be out of the question.

It did, however, raise a lot of questions that would most likely never be answered since the center of everything was gone. There were still ways to find out more though and the obvious sources were the other guys. Each of them had known Kyle longer then I did so it stood to reason that they would know plenty of things I didn’t.

The other relationships that Kyle might have been involved with though were something I had mixed feelings about in regards to them. On the one hand, I would rather someone like Liam already know about all of the terrible things that might I might uncover just so he wouldn’t have to be hurt anymore. The other side of that was my desire to not be alone in my not knowing.

Misery loves company and I was very miserable.

Sam sat with me as I tried to process this new information and I was beyond grateful for her silent support. After giving me sufficient time though she was the one to break the silence once more.

“I noticed you seem to be getting closer to Liam again,” she said watching the water of the pond though I caught her sneaking a glance at me before she continued. “At least as close as you have been to anyone recently”

I nodded my head not really wanting to think about whatever was going on between me and Liam at the moment. The reason for reaching out to Sam was still fresh in my mind and I wasn’t sure what to do about that.

Thankfully I caught myself as I tried to not think about anything. Shutting down and ignoring things had not been doing me any good lately. Sam was there with me and she was obviously willing to listen to me so I needed to stop bottling everything up and talk to her.

‘He has been persistent with hanging out and talking to me but I think he might be using me as a replacement for Kyle’ I typed out on my phone before sending the message.

Sam quickly read the message before letting out a very loud and disgusting sounding snort of laughter. The sound sent me shimmying away from her across the grass until there was a good arm’s length of the distance between us.

“If it was anyone but him then I would agree with you but there is no way in this world or any other that Liam would do that to you. He is probably the nicest guy you will ever meet. I heard that after his fight with Jeremy he not only apologized to him but he also gave a group apology to the onlookers and submitted a written apology to the school for the disturbance.”

Now it was my term to laugh though I managed to do so in a much more refined manner. While her claims might sound far fetched it all felt very Liam like. Hearing her talk about how nice Liam was reminded me of the first time I met him.

Of course, our initial meeting was at Taco Bell and since it hadn’t been planned I arrived without my wallet and a very empty stomach. Liam was the only one to notice me hungrily eyeing everyone’s food and when he offered to pay for me he did it in a way as to avoid embarrassing me. He had always been generous towards me which I had never really questioned but it must have been hard for him.

Liam had been Kyle’s first boyfriend and while I was never really sure as to the ins and outs of their relationship I did know that expanding things had not been Liam’s idea. While my own experiences with dating were rather limited I doubt that I would have been half as nice to my boyfriend’s fourth boyfriend.

“It might be a little soon for him to be over Kyle but if he is showing an interest then I am sure it is genuine” Sam said after letting me get lost in my thoughts for a few minutes.

I nodded again before looking at my phone screen knowing what I wanted to tell her but not sure if it was mine to tell. After turning the screen on and off a few times I decided to just go all-in on everything and just hope for the best. Thankfully Liam was too nice and it was doubtful that he would be angry with me.

‘Liam was the one that found him’ I typed out quickly and after hitting send I turned to Sam watching her mouth fall open as she read my message.

“You mean he found Kyle?” she asked her voice a few octaves higher than usual as her words spilled out not even wanting for my response. “Jesus mother fucking Christ, no wonder he looks like shit. I mean for fucks sake that is so fucking awful”

Hearing her normal calm and collected way being replaced by this vulgar high pitched anger let me know that Sam meant everything she was saying. The abnormally high number of curse words also meant that she was truly pissed off.

“I’m going bring that ass hole back from the dead and fucking kill him myself!” Sam continued ranting her voice reaching a probably inappropriate volume considering we were sitting on the front lawn of a hospital at night.

Shifting onto my knees I began frantically moving my arms in hopes of getting her volume down since this was not a place I wanted to be banned from. While this took a little bit I eventually managed to calm her down to the point where she was only mumbling ‘fucking asshole’ under her breath.

Seeing her so angry about what Kyle had done made me feel better about my own anger. She might not have been as close to him as I was but the guilt at feeling rage towards a dead person was subsiding at least. Now I just had the rest of my emotional baggage that needed to be sorted through.

“I still stand by what I said before” Sam stated turning her gaze back towards me. “Liam is a really nice guy and if he likes you then he likes you. He is definitely going to be fucked up by all of that but your kind of fucked up as well.”

Her smile let me know that she meant the last part in the nicest way possible and I was grateful for that. I knew that this wasn’t going to absolve me of every negative thing I had done to her in the past but at least she seemed to support whatever this thing with Liam was.