Cruel Kisses (It's Just High School #2) - Thandiwe Mpofu Page 0,106
it was back to normal, like nothing ever happened, right?”
“Yeah, but something did happen.”
He shuts his eyes tight, like he doesn’t want to face whatever he’s seeing in his head.
“I was a selfish asshole. I put myself first, going down to the gym, thinking I deserved a moment to breathe, but in a state of poor decision making, Liam who was only fourteen at the time, took Aiden to the indoor pool.”
This can’t be good. This cannot be good.
“I used to spend a lot of time down there with Aiden and Liam. We would swim, laugh and just be brothers, pretending to navigate the seas in the pool like we were pirates. They both loved that shit.”
My heart is beating out of control, I can hardly breath as I look at the tortured look on Julian’s face.
“In hindsight, it wasn’t Liam’s fault for taking Aiden to the pool. He knew that it was the only place in the entire house that could calm him down. Aiden loved it there, he felt free to actually talk and express himself,” Julian says. “But that day, even with punishing myself by reviewing the security camera footage to this day, anyone could see that Aiden wasn’t calm. He was anxious and so was Liam.”
God. I have noticed how sensitive Liam really is. Behind that devil-may-care exterior is a guy who’s feels everything on an acute level.
“So, like I would do when I wanted to calm both of them down when we were younger, Liam took Aiden and they jumped into the pool. Courtney and fucking John were still fighting from one room to another, screaming at each other from the top of their voices. So, I turned up the volume, blasting the music and ran as fast as I could on the treadmill…”
He trails off like he can’t go on, but I palm his face in my hands, forcing him to look at me, tears running down my cheeks.
“Then what happened?” I whisper. “What happened, Julian?”
“At the pool, Liam misjudged just how much Aiden was freaking out and wasn’t into swimming at the time and so, Aiden started fighting the water, thrashing around, pulling Liam down with him.”
Julian stops, for a minute and looks away. I lean my head over his racing heart and just stay there, wrapping both arms around him then I start rubbing his back as softly as I can.
He wraps his arms around me and as he begins talking again, his hold on me tightens to a point of pain. But I don’t move. I don’t dare make a sound either.
“Aiden had just turned twenty years old that day. Not only that, he was bigger than Liam by at least fifty pounds. So, it was easy—although completely unintentional—for him to pull Liam down as he was trying to fight to get out of the pool.”
God…my heart starts racing along with his, an image of that day now playing in my own head. I almost don’t want to hear the end of that story but, I need to.
“I don’t know what made me abruptly stop everything I was doing. I don’t know how I dropped my phone and ran out of there like my ass was on fire. God, I have no idea how I fucking knew I had to go to the indoor pool, but I did.”
“You don’t have to continue…”
“I want to.” He cuts me off. “I got there, but both of them were already drowning. Liam was weak from trying to get Aiden’s hold on his neck off and Aiden was yelling so he was gulping down the water and getting weaker.”
Oh God, both of them almost drowned.
“I don’t even have time to process what was happening. I didn’t have time to blame anyone. I just dove in, got them both out and went to work, doing CPR on both of them. I don’t remember how John and Courtney came rushing in. I don’t remember how dad took over CPR for Aiden. I don’t remember my Courtney’s hysteria when she thought Liam was dead. All I remember is by the time the private doctors came, Liam was all right and dad had Aiden in his arms, almost sobbing.”
There’s a note of disbelief in his voice as he says that. Like he can’t believe John ever did that.
“He had him in his arms, holding him like he never wanted to let go,” he whispers. “But that was the wake-up call for John. He started talking about divorcing Courtney around