Chapter 89: Liam Opens Up, Slightly

POV: Georgia

Bianca’s face won’t leave me. I keep seeing it, the flash of amber, the way her jaw seemed to unhinge for half a second before she caught herself. My hands are still shaking by the time I find Liam in the empty hallway outside the rink, the Zamboni doors shut behind him, the corridor quiet except for the distant hum of the arena lights. I don’t have weeks left in me. I need someone to answer me right now.

He’s alone, still in half his gear, his skates dangling from one hand. He almost tells me something real, and then he remembers he isn’t allowed to. The overhead lights buzz faintly, casting everything in that flat fluorescent wash that makes even healthy people look drained. Liam looks tired in a way that has nothing to do with hockey. Dark circles bruise the skin under his eyes, and his shoulder pads sit crooked, like he forgot he was still wearing them the moment practice ended.

I sit next to him without asking. He doesn’t move away.

"Rough practice?" I ask, keeping my voice light, though my pulse is anything but.

"Rough everything," he mutters, defeated, and rubs a hand over his face.

I try to circle first, the way I usually do, but I don’t have it in me tonight. Down the hall, a door creaks somewhere, then settles.

"Can I ask you something?" I say, testing.

"You’re going to ask me something whether I say yes or not," he says, dry, though there’s no real edge to it. He just sounds worn out.

"Fair." I look down the empty hallway instead of at him, which usually makes it easier for people to talk. My hands stay folded in my lap, still, deliberately calm, though nothing in me feels calm. "Bianca basically snapped at me today. Over nothing. Over asking a question about my skates."

He goes very still beside me. I feel it more than see it, the sudden absence of fidgeting, like his whole body just stopped breathing for a second.

"And Bella did something similar weeks ago," I go on, steady, even as the memory of Bianca’s teeth flickers behind my eyes. "And you and Mandi both go quiet the second I bring up anything strange about this place. And Puck - " I stop myself, then decide to just say it. "Puck is a whole other thing entirely."

Liam doesn’t answer right away. He’s turning one of his skate laces over and over between his fingers, not looking at me, his jaw working like he’s chewing on something he can’t spit out. The lace snaps taut, then loosens, then taut again, a small nervous rhythm that fills the silence between us.

"Georgia," he says finally, warning, low.

"I’m not stupid," I say, quiet, steady, refusing to look away from the empty rink doors ahead of us. "I know something is going on here. I know it’s bigger than a mean girl thing, or a rich kid thing, or whatever I originally thought when I got here. I’m not asking you to explain the whole thing. I’m just asking you to stop pretending I’m imagining it. Not after today."

He laughs, but it isn’t really a laugh, hollow, bitter. It’s more like air escaping something under pressure.

"You’re not imagining it," he says, resigned.

It’s the most direct thing anyone has said to me since I arrived. I feel it land somewhere in my chest, a strange mix of relief and dread, because some tiny part of me was still hoping, even now, that someone would tell me I was wrong. My fingers curl into the fabric of my jacket, gripping without meaning to.

"Then what is it?" I ask, urgent now, unable to keep the pressure out of my voice.

He drags both hands through his hair and lets out a long breath, ragged at the edges. "Not everything here is what it looks like," he says, careful, each word placed like it might break something. "That’s, that’s as much as I can say. That’s already more than I should say."

"Liam." I say his name like a plea, leaning slightly toward him.

"Puck’s behavior, the way he’s been with you, the way he pulled back and then didn’t, none of that is random." His voice picks up speed now, quick and low, like once he started he can’t quite stop the momentum. "It’s not him being a jerk, or moody, or whatever you probably think sometimes. There are reasons behind it. Bigger reasons. Bigger than him, bigger than me, bigger than anything you’re probably imagining right now."

My pulse picks up, hammering hard enough that I can feel it in my throat. "Bigger how?" I press, breathless.

He stops. The lace goes still between his fingers.

I watch it happen almost in slow motion, the way his whole face shifts - like a door swinging shut behind his eyes. He’d been leaning toward me, caught up in his own momentum, shoulders angled in, and now he pulls back, sitting up straighter, putting an inch of distance between us that wasn’t there a second ago. The bench beneath us creaks under the shift of his weight.

"I can’t," he says, flat, final, though his hands are shaking slightly against his knees.

"You were literally just talking," I say, incredulous, twisting to face him fully.

"I said too much already." He looks genuinely rattled, more than I’ve ever seen him, his eyes darting once toward the far end of the hallway like he expects someone to be standing there. Liam is always easy, always cracking a joke to smooth over a hard moment. There’s no joke now. "I shouldn’t have said any of that."

"Liam, please." I don’t bother hiding how much I mean it, my voice cracking slightly on his name. "You keep saying you can’t tell me things. Everyone keeps saying that. I’m so tired of everyone saying that."

"I know." His voice cracks slightly on the word, raw, and something about the way he says it makes my chest ache. "I know you are. I’m sorry."

"Then tell me." I lean in again, closing the distance he made, desperate now.

He looks at me, and for a second I think he’s actually going to do it. His mouth opens. I see him weigh it, really weigh it, like the words are sitting right there behind his teeth, ready. His grip on the skate tightens until his knuckles pale.

Then something in his face closes off completely, and I watch whatever door had cracked open swing shut again, hard, final as a lock turning.

"I want to tell you," he says, strained, quiet, like it costs him something physical to say even this much. "I really, really want to tell you."

"Then - " I start, hopeful.

"I can’t." He cuts me off, flat, final.

Underneath it there’s something I’ve never heard from Liam before, not once, not even in the moments when he’s been serious with me. Fear. Real, plain fear, the kind that doesn’t come from being caught doing something wrong, but from knowing exactly what happens if he does. His hands have gone rigid on his knees, and for a moment his eyes flick again toward the far end of the hallway, toward the shadows gathering past the bright lights, like something might be listening.

He’s looking at me, and for the first time since I met him, easy, joking Liam looks genuinely afraid.