fivedesiresandonedirection

Snälla kan du förlåta mig. Det var allt jag verkligen ville.

Men jag stammade bara patetiskt. “Z-Zayn said Niall was in here c-collecting the… err… mics.”

Liam rynkade pannan. “No, he’s collecting them in 4B.”

“That’s odd,” anmärkte jag. “Why would Zayn tell me-”

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13 DECEMBER

“Who was that?” sa Liam när han klev förbi mig och förgäves försökte rycka upp dörren.

“I don’t know,” sa jag och sjönk sakta ner med ryggen mot väggen. Jag hade en känsla av att vi skulle vara instängda under en lång tid.

“Right, I’ll call someone,” sa Liam, han fiskar upp mobilen ur jeansfickan och trycker på några knappar. “Hi, Zayn , it’s me. Listen, somebody has just…”

Och så plötsligt fattade jag precis vad som pågick. Trots att jag vet att samtalet med Zayn är meningslöst låter jag Liam prata färdigt.

 

“What did Zayn say?” frågade jag när han lagt på. Han suckade tungt.

“That whoever locked us in actually stole his set of keys. He’s going to try get a set from admin, but it could take a while.”

“That’s a lie,” mumlade jag. .

“Sorry?”

“That’s a lie,” upprepade jag. “He set us up. Zayn, I mean. So we’d be trapped alone in here.”

“What? That’s stupid. Why would he do such a thing?”

Jag svarade inte på frågan eftersom jag visste att Liam redan visste svaret. Jag kunde se det i hans hazelögon. Det var uppenbart att Zayn velat att vi skulle bli sams igen och hade helt enkelt låst in oss i ett litet rum där inget kunde skilja oss åt. Aja, jag bestämde mig för att det var nu eller aldrig. Jag tog ett djupt andetag.

“I don’t know,” sa jag, “but while we’re here waiting, there’s something I need to say to you.”

“Is there?” svarade Liam frånvarande, han hade börjat trycka på massa knappar igen.

“Yes. I know we haven’t talked in three weeks and I want to explain…”

“Go on.”

Jag suckade och kramade mina knän mot bröstet där jag satt på marken, precis sådär som Niall brukade sitta i sätet bredvid mig. Jag gjorde mitt bästa för att övertyga mig själv om att det var bra att Liam var distraherad av knapparna. Jag försökte också att inte bry mig om faktumet att han inte lagt en blick på mig sedan dörren slagits igen.

“Look, I just think it’s gotten ridiculous at this stage. I don’t know wh… Liam, would you look at me?”

Liam snurrar runt på min skarpa ton. “Why?” snäste han tillbaka. “You’re not saying anything new. Yeah, we haven’t spoken in three weeks and there’s a reason.”

“So what,” ilskan växte, “you don’t even care that we haven’t spoken in those three weeks? Did our friendship mean nothing to you?”

I en blixt av våldsam vrede smällde Liam ner hörlurarna på ljudbordet och stormar rakt mot mig.

“Don’t you ever for one second be so conceited to think that I didn’t care,” morrade han. “I can’t believe you would even think that, especially you being the one who hurt me in the first place.”

“Well, it sure seemed like you didn’t care,” jag reste mig hastigt. “All those times you passed me by in the corridor or whatever, as if I were a perfect stranger.”

“You know what?” sa Liam medan han närmade sig mitt ansikte. “You were a perfect stranger. Because that Louis I heard on the phone to Niall sure wasn’t the Louis I thought I knew.”

“You didn’t even give me a chance to explain!”

“Oh, stop clutching at straws,” spottade Liam och vände sig bort igen. “You can save your pathetic excuses. And by the way, I don’t know why I should’ve been the one trying to repair our friendship when the whole bloody thing was your fault. Even now, I know you wouldn’t be able to give me a valid and honest reason for what you did.”

  

Sanningen om hans ord slog mig. Vad fan skulle jag säga? Jag visste just då, i det ögonblicket att jag inte bara skulle kunna erkänna mina känslor för Liam. Jag kunde bara inte.  

“You want the reason I said what I said?” dundrade jag. “Fine. But I already explained it to you. You didn’t have the patience to listen.”

“You had three weeks to convince me,” sa Liam enkelt.

Jag suckade. “Well fine, if you don’t want to know, I won’t tell you.”

“Don’t be so childish. You know full well I want to know. As long as it’s the truth.”

“Of course it’s the truth,” Ljög jag. Jag kunde verkligen inte erkänna den verkliga orsaken eftersom jag inte kunde springa iväg om situationen tog fel utväg när jag berättade det.

“Well, go on then. Tell me why you said what you said on the phone three weeks ago.”

“As I tried to tell you, I was trying my best to get Niall to come back. And he was complaining about not sharing his room with anyone…”

“But that’s not why you said what you said,” sa Liam. Ilskan mellan oss hade lagt sig lite men bitterheten vibbrerade fortfarande emellan oss. “I’m sure you were trying to convince him to come back, but you wouldn’t have needed to say what you said about me to do that. The bit when you said, ‘I’ll feel so much better about not being around Liam’ in particular.”

“You remembered exactly what I said?” flämtade jag.

“Of course I did,” sa Liam butter, han gav mig inte en blick. “Your words stung.”

“Oh Liam, I’m so sorry,” sa jag, upprörd över röran jag kastat mig in i. “Really and truly, I did not mean one word of what I said about you on the phone.”

“Then why did you say it? And why won’t you tell me the truth?”

“I told you,” sa jag tyst, jag kände mig hemsk eftersom jag tvingade mig själv att fortsätta med lögnen. “Niall was upset and I tried to convince him that-”

“Oh, cut the bullcrap, Louis!”

 Den andra blixten av ilska Liam slungade iväg skrämde mig men hans ögon blev snabbt ångestfyllda.  

“Look,” sa han mjukare, “I’m not being completely honest either.”

“What do you mean?”

Liam suckade. “For one, I know for a fact that you’re lying.”

Jag bestämde mig för att inte bry mig om att neka. “How?”

“Because I think I know why you said what you said about me to Niall.”

Mitt hjärta rusade. “You do?”

“Yeah. I figured it out pretty quickly. And I talked to Claire about it and she-”

“Claire?”

“Yeah, Claire, my girlfriend,” sa Liam. Orden lyckades ändå tränga igenom mig.  “She thought it would be best to let you come to me and explain. I couldn’t exactly approach you and tell you…”

 

Liam tappade tråden. Berätta vad? Vart i hela friden ville han komma?

“But anyway,” fortsatte Liam och fortsatte knappa, “the days went by and I didn’t hear from you. And then the days turned into weeks and I was still waiting for you to come to me. But you didn’t.”

“Liam, I wanted to. I really, really wanted to but-”

“You didn’t, though,” avbröt Liam. “I began to think that my theory- my suspicions- of why you had acted that way were actually wrong. And then I began to think that you simply didn’t care anymore, that you were fine without me…. especially with Niall back and you being so involved with the musical.”

“No…”

“And then Zayn thought it would be a fantastic idea to put me in charge of the sound for the musical.”

“You didn’t have to agree to do it,” kommenterade jag tyst.

“No, I wanted to do it. It’s actually a lot of fun,” sa Liam och log mot ljudbrädan. “I love messing with this thing. Also, I wanted to see you again, and with my involvement in this, that was almost guaranteed.” Liam suckade för sig själv innan han fortsatte. “Those times on the corridor- when it pained me to pretend like you were anything but my best friend- weren’t enough. I wanted to see how you were.”

“You could’ve just asked Zayn how I was getting on.”

“Zayn,” muttrade Liam och himlade med ögonen. “I made him promise the first day I moved in with him not to let our fight come between the two of you and the musical. And he stuck to it, stubbornly so. Wouldn’t tell me squat. Told me if I wanted to know how you were, I should suck up my pride and find out for myself.”

“I had a feeling you had instructed him.”

“But he’s been great. Let me sleep in his room for nearly a month at this stage. I’m sure he’d be glad to see rid of me. He hasn’t brought back any girls to the room because of me.”

“That’s also because of his fixation with Nathalie,” log jag. “He keeps trying to flirt with her during rehearsals but she just gets frustrated and shouts in his face. I think Zayn actually enjoys it. It’s quite funny.”

  

Jag suckade i tystnaden som följde efter det jag sagt. Jag ville inte ställa nästa fråga, men jag hade inget val.  

“You never told me, what was your theory as to why I said what I said about you on the phone?”

“Oh…” suckade Liam och såg bort. “I have something to tell you. Something I’m not proud of doing. Or going along with, should I say.”

“What?!” Jag hade absolut ingen idé om vad han pratade om i just det stadiet. Han höll i alla fall inte på med att svara på min fråga.

Han suckade igen. “Zayn’s sorry too. He came up with it as a joke when he was drunk and we both agreed we weren’t going to do it… And part of our plan actually happened but I had thought that Zayn wasn’t going to go through with the main part- which involved you- but then he did and I couldn’t stop it becau-”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” avbröt jag. “I haven’t a clue about what you’re talking about. I asked you how you knew I was lying just now when I made up that excuse for what I said on the phone to Niall three weeks ago.”

“Right, I’ll get to what I was talking about in a minute,” sa Liam. “I’ll tell you what my suspicions are, so. But it’s going to make me sound so vain if it’s not true. I’m almost sure it is, though, but I don’t want to embarrass you by… Well, I’m going to embarrass you either way by-”

“Liam, stop babbling and just tell me.”

  

Liam kollade tyst ner på sina fötter innan han tyst erkände sin teori.