The Tunnel Of Doubt - 2. Chapter 2

I woke up to the noisy sound of Liam’s alarm clock at 6:30am. I brought my own Alarm but since Liam and I had the same morning schedule there was no need to be waking up at different times. Usually he would wake up and have his shower while I just flipped on the TV to catch any of the morning cartoons.

During the first month of school I had made some new friends, all of whom I met through Liam. David was the “brains” of the group. He got straight A’s in all his classes and actually was here on a full scholarship. He was enrolled in the advanced classes and I swear the teachers are now just trying to to see if there is anything he doesn’t know. Ryan was the cocky ladies man. Every other weekend he’d manage to get an excursion pass to leave the school grounds and when he came back he always told us about the girl he’d manage to score and take out on a date. I’ll admit it did make me slightly uncomfortable because sooner or later someone was gonna ask me if I had a girlfriend back home or maybe just broke up with one before coming here. I had rehearsed this situation in my head a thousand times but every time I still was cautious about just blurting out a name. The problem is no matter what lie I might be able to come up with, it was bound to fall apart sometime. All lies do. Zachary or “Zack” as he goes by is the quiet one. In fact he’s more quiet than me. However what he lacks in speaking, he makes up in athletics. I’ve seen him play everything you can imagine, and when he’s “in the zone”, you can tell. He loses touch with the outside world other than what’s on the field. When he runs the track in Gym Class he paces himself perfectly so that he is able to run all 4 laps or 12 minutes (whatever he happened to be doing that day as the warm up) perfectly and without stopping.

For the first bit of joining this group I did feel slightly out of place. This “tribe” had already been formed last year and when I started hanging out with them I felt like I wasn’t of “rank” yet to feel permanently established. Liam sensed this and whenever we were alone in our dorm he’d give me the time of day and make sure I knew he valued me. That’s not to say I expected royal treatment or anything, no far from it, but it is nice to belong. Soon after the Ice was broken and we were all hanging out with each other. Friday nights became known as movie nights, and as Liam’s way of getting the group to accept me quicker he’d always suggest one of the movies I brought from home and make sure it was known that I brought it. The guys would then take an interest in my movie tastes and give me props or some other “bro” acknowledgement. I felt at home with a true group of friends again, and that made everything feel amazing.

Tonight was movie night and Liam and I had made sure to stock up on chips, pop, and other snacks the day before. It’s the reason why I woke up excited today.

“Morning there doofus” Liam said smiling while hitting me in the head with one of my pillows.

“Hey! Watch it you cunt!” I laughed out. Just as I reached for my pillow to throw back at him he quickly darted across to the bathroom and shut the door.

“Damn you!” I shouted through the wall.

I flipped on the TV to watch the early morning Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show reruns and laid back on my bed careful not to fall back asleep. My favourite skits were the ones with Foghorn Leghorn. I just loved his constant use of “Hey Boy I say Hey Boy pay attention boy!” and other variants. By the time Liam was done showering I was a laughing fit in my bed.

“Well nice to see I missed the funny ones!” He said to me

“It’s okay, Tom and Jerry is up next.”

“Cool!”

Without even thinking about it Liam ran up and jumped into my bed. I took comfort in the fact Liam and I could do things most people would scream like a banshee ‘ewww gay” at, and even if I myself was gay, why did everything I do have to be related to that? When Liam joined me I just basked in glory at his fresh from the shower smell. Old Spice shampoo and body wash were what we used, which effectively doubled our supply. He was lying down with his head up near mine and he was just in his boxer briefs. I’ll admit it was a sight to behold. His silky smooth and tanned chest all the way down to his legs and feet. The angle I was watching the TV from was perfect because Liam was still in my peripheral vision and I really didn’t want to have to get up from this spot.

Of course there were moments when Tom and Jerry would make me laugh so hard I couldn’t help but take my eyes off of Liam’s beauty. As we were bashing around laughing and repeating dialogue Liam noticed the time.

“Oh shit Trev, you gotta get your shower done. We only got 30 minutes before we have to leave for Math.”

As much as it pained me to leave Liam’s side I got up and walked into the bathroom. I shut the door and locked it and put the fan on. I knew we didn’t have much time but there was something I had to take care of otherwise my pants would be hurting me, or I’d have an embarrassing pointer sticking out from me. Or even both. I ‘relieved’ myself in the shower while basking in my Old Spice products and entered into the room again to get dressed. I walked over to the closet and got on my uniform. Once I was ready I collected my backpack and was ready to go.

Liam and descended the elevator and took a look around the common room to see if David, Ryan, and Zack were here. When we saw they weren’t we departed down the path through the courtyard and into the school building. The morning rush hour traffic was heavy and the hallway which is usually fast commuting at night, comes to a screeching halt during class time.

“Dude we better not get in trouble if we are late. It’s not our fault EVERYONE has morning class.” Liam said to me as we were struggling to take one step in a minute. “Like who designed these hallways. There are lots of students here and they act like 2 lanes will get the job done.”

“Yea, well that’s what God’s traffic maps do to ya.” I returned humorously.

Eventually 8:00am edged itself ever so closer and Liam and I were finally able to squeeze our way into class exactly one minute before the bell.

“Alright class take your seats.” Our Professor said

Liam and I fast walked to our desks in the front right side of the class and sat down. Today we were learning about algebraic equations and how to solve them.

“Alright everyone, take out your notebooks and copy the following.”

The teacher wrote on the smartboard an example equation and how to solve it. It read:

“25x+36=5x+30

25x-5x=30-36

20x=-6

20x/20=-6/20

x=-0.3”

Seems easy enough. I should ace this unit! He wrote a second equation which we all copied. Once we were done that, he assigned further textbook work. We worked on that for the remaining of the class and then as the bell rung we all got up to leave.

“Trevor and Liam may I see you two for a moment.”

Uh oh what did we do? I thought we were doing good in this class. We were averaging a 85%, what could we possibly be in trouble for?

“You two have caught my eye these past few weeks. I noticed you in particular Liam have been a lot more happier and excited for showing up to class this year. Trevor, you're the first student I’ve had that came from the public board and is able to perform as if he was a scholarship entrant. I just want you to know I’m proud of what is happening and would like to see it continue after the new year excitement dwindles down.”

“Thank you Sir.” We both said

I walked out the door and on our way to Science I asked Liam with genuine concern, “So what was that about? What happened last year?”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s all better now and that’s all that matters.”

“Well yea, but-”

“Just drop it okay! I don’t want to talk about it!”

And with that he hurried up down the hall to Science and darted inside before I could get another word in.

I wanted to further pursue the subject but I knew better than to make something worse than it is. I continued thinking though what could have happened that Mr. Stevens could possibly have noticed improved in Liam’s outlook. Was there a death in his family or friends? Maybe another tragic life event occurred. Whatever it was, if Liam wanted to tell me he would do so on his own time, it’s none of my business unless he wants it to be.

The clock ticked by and eventually Liam and I parted ways after Science for our seperate afternoon classes. I had Law and Geography with Mr. Hef, while he had English and Religion. Not much happened in terms of my classes, tomorrow we would be learning a new unit and getting our next project assigned. After Geography I walked back to the form to get some lunch and I saw ‘the squad’ at a table already. I walked over and joined them and Liam looked a bit upset. It wasn’t major but I noticed his beautifully radiant smile was smaller and his attention was clearly elsewhere during the discussions.

“....So yea, get this right. I’m going to jump up for a slam dunk” Ryan says while illustrating the event taking place, “and then all of a sudden Johnny comes up and spearheads right into me knocking me down and nearly breaking a rib…and our teacher doesn’t even call a penalty! How the hell does that happen!”

“Well Ryan, have you ever stopped to consider maybe you're just not the best afterall?” David said. “Like you could just be the worst person ever and you wouldn’t even notice ahahaha”

“Oh yea bro? Wanna 1v1 me? I’ll mop the floor with your ass.”

“Alright Alright Alright. Point taken.”

These were one of those moments where the insult based humour brings everyone together for a common laugh and then more people would join in with their own statements about how awesome they were or how much the other sucked. Some might say it gets old, and it would after a while but these guys were becoming my brothers and I was having a blast just being apart of the gang.

“Hey Trevor, do you wanna do that Basketball tournament this weekend or next?” Ryan asked me.

“Um...well actually I was thinking maybe we could do soccer instead. I think that would be nice before the winter comes and the soccer field is an ice rink.”

“Alright that works with me. Everyone good with a soccer tournament?”

Everyone nodded in agreement and I noticed Zack looked especially excited. Soccer was his number one sport if you could even quantify his skills like that.

“Okay so teams will be Liam, Trevor, and me vs David, Zack, and-”

“Who’s gonna be our third?” Zack asked as he looked a bit frustrated with the team selection.

“I’ll get Drew from my Gym class to join us. He’s good.”

“Okay, sounds good then. Thanks Ryan.” Zack said.

Once we had all had lunch we made our way outside for a game of basketball before the movie night would start. Liam sat out and watched which was definitively not like him. Something was clearly bothering him and I was gonna make sure I found out what before bed. Once our games of 2v2 and “21” were done we went back inside up to Liam and mine’s room.

“So what movie is tonight?” David asked us.

“Lion King good with everyone?”

“Hahaha oh my God I haven’t seen that movie in forever!” Ryan said

“Me neither. Last time was when I was like 7” Zack added.

I started the movie and when the iconic sunrise beginning and Circle of life song started everyone had a smile on their face and Ryan had taken it upon himself to sing along in an over the top obnoxious way. Everyone was having fun except Liam. He just stayed quiet on the bed beside me. I looked over at him with a concern look on my face to let him know I was here for him, but he didn’t really respond one way or the other. Even as the movie got more serious and Simba saw his father die Liam didn’t really react. In fact by the time the movie neared it’s end, Liam had nearly fallen asleep. Everyone got up and left after we chilled together for a bit but I think everyone could tell Liam’s mood was shot to hell and so took it as the cue to leave.

Once we were alone I popped the question to him, “Alright dude. What’s up. You’ve been in a sour mood ever since Math ended.”

“I thought I told you I didn’t want to talk about it!”

“Well, I don’t care anymore. You’re miserable and I’m concerned. I’ll admit maybe it wasn’t right to pry into your personal life so soon, and I’m sorry. But Liam I’m worried. Please don’t shut me out.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Fine. But if you want to, I’m here.”

He got up and walked over to his bed and just fell down and went to sleep. I got undressed and brushed my teeth, turned the lights off and got into bed myself. While I was laying there however, I heard Liam crying. I figured it was best for him to cry it out so I just stayed put. It stopped shortly after and then it was silence. I then saw Liam get up and walk into the bathroom after about 10 minutes he came back out. I finally decided enough was enough and turned on my lamp.

“Uhhh...I….Ummm.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Can we?”

I sat up in my bed and he walked over and lied face down into my pillow. It brought me back to being there for Tyler back at home.

“My parents split up last year.”

“Oh gosh Liam I’m sorry to hear that!”

He turned over now and was facing the ceiling and continued to spill his words out.

“My Dad became an Alcoholic and he started going crazy angry at my mom and me, soon my mom and I ran away and she filed for divorce and I haven’t seen him since. Part of me misses him, and part of me wants to become angry again that way I won’t miss him.”

I didn’t know what to say, I came from a privileged life so I didn’t have much in life experience to relate to what he was going through.

“Anyway, when Mr. Murray said I appeared happier, it’s because you have been the best thing to walk into my life. It’s like you were a god sent angel to me. You make my life fun again. You make me have faith again. You make me see that happiness can still be had, and I have been experiencing it myself, so I’m living proof of it!”

“Liam...I….I don’t know what to say….”

“Just please, promise me you’ll stay with me. I can’t lose you Trevor.”

“I will.”

Liam fell asleep in my bed that night next to me. I comforted his soft cries and soothed his shivering bones with my presence. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but whatever it does, I’m going to live up to my promise of being right by Liam’s side.