Chapter Text
Shit.
A shot of adrenaline surged through his body as he gasped himself awake. The silence of his room was instantly disrupted, as he scrambled to find his phone, which had slipped in the crack between his bed frame and the beat up cardboard box he’d been using as a nightstand. Well, there was a nightstand inside the box, it was just currently in flatpack form and Liam couldn’t be fucked to build it. That was of no use to think about now, because the sporting award ceremony had started fifteen minutes ago. Not that he was going to win anything, but the whole school was expected to attend to show support.
He practically fell onto the floor trying to find his uniform, buried under a pile of books and loose sheets of paper. His room was a mess, which didn’t make it any easier to find all the bits and pieces he needed to bring to school that day. He shoved random sleeves and folders into his backpack whilst fiddling with the buckle of his belt on his tight, super uncomfortable formal pants. Brushing his hands through his knotted curls, he was sure to forget something, that’s if he would even make it to school. His mum knew he couldn’t wake up with an alarm, but she was on a work trip and his dad always worked early mornings, leaving Liam to make do for the time being.
He burst out onto the front veranda with a plain piece of white bread in one hand and his shoes in the other and raced down the driveway to his banger of a car. Some shitty subaru his dad had picked up for him one weekend. He wasn’t willing to disclose how much it set him back but Liam couldn’t imagine it had been anything over a few grand, hence why he bought it with such haste.
He swung open the door and launched his boneless backpack into the passenger seat, along with his shoes—he’d deal with them when he hit traffic.
It took a second for the car to start but eventually it came to life. Liam wasn’t the most confident driver per se, but he passed the test and that’s all he needed to get his licence.
After a very hasty drive in, one which almost found him in a head on with a monster of a truck, he pulled into the carpark, barely able to straighten his car up before rushing into the office to get a late pass.
The office lady working was not willing to make it any easier for him. He hadn’t even met her before, he was never late, but she was not having it.
“Today is important, you know? You should be in there honouring those who came before you and you come in looking like a headless chicken! It’s absolutely unacceptable Liam.”
He almost rolled his eyes, before realising he’d only be digging himself deeper.
“Yes, I’m sorry Miss, it won’t happen again,” he replied back, tapping his finger restlessly on the counter.
She glanced at his hands, eager to get out and just shook her head before printing him out a pass to show to his teacher, “You better go straight there, no dilly dallying on the playground, okay?”
This is why Liam hated the admin staff. They speak to students like a pack of four year olds—not that some of the guys at this school were far off that, but still.
He nodded apologetically before making a mess of himself, fiddling with the door trying to get out.
He walked the empty corridor towards his tutor room, with a stack of backpacks already piled up outside and dropped his own next to the door, which landed with a thud. He didn’t have time to check up on his stuff, the office lady had probably already called his teacher to ask if he had made it to the hall yet.
He squeezed through a gap in the door, careful not to draw too much attention, and handed his pass to the nearest teacher, who happened to be Mr. Palmer, quite possibly the biggest stickler for the rules out there. Judging by the look on his face, he was not happy with Liam, and instructed him to take the empty seat nearest to the door.
Liam felt his face turn white as he looked over and saw that fuck face Hamish Otto sitting in the only empty seat Mr. Palmer could’ve been pointing at.
Fuck my life.
He couldn’t have picked a worse spot to sit, but regardless, he walked over and sat himself down in the only empty plastic chair in the whole room, slouching down into the side of it because Hamish’s built ass elbows were taking up Liam’s seat. He couldn’t see Hamish’s face through his cave man-like hair covering his face, but he still felt him look down at Liam before letting out a sigh so big that one of the boys in the row in front looked back at them. Hamish’s head turned and he whispered something into his friend’s ear and the two of them let out a chuckle. Fed up, Liam tried to look elsewhere and turned his attention to his friend Zac, who was turned around looking at Liam from across the aisle a few rows ahead.
Zac had been his mate since day one, since they had been sat next to each other in year 8. Since then, they’d become thick as thieves, always getting in trouble for the dumbest shit. Liam became the person he is today because he always had Zac by his side when everyone else hated him. He was sure he was never going to find another friend like him.
Zac chuckled at Liam’s untidy uniform, before diverting his gaze to Hamish. He bared his teeth at Liam knowingly before turning back around to look at the front.
Great.
He was just going to have to sit here next to giggle shits for the next two hours, listening to the hoard of vice principals all give their own individual speeches about the ‘integrity of the school’ or some nonsense.
Liam was eyes wide open, locked on the floor, trying not to doze off, when he finally heard everyone standing up. Finally this fuck ass assembly was over, and finally he could get away from Hamish. He practically leapt out of his chair and carried it over to the back wall to start the stack. He felt Hamish come up behind him with his own chair.
“See ya cunt,” Liam chirped quickly, followed by the sharp pain of hard plastic ramming into his back, sending him into the kid in front of him.
“What the fuck,” he chuckled before dropping his own chair at the start of a stack to leave, to go find Zac.
______________________________________
Lunch was busy, but Liam found his usual group of friends sitting at a picnic table under the tree they had inhabited for the past few years. Liam threw his bag at the ground before picking a spot on the edge of the bench next to Zac.
It was a hot day, which made the tie he had around his neck even more irritating, digging into his throat. He hadn’t even tied it properly in his rush to get out the door, so he just decided to stop fiddling with it and take it off all together—it’s not like the ceremony was still happening.
“How was sitting with your best bud this morning?” Zac snickered at him.
Liam could only reply deadpan, “haha hilarious.”
“What is even your beef with him?” Seth spoke up from the other side of the table.
Liam knew the answer, and so did Zac, but he didn’t feel like getting into it right this moment. He’d already had a bad day.
“Nothing, he's just a cunt.”
Seth shook his head, a smile poking out from the corner of his mouth, “bullshit.”
“Well what the actual fuck do you want me to say? He doesn’t fucking like me for whatever reason and he’s decided to be a cunt about it so yeah he is a cunt!” Liam responded back, with slightly more aggression than anticipated.
The whole table, including Seth, instantly went silent, looking into their laps, trying not to engage. Liam took a deep breath before Charlie stood up to save everyone from the awkwardness. “I’m hungry, who’s coming to the canteen?”
Everyone else slowly got out of their seats, except Zac, and the whole group moved off to the canteen.
Zac looked up at Liam beside him, who was now trying to distract himself by the other students walking past.
“I know that what he did was wrong, but you need to grow up. It happened too long ago for you to still be mad about it. Yelling every time it’s brought up doesn’t make it any better.”
Zac was right, but Liam just couldn’t shake the thought of it from his head. What would Zac know anyways? Sure he was there but he never spent a day in Liam’s head, he never knew what it was like for him, so Liam just sat there in silence.
After about a minute, Zac began to stand up.
“Where are you going?” Liam asked.
“Oh so now you’re gonna talk, I’m gonna go get a sausage roll, wanna come?”
Liam didn’t want to end up sitting alone, so he just decided to follow Zac to where the rest of their friends were gathered.
The line was long, filled with tiny year 7s, and when Zac and Liam joined the back of the line with the other guys, a group of year 10s in front of them were talking about some girl who Hamish had been talking to. Zac gave Liam a look, but Liam chose not to engage, he didn’t want to get mad again.
They were saying it was another year 10 from the girl’s school who had just met Hamish. Classic, Liam thought. He’s already sped through half the year 11 girls, he could only go down.
Eventually, they got to the front of the line, bought their snacks, and walked back off to their table.
On the way over, passing his geography classroom, he felt a sharp shoulder collide with his, and turned around to see Hamish glaring back at him, with this angry look in his eyes like he’d just ruined his day.
Can he just leave me the fuck alone.