Nathan

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Nathan entered Lily’s white house in the middle of nowhere. It’d taken him hours to figure out to come here after the fight with Gabriel. He’d stopped a few places, off of main roads, just to sit in the car and try to figure out what to do next.

And here he was, hours later, looking at Liam, looking for answers, help, anything.

Help him save their group from splitting.

Help him stop what could be the biggest disaster of his life. He’d messed up enough. He needed to know what to do. There had to be someone who could help him fix what he’d done.

Liam looked him over, at the blood on Nathan’s hands, dried up now and mostly flaked away but still there. The bruises and split lip at his face, the messed up clothes...He was a wreck.

“Maybe you should clean up,” Liam said. “Then we can talk.”

“I want to talk now,” Nathan said. He couldn’t control his shaking. He was running on fumes, hungry, tired, worn down. But he couldn’t stop. The foyer to the home was all hard surfaces, and his voice echoed through the space. “I messed up.”

Liam painfully looked up the steps and then back at Nathan. “Fine, but come with me.”

He led Nathan to the right, through a set of double doors. It was some sort of formal room, a library or office of some sort. There were two sets of sofas facing each other, a table between them. A fireplace was along the back wall, unlit. There were shelves of books around him, built-ins on every other wall.

“I’d offer for you to sit on the couches,” Liam said, “but don’t be offended if I say you should sit here.” He pulled a chair that was near the desk away from it, offering it to him. “Easier to clean.”

He didn’t even want to sit, but he did. His body ached as he bent down. He’d spent hours in the car alone. He winced and leaned forward as he sat.

Liam sat on the coffee table so he could look at him. The room had a bit of a chill, coming perhaps from the unlit fireplace. The lights overhead were off, the only light coming from a couple of lamps in the corners.

Somehow this new place was intimidating, perhaps because of all the white surfaces. He wasn’t sure who else was here. The rest of the house was quiet.

Liam leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and waited. “Well?” he asked. “What’s the problem?”

“Shouldn’t I be talking to Lily?” Nathan asked. “I...heard I was supposed to talk to her.”

“Talk to me, first,” Liam said. He pressed a palm to his own chest. “I’m right here. But I think I know what this is about.”

“You’re...”

“One of her husbands,” he said and showed him the ring on his left hand.

One of.

He was like them. Maybe this was better. He could understand not wanting to wake Lily to talk to some crazy person walking in bloodied and insane. He’d do the same thing for Sang. He’d want to make sure the person wouldn’t hurt her before even bothering.

Nathan told him everything. The whole story from what started a few days ago. He’d told pieces of it to other people, but never the full of it. Not how he felt about Sang. Not how the relationship had troubled him from the start. He rambled on for a good long while, sometimes jumping back in time, to before he knew about the relationship, but he tried to stick to what happened within the last few weeks.

“So I ran out after she yelled at me,” he said at the end of it all. He dropped his shoulders, looking at the floor. “I’m sure they all think I did it on purpose. Getting into a fight like that? Over her? Hurting him so bad? I’ll be kicked out for sure.”

“But you didn’t do it on purpose,” Liam said. He’d asked a few questions of him from the moment Nathan started talking, but for the most part he let him rattle on. “I know you’re worried, but you know the Academy doesn’t operate like that. And your friends, since they are Academy, they don’t react to just how things looked. We listen. We listen to your side, your intent.”

Nathan swallowed thickly. He knew that. “That might not make it better.”

Liam shook his head and smirked a bit. “Are you kidding? Intent makes the difference between someone being convicted of murder or let off for self-defense. Don’t tell me context and intent don’t matter. That’s what we do.”

“I don’t mean that part. I mean...I mean she was so mad at me.”

“Are you telling me she’s the type of person who won’t listen to you if you’re trying to tell her the truth?”

“No...”

“So are you telling me Sang isn’t an understanding person? That she lacks sympathy for anything that doesn’t reflect what she initially wanted to believe?”

Nathan didn’t answer that, wanting to say no to him.

But part of him couldn’t come to terms with how he possibly made her feel through all of it. When it came to telling Erica about the truth, they’d all hesitated.

They all thought it was too far to tell someone they trusted. So he wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do.

And Sang. After seeing her face...His mind couldn’t let go of the hurt she’d had after it all. Could she forgive him after this? After seeing Danielle like that and then looking like he’d punched Gabriel?

Liam got up and walked around the coffee table. He inspected the fireplace then bent down to a collection of logs set off to the side and sorted through them. “Come here a minute and help me with this.”

Nathan went to him, standing nearby, and when Liam asked for kindling, Nathan handed it to him.

Liam lit the fire, using a long match to get the kindling going. He monitored it while it was starting up. “You know, we made mistakes starting out. Bad ones.”

“You did?”

He nodded. “We tried to keep it from her. But when we told her how we felt, we all expected she’d pick one. Some of us were waiting for it. We did it the opposite of how you were talking. We assumed she wouldn’t accept the idea, and that she’d pick one. But we told her we wanted to stay together. She didn’t believe us.”

“But she still ended up with you all together?”

“She tried everything to get us to change our minds,” he said. “She thought it was selfish of her to have so many of us devoted to her. We couldn’t convince her we wanted this. We were dumb, too. We sent her on a date with someone outside the group once.”

Nathan exhaled loudly. “Why?”

“I think we were trying to convince ourselves she could date anyone she wanted. Or maybe we were punishing ourselves.” He left the fireplace lit and turned to him. The glow of the flames dancing around his face, the light wrinkles next to his eyes, and the course hairs grown out against his face creating some shadow. “I don’t even remember any more. We read all the books we were supposed to for a situation like ours, and it didn’t fit us at all. They were telling us to date, and then telling her to date everyone she wanted. Free love and all that shit. That’s not what we wanted at all.”

“I don’t think Sang would date anyone else,” Nathan said.

“I don’t want you to try. Not if that’s not what you want.” Liam put a hand on his shoulder supportively. “Listen, you all do need to talk to us. Because we can tell you all the stupid stuff we’ve done, and why it was stupid. And...maybe you won’t have to go through this alone like we did. Like when we finally told the Academy. Because you know you have to tell them. Sooner or later.”

“We know,” Nathan said. “We were hoping for later. When we were sure.”

“You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t sure.” He smirked. “You aren’t the first team who came through that door trying to get a bird on a dog team, and not understanding why they were having relationship problems. The Academy sets up rules the way they do for reasons far wiser than we’d like to believe.”

“We aren’t following to rules.”

“They aren’t set in stone,” he said. “You know that. Not every rule works for every team. Sometimes you have to just do what’s right and see where you land. Have the Academy adjust to you, not you adjust to anyone else.”

“Does that work with telling your friends? Family?”

“Not all of us have to worry about that,” he said, his face hardening. “Lily and I...we don’t have any. None we want to be in contact with, anyway. The others we lied to. And we’ll continue to lie for the rest of our lives.”

“You’d do that?”

Liam scratched at the coarse hair around his chin and shrugged. “Who else needs to know about your real life? You’ll lie about the Academy. What matters is, you don’t lie to each other. You keep communication open. Always.”

Nathan turned to the fire, allowing the flames to dazzle his attention. He hadn’t realized how cool the room was until the fire started warming his body. “This won’t matter if she doesn’t forgive me.”

“I’ve a feeling she hasn’t been sitting idly by,” he said. He pulled a phone from his pocket. “I know Lily would be worried about me. Let me send word about where you are. Let her come to you.”

“Now?”

“Better than waiting,” he said. “Don’t make her wait to know how you feel. Don’t torture her like this.”

He was right. Nathan nodded to him, his heart speeding up again, assuming Liam would get word back with questions. And he was a little more than concerned that they might ignore him completely, that they’d shun him after what happened.

Liam only waited a few minutes when his phone lit up. It buzzed shortly with a message. “She’s on the way.” He put the phone in his pocket again. “Let’s get you cleaned up before she gets here. Someone might have some clothes that will fit.”

Nathan absently scratched at his wrist, unsure about what he would say to her, but agreed that he needed to not be so tattered looking when she arrived.

Hopefully she wasn’t coming to yell at him, upset about it all.

Hopefully he hadn’t damaged all of this beyond repair.