A Preview to Before the Scars (A Self Inflicted Novella) Liam's Story

I spent a lot of time telling my fans what I am working on. Today, I have decided that instead of telling you, I am going to show you.

My latest project is a small novella for the Self Inflicted Series. In this novella, you learn more about the past of some of the characters from the series, including Liam, Aislynn, Gabe, and Trent. If you don't know who Gabe and Trent are, don't worry. They don't appear until Scars Fade, which will be released on August 14.

Today, I am enclosing Liam's story. Obviously I can't post his entire story, or there would be too many spoilers for Scars Fade. Eventually this book will be available to every member of my reader's group, but it is a work in progress at the moment. Let me know what you think!

Liam

“I’m so sick of being sick,” my big brother Gavin complained from his hospital bed.

“Maybe some of these new tests will finally figure out what’s wrong so they can fix you,” I told him. I was barely thirteen years old. This was the second time this month that Gavin had been admitted to the hospital.

He had been sick for months. He missed most of his senior year because of it. At first, he thought it was just stomach flu, but he wasn’t getting any better. The illness continued for months. He had been to see several doctors, but so far, no one had been able to tell us what was wrong.

“They can fix you, right Gavin?” I asked him. We were four years apart, but my brother and I were really close.  He didn’t complain when I wanted to tag along when he hung out with his friends. My brother was my best friend, and our house felt empty without him.

Gavin reached over and messed up my hair. “Don’t worry, Liam. I’m sure they will be able to fix it as soon as they figure out what’s wrong.”

“Will you still be able to join the Army?” I asked him. Enlisting in the Army had been all Gavin had talked about for the past two years. Our parents had thrown a fit when he told them, but he would be eighteen in a couple of months and then they wouldn’t be able to stop him.

His illness could stop him though. I knew he was worried about that.

“It’s going to depend what’s wrong, I guess,” he said.

I hated not knowing what was wrong with my big brother. I was also afraid of what it could be when we finally got an answer.

We didn’t have to wait for long. Later that day, the doctor gathered my parents in Gavin’s hospital room to tell us his diagnosis.

Pancreatic cancer.

My brother had cancer.

The worst part was that the cancer was so advanced that there was nothing that could be done about it. He was going to die.

“Why didn’t you test for that soon?” I screamed at the doctor. “Maybe then you could have done something about it! It’s your fault my brother is going to die!”

“Calm down, little brother,” Gavin said as he reached out for me. I may have been thirteen years old, but at that moment, I wasn’t too old to climb into my brother’s lap and cry.

The cancer advanced quickly. He spent most of his time in the hospital, but he finally convinced out parents to bring him home.

“I don’t want to die in a hospital,” he pleaded with them. “I want to be at home. With my brother. In my own bed. With my video games. I want my friends to be able to visit at any time, without having to deal with visiting hours.”

They couldn’t argue with him. I guess if your seventeen year old son is dying, you pretty much let him do whatever he wants with the time he has left.

I spent the last two weeks in my brother’s room. I played video games with him if he felt up to it. I cleaned up after him when the medicines made him sick. I cried in his arms. He never cried.

“Aren’t you mad?” I asked him.

His voice was barely a whisper when he answered. I knew I wouldn’t have my brother much longer.

“I guess, but it won’t do any good. I’m upset because I can’t join the Army. I’ll never graduate high school or go to college. I’ll never get married and have kids. Most of all, I’m upset because I won’t be around for you. I hate knowing that I am leaving you alone.”

“I’ll do everything you wanted to do for you,” I told him. “I’ll join the Army because you can’t. We will still have a soldier in the Hayden family.”

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, little brother,” Gavin insisted.

Yes, I do. I have to survive without my older brother. I definitely didn’t want to do that.

“I’m going to do it for you Gavin. I promise.”

“Okay,” Gavin whispered. “You can do that when you grow up, but for now, why don’t you crawl up here in bed with me? I’m tired.”

I did as my brother asked. I climbed into his bed and held him the way he used to hold me when I had nightmares.

That was the night that I lost my brother.

I was a mess. I fought with the paramedics when they came to take his body away. I locked myself in his room for days at a time.

The only thing that kept me going was my promise to him. I had to join the Army because Gavin couldn’t.

I attended a support group twice a week for people who had lost loved ones to cancer. After four years in the group, I started only going once a week.

That’s what I met her. I didn’t even know her name because she never spoke to the group.

She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Her hair was short and seemed to be a different color at every meeting. She always wore long sleeved shirts, no matter how hot it was outside.

Eventually, she started getting piercings. It started with her eyebrow. Then her lip.

After spending nearly four months staring at her, I knew I had to talk to her.

I followed her out the door after the meeting one night.

“What’s the deal with the long sleeves?” was my first question to her. “It’s summer.”

“What’s the deal with people trying to make me talk when I don’t want to,” she replied.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I’m Liam,” I introduced myself.

“I know who you are,” she snapped.

She clearly didn’t want to talk. I should just forget about it.

“So, who did you lose?” I asked, refusing to give up.

“What?” I had caught her off guard.

“You lost someone to cancer right?”

“Obviously. Why else would I be in those stupid meetings?” She had her arms crossed at her chest. “Your brother, right?”

I wasn’t expecting that. “So, you do listen.”

“Yes, Liam, I listen. I don’t want to be here, but I have to, so I’ll listen to everyone’s stories, but mine is no one’s business. And my name is Aurora, by the way.”

Aurora. That was such a beautiful name.

“Why are you here if you don’t want to be?” The group was optional. No one was forced to be there.

“My dad makes me,” she said, proving me wrong.

“I don’t think my parents even know I come here. Sometimes I think they ever forgot they had another son. They will probably forget about me too, when I’m gone,” I said.

“Gone? Do you have cancer too?” For a moment, Aurora looked concerned, like she really did have a heart underneath her wise cracks and sarcasm.

“No, nothing like that,” I assured her. “I’m leaving for basic training in a couple of months.”

“Why?”

“Why what? I promised my brother before he died that I would join the Army because he couldn’t.”

“He’s not exactly around to enforce that promise. Why keep it?”

It was hard to explain. As soon as I let myself face the world after Gavin’s death, I threw myself into physical training. I had to be able to make it in the Army. It was the only thing that Gavin had ever really wanted.

“How long ago did you lose him?”

“A little over four years.” I could tell her exactly when, but I didn’t think the answer she was looking for was four years, two months, one week, and six days ago. I could go ever further. What time is it? Make that five days and eighteen hours ago.

“Does it really get easier?”

For not wanting to talk, she sure had a lot of questions all of a sudden. “Yes and no,” I told her. There was no point in lying. “Believe it or not, talking about it helps. Eventually the memories aren’t as painful.”

“It’s been almost two years since I lost my mom, but I don’t see how talking will help. I have my own way to deal with the pain.”

“Maybe you should share your way with the group,” I suggested. “If it helps you, maybe it will help someone else.”

She shook her head. “I doubt that. My way is actually the reason I am forced to be here.”

I was confused. I must have looked it because Aurora pulled up the sleeve of her left arm to reveal scars and healing cuts.

“I cut. My dad found out. He freaked out, and here I am. For two more months anyway.”

“Maybe you could talk about that in our next meeting.”

“That’s not going to happen.” She pulled down her sleeve. “I don’t see what the big deal is.”

“He probably doesn’t want to lose you. Losing your mom was probably bad enough.”

“He’s not going to lose me. I’m not suicidal. Honestly, he wouldn’t even notice if I wasn’t around.” She was getting angry. “He’s always working. He used to travel for work all the time, but he stopped because he is stuck at home with me. I hope he will start traveling again once I turn sixteen and can take care of myself. My cutting doesn’t concert him anyway. I’m not trying to kill myself.”

I stood around and talked to Rory until her ride showed up. An older guy in a blue Mustang showed up and she jumped in the car, leaning over the seat to kiss him.

My heart sank. Of course she had a boyfriend.

I wasn’t ready to give up. I could still be friends with her. When I was around Aurora, it felt as though the hole that was left in my heart from Gavin’s death wasn’t as painful. If I could be near her, I would be okay.

So that’s what I did. Every week, I stayed after the meeting to talk to her some more. The second week, she seemed to have her defenses lowered slightly and was easier to talk to. A different guy picked her up that week, but she still greeted him with a kiss.

“Could you possibly give me a ride home?” she asked me after the meeting on the third week.

“Of course,” I told her as I led her to my car. We talked to entire drive. We talked about everything; her cutting, her father never being around, how strange it was to be in school after being home schooled for so long. “No boyfriend to pick you up this week?” I asked as I pulled into the driveway of her massive house.

“Not this week. I’m sure I’ll have on my next week though. Thanks for the ride. I like talking to you.”

“I can give you my number,” I offered. “We can talk more than once a week.”

“Liam, I have enough guys trying to get with me. I don’t need that from you too. I thought you were different.”

“Just as friends,” I clarified. I had never had a girlfriend before, and I would have loved the first to be Aurora, but if it was a friend she needed, that’s what I would be. “I’ll see you next week Aurora,” I told her as I handed her my number.

She stared at the piece of paper in her hand before disappearing into her house. By the time I returned home, I had a text message from a number I didn’t recognize.

“My friends call me Rory,” it said.

Friends. I could do friends. She never had to know how I truly felt about her. She never had to know that I had fallen in love with her the first time I had seen her.

Eventually, Rory stopped attending the support group. We still hung out on a regular basis and I stopped attending meetings as often as well. I still went once in a while, but I didn’t need to be there every week when I could be around Rory.

“Want to meet me at the mall?”

It was a Saturday morning, and a text from Rory woke me up.

I responded immediately. Maybe today was the day I could ask her out.

My stomach was in knots as I waited for her in the food court. I finally saw her and wanted to run up to her, but I realized she wasn’t alone.

“Liam, this is my friend Ash,” Rory introduced me to her friend. “I think you two would make a cute couple.”

My heart plummeted. I didn’t want to date her friend; I wanted to date her.

I looked at Ash. She was cute. Slightly shorter than Rory with wavy blond hair. Maybe I could give her a chance. It’s not like I was getting anywhere with Rory.

“Ashley?”

“Aislynn,” the blonde said quietly. “Or Ash.”

Ash and I hit it off pretty well. I had hoped I could fall in love with her and forget about my feelings for Rory.

About a year into my relationship with Ash, Rory met Erik. I had known him from school, and honestly, I couldn’t stand the guy. He had just got out of a long term relationship, but before that, he was quite the player.

I sat back and watched Rory fall in love with Erik. They weren’t even together for a month when he moved in with Rory. The relationship was okay at first, but she stopped wanting to hang out. I found out later that he didn’t want her around me because he was afraid I would steal her from him.

The night of her eighteenth birthday was the first time I saw the bruises. She claimed that she had fallen. I didn’t believe her, but what could I do? Rory claimed to be in love with him and they were getting married.

Not long after that, I discovered Rory was pregnant. She insisted on marrying Erik before the baby was born.

“Rory, my unit is deploying at the end of next month.” I hated the look on her face when I told her. She was so scared.

She was already facing a pregnancy and a wedding with an abusive man (although she never admitted he was abusive), and I was leaving to make her deal with it all on her own.

She insisted that I be a part of the wedding. Erik was suddenly okay with me being around. I think he knew how I felt about her and wanted to flaunt their marriage in my face.

The night before her wedding, I couldn’t keep it a secret any longer. I broke up with Ash. It wasn’t fair to be with her when I was in love with Rory.

“I want to be with you, Aurora,” I told her before I kissed her. It was stupid. I knew she was marrying Erik the next day. I knew I didn’t have a chance with her. I just had to tell her how I felt.

I still stood by her side as she married Erik the next day. It was the second most difficult thing I had done in my life

The single most difficult thing followed later that night.

“Goodbye Aurora. Please don’t fight me on this. Please don’t write me while I’m gone. Just give me this year. When I get back, maybe I can handle it, but not now,” I told her before I walked away from her.

I had been through a lot in nineteen years. I had always thought that losing my brother would be the worst I had to deal with. I was wrong. Walking away from Aurora, knowing she needed me as much as I needed her, was the worst.

As if walking away wasn’t bad enough, I had cut off all contact with her. I never expected her to listen when I told her not to write to me, but she did. I hated myself.

I needed her while I was deployed. I needed to hear her voice. I needed to know she was okay. I needed her to get my mind off all the death around me; death I witnessed and death I had caused.

I hated myself. I hated my brother for his dream of joining the Army.

It was my twentieth birthday when Rory broke the silence and emailed me. I was so angry for not hearing from her in four months that I didn’t even read it right away.

I did eventually open that email. Suddenly, the love that I felt for Rory grew even stronger. She wanted to name her son after my brother, and she wanted me to be his godfather.

Through emails, it seemed as though our friendship was back to the way it way. I was concerned because she never mentioned her relationship with Erik in those emails. I had hoped he wasn’t still abusing her while she was pregnant, but I had no way of knowing for sure.

About a month later, I had an email from Ash. She had called 911 on Rory and the baby was delivered early. Rory was in a coma and they didn’t even know if she had a name picked out.

“I don’t think she’s going to make it,” Aislynn had written.

I pulled every string I could think of to get home. I had to at least say goodbye to Rory before she died.

What would happen to the baby? Rory’s dad was never around. Erik was in jail, so I was certain he was responsible for what happened to Rory.

As the child’s godfather, I was all he had. I couldn’t raise him on my own. I only had leave for a week.

When I finally made it to the hospital, I thought I was too late. Rory’s room was empty. Did she die while I was on my way? What happened to Gavin?

I was overjoyed when I saw her in the wheelchair entering the room. I wanted to throw my arms around her and kiss her, but Ash was in the room.

In the entire week, I never left Rory’s side. I stayed in the house with her when she was released from the hospital. I drove her to the hospital when Gavin was finally able to come home.

I didn’t think I could ever love anyone as much as I loved Rory, until I saw her son.

We had decided not to make any decisions about our relationship until my deployment was over. I had waited three years for her. I could easily wait one more month.

Just one month.