Addiction

-- 19 -- You're All That Matters Anyway --

 We got back to Aladine later Sunday afternoon, we took our time getting up and around that morning and ended up getting breakfast at a local diner before hitting the road back home. I was exhausted and hungover so I ended up just staying at Liam's that night. I had found myself at home with him nearly every night, it just became a pattern, a habit to just end up with him every night.

Half the reason I'd wanted to leave the night we went to Canada was because Nikki had pissed me off on my birthday. Sure, she'd let Liam in in the morning or whatever but she hardly saw me all day even thought I knew she had practice in the morning and one lab until noon. I saw her as I was leaving for my game but she didn't even bother to show up for that. My mom had invited her to dinner with us and she made up some shit about a group project or something she was working on at nine thirty on a Friday night. I stayed with Liam that night but had stopped at the apartment to go back and grab a change of clothes for Saturday but she was on FaceTime with her cousin and completely ignored me.

"Where'd you disappear to Saturday night?" Nikki asked me Monday as we did homework in the study room at the library.

She'd warmed up a little bit Monday, we went and got lunch at the dining hall together between classes and she'd suggested I come to the library with her that evening before dinner. She said she hadn't felt good over the weekend, which I thought smelled like bullshit but I went along with it.

"Canada," I replied, looking over my work.

"What?" she asked.

"Liam and I went to Canada," I replied, "We went out to some club he and his old team used to go out to back in juniors. It was my idea."

"Is that where you got the nose piercing?" she asked.

"No that was in Waterford, I got a tattoo too though," I replied, "It's that one I showed you last year. It hurt pretty bad yesterday and the day before but it feels fine now and-"

"Stop," she said.

"What?" I asked.

"Stop talking," she said, "I can't stand it. Liam has changed you Liv and I hate it."

"What? Nikki, Liam hasn't done anything to me," I replied, completely flabbergasted at her attitude.

"Alright then, riddle me this. Before August when Liam 'accidentally' spilled his drink all over you at that party, you told me everything. You never went anywhere without telling me, you couldn't even send a freaking text to a guy without consulting me for half an hour. Now you go off to freaking Canada to drink, which, by the way, you wouldn't have done in August before this whole thing with Liam started. You've gone from constantly needing everyone and their brother's advice on a five word text to hooking up with someone else's boyfriend on our couch in our apartment, not to mention however many other times you two have hooked up. You're not my best friend anymore Olivia, you're not the same."

"Well maybe I wanted to change," I snapped, "Maybe I didn't want to be the same boring person I was in high school. I'm my own person, I always have been and you know that. People change Nikki, I'm sorry I didn't consult you first," I spat, "And I told you, we're just friends."

"People don't change this much in this short of time without someone who makes them change!" she exclaimed, "And that just friends thing is total bullshit, don't you realize that I heard that he broke up with Lila before Thanksgiving and that he went home with you for Thanksgiving? Or that I don't realize when you sneak out at night?"

"You need to stop, right now," I said, my voice lowering, "You don't even know Liam, you don't know what our relationship is like because you never wanted me to even be friends with him in the first place. I'm leaving now."