Obvious Truth, Oblivious Mind {ZIAM}

Ch. 12: Fathom

❝

Dear Liam,

Who was it that said that life was a rollercoaster? I'm not sure, but I've been on the low point for a while now. But things feel different. I can smell change on the breeze, and it's beautiful.

Marshall kept pushing me about the boxing match in London, and the more and more I thought about it the less and less worried about what my mother would think. I thought more about myself and how I'll never want to be a champion boxer, it would still be cool to see where I stand after all the work I've done. I told Marshall, and that was it. I was in the competition.

❞

The more and more the two old friends hung out, the more and more Liam's feelings of hopelessness began to diminish. He had forgotten how much fun it had been hanging out with his friends, especially Zayn. After a few months and God knows how many hours, Liam became his old self again. Except he learned one new thing: Zayn was training much more than he had previously thought.

One day while Zayn was training he walked into Marshall's gym. There were a few guys just standing around marking each others movements, but it wasn't hard to find Marshall and Zayn.

His muscular body dripped with sweat as he punched Marshall's gloves and ducked whenever punches came his way. Like a grasshopper, he was there one second and then leaped out of the way in lightning speed the next. Liam was in such a trance that he hardly noticed when Marshall made him cool down and run to the showers.

Zayn turned his head and saw Liam. His expression of confusion turned into one of joy; the sweaty boy bounced over to Liam, making punches to a phantom person in front of him.

"Wow, you're getting really good!" Liam said to his friend as he got closer.

"Thank man. What are you doing here?"

"Trish called and said she didn't want you to take the bus today, so I'm your ride home."
Zayn shook his head in embarrassment, "I'm sorry man. Training went over today."

"I know. Can I ask you something?"

"Shoot," Zayn said, leading the two into the locker room.

"Why are you training so hard. You can take any guy in school and even then they don't go after you anymore."
Zayn nodded and said something that Liam didn't expect.

"I'm not training because of kids at school. Marshall signed me up for a match this summer in London."

"You're competing?" Liam said startled. "Does you mum know about this?"

"The answers to those questions are yes and no. I'm not going to become a professional boxer, I just want to do something different you know? I'm going to go shower, but I'll meet you later, yeah?"

"Yeah," Liam said, still a bit startled by what he had just learned.

I watched him walk into the showers, the sound of water turning on in his wake. Sitting there, I began to wonder how long Zayn had been training and how he hadn't noticed. It was such a small thing, but it felt so much bigger. If Liam wasn't so caught up in relationships would he have noticed that Zayn wasn't around anymore because he was at the gym all the time? He wondered until the answer he came up with was so distressing that it could not be fathomed anymore.

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Sorry, but I literally can't write long chapters to save my life.