Keep Me Sane. [lilo.]

V

Whoever invented the Tuesday was an asshole.

Tuesday was disgusting. Not only was Friday afternoon incredibly out of reach, but it had no silver lining. Wednesday you could be relieved that the week was half over. Thursday was the day before Friday, and Friday was the last day of the week. Even Monday, in all of its horror, could be seen positive if you convinced yourself it was a new week and, therefore, a new beginning.

It's been a full week since the incident with Chris, and the whole thing has sort of blown over. Nobody was talking about it because some sophomore got pregnant and a couple of girls got into a fight at a volleyball match. Liam was old news, and he was relieved about it. The only difference was that he no longer sat with his friends.

And yeah, okay. Liam did miss them. Especially Harry and Niall. But he was fine. He could survive without them. Saturday had been so nice, and Louis was alright. He still got a little embarrassed at lunch, but that was alright. For example, yesterday Liam had said something so irrelevant he can't quite remember what exactly it was, and Louis had simply died of laughter. Exploded, really. Not his usual soft laugh, either. The full blown cackle. Which would've been endearing and possibly ego-boosting had Liam actually said something funny.

Everyone turned around and stared, even Harry and Niall from their table away. Liam felt his cheeks redden, reaching out and grabbing Louis's elbow.

"It wasn't that funny. Louis. Louis. People are staring."

Louis still laughed, even buried his face in his arms. Liam was at a loss. He had tears streaking his face as he giggled, completely out of control.

"Louis, everyone's looking at us."

"So?" he finally ends with a couple more chuckles, wiping his eyes. "What do I care if people stare at me? They stare at me anyway. They're weird."

"They're... what?" Liam had never been so dumbfounded in his life. "Who?"

"Everyone in here. Everyone's so strange to me. Kinda creepy." He explains, pulling the graphite from his mechanical pencil in long sticks. He rubs them all over his fingertips, investigating the now visible prints.

"You think everyone is strange?"

"I think their sense of normality is strange, yes." He squints at his fingertips. "I think I need glasses."

"Wait, hold up. Explain that bit. Not the glasses, but their sense of normality?" Liam asks, pulling down the sleeves of his jean jacket slightly. Louis's eyes track the movement before he blinks his pretty blue eyes with a childlike nod.

"Uh-huh. They sit around and talk about how nice of a day we're having. How so and so was talking bad about so and so. Then person one confronts person two with person three's evidence. Person two denies it. Person one feels so incredibly awkward and hates conflict, therefore forgiving person two." Louis rolls his eyes. "Who cares? People talk about me all the time. Sometimes when I'm standing right there. I don't walk up like, 'hello there, I hear you saying bad things about me.' Even if they apologize, they're still going to think and say it. If they aren't good people who cares yeah?" Liam feels like the air whooshes out of him at the simplicity of the statement. "That's why I like you. You're like, look here, stop it. And apparently that guy didn't stop it. You stopped playing off whatever it was."