QUOTE : Look,” I began, “I get it. You don’t like me, but—”<br />“I don’t like you?”<br />He let out a low, flat laugh. One fell into the next, and it was awful—not at all him. He was half<br />choking on them as he turned around, shaking his head. It almost sounded like a sob, the way his<br />breath burst out of him.<br />“I don’t like you,” he repeated, his face bleak. “I don’t like you?”<br />“Liam—” I started, alarmed.<br />“I can’t—I can’t think about anything or anyone else,” he whispered. A hand drifted up, dragging<br />back through his hair. “I can’t think straight when you’re around. I can’t sleep. It feels like I can’t<br />breathe—I just—”<br />“Liam, please,” I begged. “You’re tired. You’re barely over being sick. Let’s just… Can we just<br />go back to the others?”<br />“I love you.” He turned toward me, that agonized expression still on his face. “I love you every<br />second of every day, and I don’t understand why, or how to make it stop—”<br />He looked wild with pain; it pinned me in place, even before what he had said registered in my<br />mind.<br />“I know it’s wrong; I know it down to my damn bones. And I feel like I’m sick. I’m trying to be a<br />good person, but I can’t. I can’t do it anymore.