#p:ruth

Liam could barely breathe through the pain. Each intake of oxygen felt like a dozen tiny knives stabbing him in the stomach but he continued on, knowing he had to get to a safe place. With one hand clutched over his bleeding wound, and the other swinging listlessly by his side, Liam trudged on through the pouring rain and peered at all the apartments. No lights were on in any of them, and he couldn’t waste precious minutes banging at somebody’s door until they decided to get up. He had to find somebody awake. He had to keep going. His steps began to feel like his feet were sinking in quicksand but Liam moved, he kept moving until warm light washed over his bruised and battered features and then he was pounding his fist against a door. 

“Help,” he called out, his voice sounding distant and weak to his own ears. He could even hear the irregular beats of his heart. He needed medical attention and he needed it fast, but he couldn’t go to a hospital. How he had sustained these injuries - it was illegal and it’d get him thrown in jail, for a long time, than Liam was comfortable with. Liam just had to pray he wasn’t knocking on a police officer’s door. His fist kept banging at the wooden door until it opened and then he was staring up at a blurry vision of a woman. “Help,” he repeated and then promptly passed out on her doorstop.

Radmila was trying so hard. So. Damn. Hard. She went back to school, she stopped drinking, smoking even, she was coming clean. Or something. Anyway, it made Ruth beam at her over her bowl of cereal in the morning and that’s what mattered.

Well, that and money. Which didn’t exactly come from her Art History degree-in-process, and even though Ruth was brilliant enough to figure out something, Radmila didn’t want her to have to do so. She just wanted Ruth to stay carefree and happy... which meant she couldn’t tell her everything.