WHEN I REACHED HOME, Liam stood near the door-hands crossed and eyes piercing. It made me question a lot of things but the most important of them all stayed: why wasn't he at college and why in hell did he look mad? I had no clue. And for once, I wasn't curious to talk to my brother.

So, I walked right past him.

My sweet smile and a hand wave did nothing to ease the horrific scowl on his face. Why-what in the world had pissed him off so much? His eyes seemed tired, mostly because he never slept. He either sold his nights to reading or completing his college projects. The guy was a powerhouse.

"How did you come home?"

His tone was terrifying.

Clearly, he had seen me come home by a car, and I never owned a car-probably because I would've run it over multiple people and damaged it beyond words. Driving gave me anxiety. "A friend dropped me off."

I hadn't intended on calling him a friend. Me and Liam had strange terminologies for numerous occasions, one of them being people who were more than acquaintances but couldn't be called friends just yet. And because I sold the relationship so easily, his eyebrows arched upwards in amusement.

He knew me too well.

"Friend?" his tone was clearly drenched in doubt. I broke into a nervous laughter. "Acquaintance, you know. But since he helped me out, calling him a friend wouldn't be that bad, would it?"

He laughed whilst walking backwards, and I couldn't let the humor in that fly away. "You tell me."

With furrowing eyebrows and pouted lips, I threw my bag at the couch and followed him into the kitchen to grab something to munch on. Usually, I did a great deal of annoying Liam to such a massive extent, and nobody could compete with me on it. However, bunny boy's mood was sour for an entirely different reason-and I was bound to find exactly that. "What's up with you?"

He rubbed his eyes. "I told you I didn't have classes today. If only you ever paid attention to me."

I tried to recall when he'd said that and ended up rolling my eyes. If his way of saying, hey, I am not going to college tomorrow, was I am going to stay up all night, I wasn't going to get it anyway. I shook my head, as if telling him I recalled when he told me that. "No, I meant your mood."

"I would preach that college sucks," he spoke, and then groaned, "but I don't want you to have any expectations of it yet. Figure it out yourself."

"Ookay?" I laughed. He dropped aimlessly on the couch, legs crisscrossed. I sat opposite, phone in my hands. "You said the exact same thing about High School-and it sucks, indeed."

He shrugged again, causing me to raise my eyebrows. His hair was messed up badly, as if he didn't pay any attention to even brush through it with his fingers. Liam loved to look presentable at all instances-it was me with the fashion sense of a sock. The way his face was pulled down with the scowl, it felt like I was talking to a different human altogether.

"Tell me what's up?"

He sighed and delved deeper into the cushion behind his head, ignoring my gaze. I chuckled. "You can't ignore me that easily, and you know that."

Sitting back up, he gave me a small smile. He constantly felt the need to be the sensible one, and that probably resulted in buried up feelings and things he couldn't talk about while staying in that sentiment. But I was so, so grateful for him-even though I would sell my kidney for him to never find that out-that the grin which came onto my face when he started speaking calmed some of the chaos in my mind.

"College is just hard. . . and there's this football match for which selections are going on, and it's getting me all worked up," he summarized the conflicts going through his head in the shortest manner possible, and I couldn't help but ruffle his hair.

"You know you can talk to me about it even more, right?"

He nodded. Maybe all we needed was comfort, after all, since the tense shoulders and thick forehead creases only eased when I said that sentence. So, I resumed. "And also: are you kidding me? You're the best footballer I know."

He answered without missing a beat. "That's because you don't know any other footballer, idiot."

I laughed. "That's true."

And just like that, Liam was back in his element-little but impactful grins, lightning-like eyes, twitched up mouth and folded hands. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

I laughed, completely baffled by the thought of Liam criticizing his football skills when I knew-I just knew-he was great, if not the best, at football. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard, I thought; he also got worked up at little things when everything wasn't as smooth as it should've been. It was in the genes, really.

Unless one of us was adopted.

"Chill, would you? Don't beat yourself up. You worked hard for this, and I'm sure you'll make it into the team. Hell, I am also rooting for you to be the captain. Stop overthinking!" I hit his arm again, letting the words sink in the environment. Over-thinking was also in the genes.

Liam was grinning, ear-to-ear.

"Tell me that was it, and I'm going to lecture you for your hostile behavior towards me," I spoke in repulse, shoulders heaving a shrug.

He pursed his lips. "Not really," he paused, and I could see the conflict of sharing this newfound information with me burning in his eyes-as if it were something daunting yet of amusement. The stakes only went higher from there. "So, there's this girl..."

I tilted my jaw and spoke with a scorching velvet undertone. "Mhm?"

He rolled his eyes, pocketing his hands. "I haven't even said anything."

"Then continue, Einstein," I pried my eyes from him and rammed my fist lightly into his chest. He twisted my hands only slightly, but I had to groan dramatically.

"We got partnered for an English project, okay? We need to write this thesis together, and all she ever says to me is that she isn't satisfied with what I am doing. And mind you, I am doing my fucking best. How the hell is this supposed to ever work?"

I tried to listen and act reasonably-I swear I did-but the way it sounded like a rom-com in my head made me grin out aloud, and he knew exactly how bad of a decision it was to let me know this. "Are you going crazy?"

He smacked me on my head. I couldn't stop laughing, "I'm sorry, but that's kinda cute. Maybe it's your turn to live the rom-com life, Li."

"Shut the fuck up," he cursed, running a hand through his hair numerous times before muttering, "Cute? Cute? It's crazy! She's driving me insane."

"Hm?" I smirked, "I see how it is."

As soon as he threw me the dirtiest look on the planet and launched my hand away from him, I knew he was going to storm into his room and threaten me by not cooking any meals for the day. It was a routine etched in memory.

"Fend for yourself. We are no longer associated with each other."

I chuckled but followed him inside, nonetheless-just like all the times in High School when he beat someone up and got detention, or blatantly told a girl that she wasn't interesting enough to date him-he had gotten awfully old since then, but the storms he created for himself always managed to stay the same.

▂

Weekends brought an uncanny notion of thrill into my veins-chaotic, exhilarating and ever-compelling. It was like a raw opportunity of getting my life back on track, after months of derailed thoughts and actions and consequences. I had planned the two free days with the utmost precision, including tasks like catching up on studies, working out (I was getting out of shape), and doing all the homework that I let take over my life.

However, nothing ever summed up the way I wanted-and at quarter to nine on a Sunday morning, I got a call from Stella Reyes in all of her capricious sentiments. She hadn't let out a single extra syllable after saying: you should be ready before ten, and whatever she was cooking up was probably not in my favor. But I couldn't decline her and her beady, brown eyes.

The girl knew how to get shit done.

I despised shopping. Online was fun and games, but when I had to physically walk for god-knows-how-long to find a singular decent clothing item, it just made the already setting-in dread consume the bottom of my stomach. When Stella had started rambling about how much she wanted this girl time to happen, I had rolled my eyes. She promised me food, however, and I hoped it could keep me going.

"I thought you were gonna run away."

This was Stella's politest way of greeting me. Her petite frame leaned on a Ford Explorer, she grinned at me bashfully. Her hair was parted and pushed back-long, straight, almost raven strands brushing her shoulders. She wore a skin hugging crop top in a baby pink in color with high waisted shorts, a look she pulled effortlessly. Beside her, Chloe was standing with a smile, attired in a summery dress and a light burgundy cardigan to cover her up from the cold winds.

"I call shotgun," I simply said, winking at Chloe.

She faked sadness, held a hand to her heart, but pulled me into a soft embrace. It felt strange, feeling appreciated by a person I'd known for over two weeks. A part of me blamed it on the way I acted-deceiving, misleading and fooling-it's what I did.

Every single time.

And even if these girls had started appreciating me for reasons unknown, a transient wave of mishaps was all that it could take for the makeshift world to come crumbling down.

▂

"Hey, try this out," Stella tapped on my shoulder twice. It was a black satin dress with spaghetti straps which ended just above the knee, and to say it wasn't gorgeous would have deemed me as blind. I still shook my head.

"My mom will throw me out of the house if I buy this," I laughed, "I already have way too much black in my closet."

"There's no such thing as too much black," she narrowed her eyes playfully. "If anything, nothing justifies the emo phase better than the color black."

Chloe coughed. "Uhm, it's a shade."

Stella Reyes flipped her friend in the middle of a bustling mall, and an old man's eyes fell on her while she did so. He just shook his head, disappointed, and walked away. Then, Stella said: "Leave."

To Chloe, of course-not the man.

She continued to wink multiple times. To say that they weren't the biggest weirdos would've been the understatement of the century, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

"Are you trying to imply I am in my emo phase?" I questioned harshly, eyebrows furrowing at her. She clicked her tongue, and then: "Of course."

Stella Reyes might have offended numerous people in her lifetime of seventeen years, but her humor was what kept me going. Her head tilted towards my direction, before she flicked a finger towards a gigantic advertisement stuck on a pillar of the shop: a model with piercing gaze and jewel-cutting jaw.

"Fun fact: our dearest Evan Parker was supposed to be the model there, but the company denied," she whistled, and then grinned. I folded my arms over my chest, unfazed. He would've looked better, though, my mind thought before I could stop it. Chloe hummed along the lines, eyes trained on the dude on the poster.

"Suits him right, I guess."

I looked at her, eyes narrowed. I had to bite my tongue to stop the phrase he's not that bad slipping right past it, and the topic drifted to something entirely different in a matter of seconds. After too many forceful visits to the changing room and her finally convincing me to buy yet another piece of black clothing, I was leaving the store with hunched shoulders and a grumbling stomach.

We ended up going to a completely new café. It was vintage themed, small, and smelled like desserts. I was sold when I saw their furniture and cute succulents hanging at the entry, and Chloe had to pull me inside so I could stop gushing. Adventures in random cafes is what brought my heart peace-for it remained of importance in the heat of the moment and satisfied the hunger of seeing something new.

We ended up ordering pizza. Loads of it. I quietly sipped on my chocolate milkshake by the time food could come, and the creases on Stella's forehead was a sign of something being wrong.

"Is that Ciara?" Chloe asked.

The air around us shifted completely, and I knew that a storm had set foot into our territory.

"Ah," Stella responded with, "The one and only."

• • •

author's note:

hello hello!! i hope you're doing well today. i'm excited for what is to come and i hope you are too! you're golden <3