Shift ☆ Louis Partridge

17 | Forever

 ☆
[y/n]

_

I HATE HIM.

No, I want to. I want to hate that smile on his face when he kissed me, and I want to hate the way he walked out of the room as if it never happened. He makes me feel like I'm nothing sometimes—when really he makes me feel like I'm everything, and it's that confusion that I hate.

I fell in love with his memory, and now I'm seeing the truth right in front of my eyes.

"I don't know who I took you for," I seethed, storming out of the laser-tag establishment with fire in my blood, "but I never thought you'd be a cheater."

Louis was avoiding eye-contact with me.

"No, you don't get to be silent," I snapped, "you ran your mouth off in there, and the second something important happens, you act like you don't know how to speak."

"I know how to speak," he said quietly.

"Oh, you do? Great, then explain why you kissed me."

I'd never been more thankful that we were alone on the pavement, because I could yell my mouth without being scared that someone was listening. I was fuming right now, and I didn't want to hold any of it in.

"Do you want the truth?" Louis asked, meeting my gaze for a fleeting moment.

I frowned. "Are you implying you'd lie?"

"No, I'm asking if you want the truth," he said, his voice raising, "because I'm not going to give it to you unless you put your own truth out on the table."

What was he talking about?

"Are you trying to make a deal?" I scoffed.

He shrugged. "Guess."

"Fine, deal."

There was a pause, where he stared at me silently, the hood of his jumper pulled up over his head so that it cast a shadow over his eyes. The sky was turning a shade of red—hellic shadows surrounding the place we stood.

"Swear on it," he said curtly, holding out his hand.

I glanced at his extended pinky, analyzing it for any mock. Was he messing with me again? I knew promises weren't things he liked to keep—otherwise he wouldn't have cheated on his girlfriend a few minutes ago.

I held out my hand. "Truth, and nothing but."

I made a point of standing my ground, making sure he was the one who had to cross the distance between us. When he wrapped his finger around mine, I glanced away, trying not to give into the feeling of his touch.

"Truth," he whispered, before letting go, "I don't have a girlfriend."

I scoffed. "Are you being serious?"

"Yeah, I am. I only pretended I had one, because I wanted you to be jealous," he explained hesitantly, "and also, because I wanted you to admit to this."

He took a step back, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his trousers, before pulling out a thinly-folded sheet of paper. I recognized the writing immediately, and my heart wanted to shrivel up and die.

"So what is it?" He asked, nodding to the paper, "dark magic? Voo-doo?"

I wrinkled my nose sarcastically. "Oh, yes, because I'm secretly an elderly sorcerer."