3.1 | What we Fake

2. Controlling various urges

The only audible sound in the entire house at nearly 2.45 in the morning was the sound of water sloshing into the bathtub. Liam sighed deeply and rubbed his palms against his face. Some nights he wished that he was not best friends with a girl who had the same energy as that of three horses.

"Liam!" he heard her singsong voice calling him from the bathroom.

In a very unenthusiastic way, he trudged his feet upstairs unwillingly. He took his sweet time, staring at each picture that hung from nails on the walls leading upstairs.

An involuntary giggle left his lips once his eyes fell on a picture of Emily.

Her eyes were rolled up and her tongue was sticking out. Her hands were in the air as she held them out trying to catch a few of the confetti which was floating and falling all around her. She was so happy.

He remembered that incident clearly.

It was her thirteenth birthday, and the moment she walked into the main gate of the school, Liam had burst the party cannon. They didn't care about the number of people staring at them, nor the mess surrounding them.

It was their moment.

His eyes darted to the next one on the wall. This time it was a picture of him and Emily at his house. He was laying with his stomach facing the mattress; an elbow propping up his head, he stared down at her hazel eyes. She looked up at him too while sitting on the marble floor, her back against his bed. 

It was taken by Chris, most probably. How was Liam to know the mysterious ways how Emily took their pictures?

The third was of himself. He was grinning ear to ear as he looked over to his best friend who was clicking the picture. They were in a smoothie shack and it was clicked sometime around the previous year.

His bright blue eyes gleamed and he realised that he looked in... love.

He cursed himself for not being discreet enough. At this rate, Emily might come to know any day and all he wished for, was for her to never ever know about his silly crush - more like heartwrenching love - for her.

A loud "Liam!" startled him from his thoughts and he was forced to yell back, "Coming!"

Cursing himself and Emily, he pushed open the oyster-white door with a shove. He did not pay any attention to the thrown articles of clothing scattered all across her wooden laminated floor.

The Hague blue of her walls was a depressing colour, Liam had to admit. He had learned to love the shade which was a blend of blue, green and black but sometimes at night, it still gave him the creeps.

He paid no heed to anything as he strutted towards the bathroom. He did not give her a second to react or a warning as he used the heel of his palm and pushed the door of the bathroom open.

He was greeted with the familiar scent of cherry almond. It had come in such strong quantity when the fumes of the shower that hit his face in full force. And he thought that his eyes were going to water. 

When the vapour started subsiding, he blinked in hopes to see why there was so much steam all around.

"Liam!" she smiled brightly.

"Emily," he coughed, "What's with all the steam?"

She snorted and he could see her rolling her eyes, "What do you think it's from? The water is fucking cold, Liam!"

He could only see her face, the rest of her body was still behind the steam. Her hair was left open and her brown tips were wet and her face was glistening with the water she had used to wash herself.